Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas’ beef is probably the biggest one in basketball history. Both on and off the court, neither ever let the other one have their way. As it happened, Magic Johnson, who had a good relationship with both of them, once called them for a charity All-Star game. And even a charity game, wouldn’t let them keep that beef aside.
Advertisement
Thomas was on Jordan’s back as soon as he came into the league. In His Airness’ first All-Star game in 1985, Zeke, who was teammates with MJ on the East team, reportedly conspired with Magic and George Gervin of the West — The Freezout.
And although Jordan forgave Johnson for it in the late 80s, his beef with Isiah continued as the ‘Bad Boy Pistons’ kept torturing him until 1990.
Michael Jordan once infuriated ‘Nemesis’ Isiah Thomas by intentionally being late
Back in 1990, when Michael Jordan was yet to win a championship, a 5x NBA champion Magic Johnson invited the Bulls guard and Isiah Thomas for an All-Star charity game.
Thomas was coming fresh off of winning back-to-back rings, beating both Mike and Magic on his way to at least one of those post-season runs. However, Jordan was still the star of the show as he was of the NBA.
And much like a celeb, he was playing golf (his addiction) while Thomas and Johnson waited for him to start the game. What does the latter do instead of starting the game without MJ? Delays the tip-off. It maddened Isiah.
“Rather than start the event without the star of the league, Johnson had decided to delay it to give Jordan time for the tip-off, which reportedly infuriated Isiah Thomas. Apparently, Jordan was delighted that he had inconvenienced his nemesis,” reads an excerpt from ‘Michael Jordan: The Life’.
Jordan, who came late, also put up a show for the audience that paid $1000 for (124) courtside seats. There were 17,505 people in the whole Great Western Forum who enjoyed MJ putting up a game-high 38 points, playing alongside Magic and opposite to Zeke.
Jordan and Thomas still have that beef going on
Michael felt Thomas and his Pistons teammates did too wrong when they snubbed handshakes after losing to the Bulls in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. As a result, he and some other players made sure that Thomas wouldn’t be in the Dream Team next year.
That snub from the greatest Olympics team that ever assembled, stayed with IT. And he wants Jordan to apologize to him for taking the on-court rivalry off it and making it so much about himself that he felt right to keep Thomas away from something that he would have cherished for life.
