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NBA

The Michael Jordan-Isiah Thomas feud reignited by ‘The Last Dance’

By
Greg Joyce
Published April 27, 2020
Updated April 27, 2020, 3:35 p.m. ET

A bad dream is getting worse for Isiah Thomas.

The Hall of Fame Pistons point guard was snubbed from the Dream Team in 1992 and Sunday’s new installment of “The Last Dance” may have provided another reminder of why Thomas didn’t get to chase an Olympic gold medal with one of the greatest teams ever.

The heated and physical rivalry between Jordan’s Bulls and Thomas’ “Bad Boys” Pistons came back into focus in the ESPN’s documentary on Sunday night. It was capped off by the Pistons leaving the court early and not shaking the Bulls’ hands after getting swept in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, a scene that Jordan made clear he still holds a grudge over.

“I tried to do everything correctly and I thought I should have made the Dream Team,” Thomas said Monday on ESPN’s “Get Up!”

“However, I wasn’t a part of it. That hurt me. And looking back, if I’m not a part of the Dream Team because a lapse in emotion in terms of not shaking someone’s hand, if that’s the reason why I didn’t make the Dream Team, then I am more disappointed today than I was back then when I wasn’t selected.”

Jordan didn’t hold back in his feelings toward Thomas in the episode, especially when the topic of the Pistons walking off the court early came up.

Michel Jordan and Magic Johnson; Isiah Thomas
Michel Jordan and Magic Johnson; Isiah ThomasGetty Images

“I know it’s all bulls—,” Jordan said. “Whatever he says now, you know it wasn’t his true actions then. He has time enough to think about it. Or the reaction of the public [has] kind of changed his perspective of it. You can show me anything you want. There’s no way you can convince me he wasn’t an a–hole.”

Still, a producer showed Jordan a clip of Thomas explaining the decision.

“When you lost, you left the floor,” Thomas said.

It evoked a big eye roll from Jordan, who pointed out that he shook everybody’s hand when the Bulls lost to the Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals in 1989 and 1990.

The walk-off may not have been the only reason Thomas was left off the Dream Team. In the 2009 book, “When the Game Was Ours” — written by Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Jackie MacMullan — Johnson admitted that he, Jordan and other players blackballed Thomas from the team.

“Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him,” Johnson said in the book. “… Michael didn’t want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. Bird wasn’t pushing for him. Karl Malone didn’t want him. Who was saying, ‘We need this guy?’ Nobody.”

Nearly 30 years later, Thomas’ absence on the Dream Team still stings him. While talking on “Get Up!” the former Knicks coach and president of basketball operations called it “the biggest hole in my resume.”

“Being left off the Dream Team, that personally hurt me,” Thomas said. “In 1980, I was on the Olympic team. As a matter of fact, I was voted the male athlete of the year in 1980 for the USA Olympic team. The only thing that’s missing from my resume is not being on the Dream Team. Now, when the Dream Team was selected and I wasn’t a part of it, there was a lot of controversy around it. I still don’t know who did it or why they say I didn’t make it. I know the criteria for selection of making the team, I had fit all the criteria. And that’s a big hole in my resume — that is the biggest hole in my resume.

“That is the only place and that’s the only thing on my resume that I did not succeed at. I graduated from college, I got a master’s degree in education from University of California at Berkeley. On the educational side, I’ve succeeded. In the sports arena, I’ve won at every level.”