Isiah Thomas is one player who rubbed off every one of the Bulls the wrong way. Scottie Pippen and Charles Oakley seem to detest the guy.
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The Pistons point guard made 3 straight appearances in the NBA finals in the late 80s and 1990. He won the championship in his last 2 appearances, sweeping the Lakers and beating the Blazers.
In all 3 of those runs, one could argue that the Chicago Bulls were the team posing the biggest threat to them. And when Jordan and Pippen got over the hurdle with the Bulls in 1991, Thomas and his Pistons left the court in a Game 4 blowout loss without shaking hands with their opponents. Joe Dumars was the only Pistons player to stay behind and congratulate the Bulls on their success.
Stuff like this has definitely rubbed Scottie Pippen the wrong way. Thomas was also the vocal leader of the Bad Boy Pistons, egging his teammates on to play dirty when needed.
Pippen refuses to speak about Isiah or his Pistons teams despite being a frequent feature on ESPN.
Scottie Pippen and Charles Oakley roast Isiah Thomas
Pippen and Oakley appeared on an interview conducted by Michael Rapaport in 2018. Oakley got to have a god at Isiah when Rapaport began throwing out names of NBA players for a reaction:
“He’s one of them guys, he’s like a fly. I mean, you’re trying to kill him and he lands on your food and keeps messing with you.”
“My thing is, he’s a great point guard. He should’ve been on the Dream Team and all that, but he just…something about him. I can’t trust him.”
Pippen was a little more revealing in his reply to Rapaport’s questions:
“I grew up that if I don’t have nothing good to say, don’t say nothing. I don’t respect Isiah Thomas, so I don’t have anything to say about the guy. Don’t nobody know who he is anyway. What am I gonna say, ‘He’s a snake’?”
