OT - MJ/Isiah and the Dream Team
It's probably not really a shock but there is evidence out that yeah, MJ lied in "The Last Dance" about having nothing to do with Isiah being off the Dream Team.
This podcast has audio of Jordan saying: “They called me to ask me to play. Rod Thorn called me. I said, ‘I won’t play if Isiah Thomas is on the team.’ He assured me. He said, ‘You know what – Chuck doesn’t want Isiah on the team. So Isiah’s not gonna be a part of the team.”
Should have just come clean, MJ.
That's also a pretty bold claim about Chuck Daly. Unfortunately Chuck (RIP) isn't with us to respond to it.
No doubt mj was the reason. He can say whatever he wants everyone knows
GOAT and ASS
Based on this audio directly refuting MJ’s lies about Isiah and the dream team, and all the other NBA players calling out MJ’s lies and dickish behavior, MJ is no longer just the GOAT, he has added donkey ASS to his legacy.
Does anyone really give a shit what the reason was or that he lied?
Great player but I fucking can't stand Jordan. Not a fan of his at all and this bullshit he pulled with the Dream Team is the #1 reason.
MJ is an asshole, so is Isiah. Thomas has that sweet smile, but underneath he is a snake. He had beef with Magic and Bird for years. When the 3 biggest stars in the league don't like you, it's going to be an uphill battle to make the team.
On merit, Thomas obviously deserved to be on the team, but many of the guys on the team not named Jordan didn't want him around. He burned a lot of bridges in his playing days and has since tried to mend fences, but let's not pretend like this was just an MJ thing.
You reap what you sow.
You know when I originally heard this audio, I immediately thought Chuck, was Charles Barkley. I never considered Chuck Daly.
From the reporting it seems like it would be Daly. Barkley could make sense though.
Honestly, who cares? They didn't like each other. Isaiah was no saint. MJ wasn't either.
Pistons were a really good team trapped between two dynastic eras: Boston/LA on one side, MJ + the Bulls on the other. In a not-too-different world, they could have one one or even two more championships, and then history would talk about them differently.
They got jobbed by the refs the first time they got to the Finals. NBA officiating was as crooked as it got.
Yep, Pistons won 3 championships. You'll never convince me otherwise. They should hang a banner for 88. That foul on Jabbar is one of the worst, most blatant calls in NBA history, and that is saying a lot.
It's not just Jordan who didn't like Isaiah though. Most guys on the Dream Team weren't a fan of him
I don't really have an issue with Jordan hating Isiah. They were fierce competitors, OK. It adds spice, if anything. But MJ should just own up to this instead of being disingenuous.
Isiah got screwed though. He made the 1980 team, only for the U.S. to boycott. He would have been a lock in '84 and '88 if pros were allowed. And then the '92 drama.
Last Dance was a great watch for the most part. It was also pure MJ propaganda lol.
I was disappointed it didn’t discuss the 98 season more or the aftermath. Seemed to lose some momentum in episodes 9 & 10.
Wondered if it was just me that thought episodes 9 and 10 kinda fizzled. Loved the overall series, though.
Apparently, eps 9 and 10 were completed before the series debuted. The original release was scheduled for june.
This is also my stance -- I loved watching it, thought a lot of it was well-produced, and could easily watch another 10 hours of practice and game footage (and Scotty Burrell getting bullied and security guard perms).
But the series is very clearly a Jordan production, and any interpretation of his character as revealed in the series has to be viewed through that lens.
By many accounts Jordan was not the only one who did not want Isaiah on the Dream Team. I know the Piston’s fans still have their panties in a wad over this, but is it possible Isaiah’s personality had something to do with it and it’s not all MJ’s fault?
In every way possible, this was MJ's team from a player perspective and he was calling the shots. The Dream Team was pretty much a swan song for Magic and Bird. Everyone else was just along for the ride. I completely understand MJ not wanting the guy who helped implement the Jordan rules to basically assault him on the floor.
Is it kind of a bitch move? Totally. Do I understand the animosity? Also totally.
At point guard the team had Magic Johnson who did not want to yield many minutes given his situation. It was not a Bird like situation with Magic. John Stockton was going to be on the floor every minute Karl Malone was going to play and Karl was going to split time equally with Barkley.
I agree MJ was considered the key guy, but he and Isaiah played different positions. Other than Lattener, who was going to be dropped from the team to fit Isaiah? No one. Add in Isaiah’s personality issues and it doesn’t seem like it had to be all MJ’s fault.
Isiah (that non-standard spelling was always challenging) has left a long trail of destruction in his travels. MJ (no saint, as others have noted) may not have been the only one who was OK with not having him on the team.
Separately, having Laettner on that team was complete bullshit. There were several NBA players (plus Shaq) who were more deserving.
Only Shaq was the real alternate to Laettner being on that team. The latter was a year older, just won a National Championship and was the Naismith and Wooden Award winner.
You can make the case that Shaq should have been on the team instead of him but it’s not complete bullshit that he was.
I never understood the point of choosing one college player to be on the team. It gives the team a weird asterisk - "Everyone was a Hall of Famer - except that one college guy."
Not sure if he was hurt but Stockton only played 2/6 games in the warm up tournament and 4/8 of the actual Olympic games - averaging a little under 3 PPG. There was plenty of room for another PG on that team.
Yes - Stockton got injured in the June 1992 qualifying tournament and there was potential for some real irony there.
In a game against Canada, MJ wasn't paying the closest attention at one point and he accidentally ran into Stockton, injuring Stockton's fibula.
There was speculation at the time that Stockton would have to miss Barcelona - and the Dream Team would need a replacement. But Stockton wound up being well enough to go to Spain.
From a pure talent POV - Isiah, of course, would have been THE most logical replacement for Stockton. That would have been a very very interesting scenario.
If you read Jack McCallum’s book on the Dream Team, when Stockton got hurt Chuck asked someone to go grab the phone number for a Detroit Pistons’ guard. Everyone was fully onboard with it. It’s not the guard you are thinking though.
Chuck was fully prepared to call Joe Dumars if Stockton couldn’t go. For a variety of reasons, he decided against it.
Honestly, I view that as nearly 100% likely, not just possible.
I loved Isiah - but by 1991, he wasn't well-liked (to put it mildly) by any of Karl Malone, MJ, Larry Bird or John Stockton. He had very public issues with all four of them.
Even Magic, who released a public statement in support of Isiah at the time, admitted later in a book that "Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him."
After nearly 30 years, it is what it is.
“Nobody on that team wanted to play with him,” and not apparently coach him since Chuck Daly even said he didn’t want him on the team nor didn’t do much to get him on the team. The same coach who coached him for 9 seasons and win 2 Championships with him.
And nobody could blame Daly for that either.
Daly had earned the honor of the position and honestly he didn't really need to coach that much - the talent would take care of itself. Unless, perhaps, there was a personality like Isiah hanging around.
Who needs that sort of stress?
I forgot in my previous comment - Isiah ALSO had issues with Charles Barkley. The Sixers and Pistons had a huge brawl at the end of a game in 1990. Isiah was already ejected by that point but he had certainly stirred the pot by throwing a couple punches at Rick Mahorn. So, in the game's final seconds, Mahorn throws in an unnecessary dunk (leading by 10 w/ 0:10 left), Laimbeer gets pissed at that and is now mad at Mahorn, than Barkley comes in, etc. Isiah being Isiah, he makes post-game comments about Barkley that get play in the press.
Chuck Daly even said he didn’t want him on the team
Did he really say this, or is this Jordan's version of the story?
I can't imagine Daly said he didn't want him on the team. I'm sure he and Isiah butted heads sometimes during that long run but we never heard anything about serious tension between them.
I suspect it was more like this: Rod Thorn told him Isiah couldn't be on the roster, and if Daly didn't like it, he could resign. And Daly, figuring he'd never get this shot again, accepted.
I had totally forgot that Karl Malone almost killed Isiah six-ish months before Barcelona.
The Jazz were basically the Western Conference version of the Bad Boys, but didn't win enough for people to notice. Malone was a great player but also really dirty.
The first 10 Dream Team guys were picked in the summer of 1991. Isiah, angry that Stockton made the team over him, then embarrassed Stockton for 44 points in their first meeting of the season.
Then came the return game in Utah . . . when that happened.
Total bitch-ass move by Malone. He couldn’t take it that Isiah embarrassed his boy Stockton.
I’m making my reply on your comment just because you mentioned Malone not liking Thomas. Why would they not be cool with Thomas but be okay with a pedophile like Malone on the team and send him as an ambassador for basketball? He’s a horrible father on top of being pedophile. He’s also not a champion, which I’m sure really bothers him.
Edit: with the down votes i received, guessing there are a few pedo's lurking around Mgoblog
Yeah, not being well-liked by Karl Malone is not a big deal. Malone literally tried to kill Zeke. And if you haven't noticed, Malone has fewer friends in retirement than Zeke does.
Jack McCallum (a pretty connected guy) makes it clear that it was up to MJ.
“No matter what you heard, there was never much of a chance for Isiah Thomas to make the Dream Team, for this reason mainly: Michael Jordan did not want him,” McCallum said. “I wrote that back in 1992 because a source close to the situation — not Jordan himself — told me that was the case.
Fuck Michael Jordan.
This is pretty much my thought whenever his name comes up. Fuck that guy.
AD should hang the Fab Five banners.
Preach my man
Let’s stop pretending that Isiah didn’t also have problems with Magic, whom he questioned his sexuality after Magic announced he was HIV positive and Bird who he said “would be just another good guy” if he wasn’t white.
MJ didn’t want Isiah on the Dream Team but he’s far from the only one. Isiah wasn’t on the Dream Team because of Isiah.
Although Magic Johnson denies it now, he had a hand it too. It stems from a rumor of Isiah questioning Magic's sexuality in relation to his HIV diagnosis. This is an old article from 2009. I believe both have made up and are friends again, but this was a very bad time for their friendship. It's a long article but it's very good.
Yes Isiah isn't on the team because of Isiah.
But there is more to that statement.
At the end of the day he was hard boiled for one thing: winning. And he didn't care who was alienated in his push.
He arrived to a total mess. A poorly run organization, zero winning tradition, with a stripped down roster, playing 4th banana among local pro teams, in front of a mostly empty football stadium.
He chose to be here. When Dallas was going to take him at 1, he visited down there and expressed his disinterest openly.
Basically like he always was. West Chicago, in your face, lacking the finesse of bullshit.
The guy definitely lacked the phony bent of a few of the other players named already in this thread. He didn't play along with the NBA marketing monolith of the times. Bird and Magic and the rest ultimately were just guys in his way. He didn't keep his mind on salvaging possible commercial shoots with them in the off-season. I don't say Jordan because in Isiah's prime Jordan was NO competition. Pistons beat them handily for years.
A photogenic guy with a smile like his and one of the most dynamic short guy games in the history of the sport. And the best he could pull was Dunham's ads on TV 50? What does that tell you?
He was basically hell bent to carry the franchise and the city on his back to respectability. That's it. And he paid the price in popularity among the elite phony baloney of the league. Jordan being front and center in that group.
To this day any interviews on the topic, Isiah talks about how the whole Pistons' thing was also a Detroit thing. Treated second rate by history like the city and the team was treated second rate at the time.
And they were nationally popular and he was compelling. Because he was so damn good at basketball. And they played beautiful team basketball.
And he was better than over half the guys on the Dream Team. And with more skins on the wall than over half of them.
It was a joke. Anybody who watched that tournament knows Jordan could have stayed home in protest over (god forbid) allowing the best pure point guard of the decade on the team. And they still walk away with the Gold. Easily.
Fuck Jordan. Best player ever. But fuck him and his fragile ego.
Isiah will have to live with the slight and rest easy that his team beat all of them in their respective primes at one point or another. The only guy walking this planet who can claim that.
Great post. Brought back memories as a kid going to the Silverdome to watch them in the 80’s. That massive curtain and the roll-away bleachers were pretty hilarious. People actually sat in the third tier (I never did), those tickets must have been dirt cheap at the time.
I remember there were nights when you could bring a coffee can (I don't remember if it was Folgers or Maxwell House) and get in for free. The Pistons playing in the Silverdome was so weird. Then they went from that to the most luxurious arena in the NBA.
I sat in the third tier when they eliminated the Celtics in 1988. The dude next to me was openly smoking marijuana.
"rest easy that his team beat all of them in their respective primes at one point or another"
you forgot to take off your homer glasses.
The best Bulls teams were better than the best Pistons teams, I don't think there is too much doubt about that, no matter what Pistons fans think.
Jordan was the league scoring champ all three years the Pistons eliminated them, and won the MVP in '88. We can safely say he was in his prime. The Bulls' rise after that wasn't really about Jordan himself getting better, but his teammates stepping up.
"his team beat all of them in their prime" - this seemed like it was about the team.
Lots of teams beat Jordan, until Jordan had a team.
But Jordan's best teams were better than the Pistons. Only a Detroit homer would think otherwise. Neg away, homers!
The Pistons got old, but yeah, the 72 win Bulls team was the best ever, by record, until the Warriors won 73. The 69 win bulls team was also one of the best ever.
Perfectly stated Nate. Wouldn't change a word of your post.
Fuck Jordan. Long live Isiah.