Giddey passes Pippen: Next stop, Michael Jordan

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Josh Giddey now only has Michael Jordan to chase after passing Scottie Pippen on the all-time triple-doubles list for the Chicago Bulls.

Giddey recorded his 16th in a Bulls uniform in a 126-110 loss to the Sacramento Kings at the Golden 1 Center with 15 points as well as 12 rebounds and 10 assists, moving into second spot after drawing level with Pippen last week against the Milwaukee Bucks.

The 23-year-old now only has the greatest of all-time to chase down with Jordan collecting 28 triple-doubles during his career in Chicago, on top of all the other accolades, which included six championships in nine seasons as he built one of the greatest dynasties in sport in the 1990s.

Giddey has plenty of time to chase down Jordan with the former Adelaide 36ers NBL Next Star only in his second season with the Bulls after being traded from the Oklahoma City Thunder for Alex Caruso.

The Bulls have also gone all-in on building around the Melbourne product after trading away his former backcourt partner Coby White to the Charlotte Hornets and signing Giddey to a four-year USD $100m extension during the offseason.

Senior NBA writer at The Athletic Sam Vecenie echoed that sentiment on the latest edition of the Cut to the Jase podcast and spoke about whether Giddey could reach an NBA All-Star level.

"They're definitely going to build around him and Matas Buzelis... I think they're definitely all in on building around Josh," he said.

"To me, it's just in the NBA, the big thing is that it's exceptionally hard to be an on-ball player in the NBA because it is literally the best on-ball players in the world, point blank. There are really only 45 to 60 guys that can play on the ball in the NBA regularly as starters, right? You have to have a secondary ball handler and you have to have a primary ball handler and the other guys have to be able to create their shot obviously.

"You have to be so so ridiculously high level, it is obscenely obscenely difficult to play at that level on the ball. Josh exceeds that level of being able to play on the ball. Where he falls in the pecking order, I think is something that a lot of NBA executives and personnel really try to figure out.

"Depending on the day, there are days where his transition ability, his ability to grab and go on the break, his vision, his size frankly, his improved shooting ability off the catch really shows up and he can go for 25 and 10 and he looks like a definite all-star moving forward. There are days where the shot isn't really falling and teams can cause him some issues, right, and play off of him a little bit more

"So, I think that what I would say with Josh is that in the exact right situation and scheme where it is built around him and he has a ton of spacing around the court and he has this uptempo free flowing style, I think that he probably could end up putting up like all-star calibre production and he was certainly on his way to doing that at the start of this year, but he is like a very scheme dependent player in a lot of ways.

"That's why Oklahoma City ended up kind of deciding to move on from him for Alex Caruso, a deal that ended up helping them win a title last season. But like it doesn't have to be a deal that was a win-lose or a lose-lose, it can be a win-win for everybody, right?

"The Bulls got this point guard who's going to be able to dominate games and dominate the ball and needs to improve some things for sure and then the Oklahoma City got exactly what they need moving forward.

"Can (Josh) be an all-star? (He's) probably going to have to improve the jumper, probably going to have to become like a real pull-up threat to me to really derive that value. That's that's the thing that I think he's missing right now, but if he can get there, I can see it."

Giddey is averaging career-high numbers of 17.7 points, 8.2 rebounds and 8.4 assists per game while shooting the ball at 37.4% from beyond the arc.