The Jordan and Isiah Fued Began in 1985

Watching “The Last Dance” on ESPN is bringing back so many memories of the greatest era of NBA basketball. The Magic – to Bird – to Thomas – to Jordan era allowed the game to grow exponentially, and created so many basketball fans throughout the entire world.

During Sunday night’s airings of episodes 3 and 4, they discussed the Detroit Pistons, and the feud the Chicago Bulls had with them. We saw that the feud is something that Michael Jordan still hasn’t forgotten. From the constant physical play that often crossed the lines, to leaving the court without handshakes – Jordan and Bulls fans hated that Pistons team.

In fact, if you recall (or if you were too young I’ll assist you) when the Bulls were adding Dennis Rodman to the team the front office might have been concerned about what we saw in the episode. The behavior which seemed to be self-destructive. But fans and media were more concerned about how one of the leaders of the “Bad Boys” would be able to come in and just mesh with the Bulls. We were concerned that he wouldn’t get along with the team, and that his “dirty” style of play would cast a negative light on the Bulls teams we all grew to love.

We mostly didn’t accept him immediately because of this…

Us fans had to know that Rodman would apologize to Scottie Pippen for that hit. It was dirty, unnecessary, and could have cost the Bulls a chance at their first championship.

The documentary didn’t get into this, but it was an issue that Dennis, Scottie, and the Bulls needed to iron out.

“When I got traded from San Antonio to Chicago, I went to Jerry Krause’s house and Jerry Krause, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, me, his wife, three dogs, cat, Phil Jackson,” Dennis said. “We had a meeting at Jerry Krause’s house, all of us there, and we all sat like in a triangle. You know, we didn’t talk to each other at all, we all just met on business. And Phil came up to me and said, Dennis, you know, before we put you on the team could you do me a favor?’ I’m like, ‘What is that Phil?’ He said, ‘Could you go and tell Scottie you’re sorry? (laugher) 
I’m like, ‘Sorry for what?’ He said, ‘You know, that series you guys had in ’91.’ I said, ‘You want me to go say sorry for that?’ He said, ‘Would you just go do it?’ I said alright. I went over to Scottie I said, ‘Scottie, sorry about that, man, you know, pushing you out of bounds.’ Scottie said, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’s OK, it’s OK, we just want to win a championship.’ He said, ‘Are you on board?’ I said, ‘Hell yeah, I’m on board.’ So that’s how I signed the contract right there, I had to apologize to Scottie. (laughter)
That’s the only reason I was a Chicago Bull, I had to apologize to him, and then after that, the rest was history.”

While neither player might have been high on each other at the time of the incident, they became huge fans of each other. In fact, last year while being interviewed by ESPN’s Rachel Nichols, Rodman took a moment to make sure all future NBA players understand that Scottie Pippen was the innovator of the point forward position, a position that guys like Kevin Durant, Lebron James, and so many others have excelled at in today’s NBA.

The Jordan Freezeout

The playoffs didn’t start the hatred between Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas. That feud began years before, during Jordan’s rookie season in the NBA.

As the story goes, Thomas, along with other NBA superstars Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and George Gervin got together to essentially erase Jordan’s impact on his first NBA All Star Game. This was because many NBA stars believed Jordan was cocky and arrogant, and when Jordan wore Nike warmups to the Saturday workouts (which was against NBA policy), and it really irked Thomas. Jordan’s agent may have added a little fuel to this, as he explained to K.C. Johnson.

“The only time Michael ever asked me a question about the dunk contest was his rookie year in Indianapolis. That was 1985. He asked what he should wear. Back then, unlike today, the NBA was much smaller. It was much looser. It wasn’t as regulated. And there were really no rules for the dunk contest,” Falk told Johnson. “So I told him he should wear his Nike stuff because it was his stuff. He actually wore his black-and-red warmup suit with his chains. Many people think that rankled some of the established players like Magic [Johnson] and Isiah [Thomas] and that led to the freezeout [in the 1985 All-Star game].”

The freezeout plan was to have Gervin, possibly the best defender of the group, guard Jordan hard while the others played a very loose defense against each other. This would limit the opportunities Jordan would have, and when he did have a chance he would see contested shots.

Jordan would score 7 points on 2-for-9 shooting in the game. There was only one starter that put up fewer shots than Jordan, Adrian Dantley, who played 23 minutes to Jordan’s 22.

Now, many have denied that there was a “freezeout” and the low shooting numbers can be attributed to the NBA being a big man’s game at that point in history. When looking at the game, forwards Johnson, Bird, Ralph Sampson, Julius Erving, Terry Cummings, and Bernard King and centers Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone all had more opportunities than Jordan did.

If you look through the years, the 1985 NBA All Star game was the only time Jordan took less than 11 shots. Heck, in the 2003 NBA All Star game, when Jordan was a shell of himself, playing for the Washington Wizards, while only averaging 20 points per game, he thrust up 27 shots. In the regular season, he was only averaging 18 shots per game that year.

So, while some may say there wasn’t a mass conspiracy to keep the ball out of Jordan’s hands, it certainly appears that something was happening.

Thomas was the starting point guard for the East team, and Jordan was the starting two-guard, or shooting guard. Thomas could manipulate where the ball would go or didn’t go, throughout the game. Thomas would end up leading the East with 22 points with 5 assists, Jordan would only score 7. The East would end with 129 points, and it just seems strange that Jordan would only account for 5% of the scoring.

While no one has admitted that this actually happened, it did seem that Jordan was especially motivated in the game just following the 1985 All Star Game. The Bulls played the Pistons, and Jordan went off. He scored 49 points, grabbed 15 rebounds, 7 of which were offensive, added 5 assists and 4 steals on the way to a 13 point win. He put up more shots in that game than any other in the season and had more rebounds than any game during the season.

If there is anything I know about Jordan, it is that he holds competitive grudges and would make a point to do whatever necessary to beat that player or team.

Choose to believe or not, but this was a conspiracy that many believed fueled the beginnings of the Zeke-Jordan rivalry. This rivalry seemingly became a real dislike for each other, and a grudge that Michael Jordan still holds today. During Sunday’s airing of “The Last Dance,” Jordan was presented with a video of Thomas attempting to validate his and the Pistons actions during that 1991 sweep.

“I know it’s all bullshit,” Jordan said before he even looked at the iPad. “Whatever [Isiah] 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 changed his perspective. … You can show me anything you want. There’s no way you can convince me he wasn’t asshole.

“All you have to do is go back to us losing in Game 7 [the previous year],” Jordan continued. “I shook everybody’s hand. Two years in a row, we shook their hands when they beat us. There’s a certain respect to the game, that we paid to them. That’s sportsmanship. No matter how much it hurts, and believe me it fucking hurt. But we didn’t have to shake their hands. We knew we whipped their ass already. We got past them. And to me, that was better in some ways than winning the championship.”

Thomas was on ESPN’s Get Up with Mike Greenberg and Jalen Rose Monday morning to respond to Jordan’s remarks. He responded by not really responding…

I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last we hear about this, and a 30-year old rivalry will continue. But, with the idea of a freezeout, perhaps this rivalry is much, much older than those late 1980s and early 90s playoffs.