In “The Last Dance,” Michael Jordan was asked to react to Isiah Thomas’ explanation of the Pistons’ infamous walk-off without shaking anybody’s hands. He said:
“I know it’s all bulls—. Whatever he says now, you know it wasn’t his true actions then. He’s had time enough to think about it. Or the reaction of the public, that’s 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.”
Jordan has stated for years that he had nothing to do with Thomas being left off the Dream Team due to that moment and others, but now we have actual audio of him saying otherwise.
It’s all on Jack McCallum’s ‘The Dream Team Tapes.’
“Rod Thorn called me. I said, ‘Rod, I won’t play if Isiah Thomas is on the team.’ He assured me. He said, ‘You know what? Chuck [Charles Barkley] doesn’t want Isiah. So, Isiah is not going to be part of the team.'”
You may think his words didn’t have anything to do it, but USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt wrote that NBA players were going to the Olympics for the first time and the league had a lot on the line, other than just the medal.
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‘The U.S. couldn’t send a team without Jordan.’ Zillgitt wrote. ‘He was a necessity.”
‘it didn’t matter how many people were on Thomas’ side, Thomas wasn’t going.’
The 1992 Olympics Men’s Basketball team received the nickname of the ‘Dream Team’, because it was the first time the team had active NBA players. The media labeled the team as the greatest sports team ever to assemble.
