John Salley was one of the most important players on the Bad Boy Pistons roster that won back-to-back titles in 1989 and 1990. Once the roster disbanded in 1992, Salley joined the Heat and spent three seasons in South Beach before joining the Raptors in 1995, where Thomas was an executive. Just months into his debut season in Toronto, he was cut, which paved the way for him to sign with the Bulls, a move that shocked everyone. The back story behind it is unclear, but music producer k-os claims Jordan’s opportunistic attitude led to it.
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On the Q with Tom Power podcast, he revealed that the Raptors benched Salley after a shocking incident at a party in Toronto before eventually buying him out of his contract. This gave the Bulls superstar the perfect opportunity to convince him to move to Chicago. k-os said,
“John Salley had a huge party in the first week on the Raptors, and a car ended up in Lake Ontario on the ice, and so Isiah had to bench him, who’s his best friend… He called Michael Jordan told him the story and Michael Jordan was like ‘You don’t have to worry about that, cos you’re on the Bulls now.’ So he just basically took him.”
If seeing one of his closest friends team up with his biggest rival wasn’t bad enough for Thomas, he had to watch them break the record for most wins in the regular season with 72, before winning the NBA title. As difficult as it must have been for the Hall of Famer, it was a no-brainer for Salley to team up with Jordan.
Salley’s friendship with Jordan
On an appearance on the Dan Patrick Show, the forward revealed he and Jordan had struck at a friendship when the rivalry between the Pistons and Bulls had begun brewing and his teammates weren’t too pleased about it. He said,
“I would hang with MJ. So I was doing my first late-night talk show during the season in 1988, but I would hang out with MJ, he would come to Detroit, I would pick him up, we would go eat you now? But I always been around buddy, to this day I love him to death. But my teammates, after my first season, made sure,’Hey if they not wearing our colors they not our gang.'”
Salley had to maintain a respectable distance from Jordan until he left for the Pistons. However, he was free to spend time with him once he moved to Miami and his friendship with the guard helped him add another championship ring to his collection and call himself a member of the greatest team in NBA history.
