GREAT SPORTING RIVALRIES – MICHAEL JORDAN v ISIAH THOMAS
IN 2009, Michael Jeffrey Jordan’s ‘Hall of Fame’ induction turned into a source of retribution as his ‘Airness’ took aim at all those who had doubted him along his path to greatness. Born into a hard-working family in Wilmington, North Carolina, Jordan was taken to task every single day by his battling big brothers James and Larry in a household in which mother Deloris worked two jobs and ex-Air Force father James guided his athletic career.
“They gave me all that I could ask for as a brother, in terms of competition,” started Jordan in his speech. “You guys ask me where my competitive nature came from. It came from them. They started the fire in me.”
The boy that kept Jordan off his Emsley A Laney High School team, Harvest Leroy Smith, and the onetime Carolina Player of the Year ahead of Jordan, Buzz Peterson, were first on his hit-list.
When University of North Carolina coach Dean Smith was interviewed for ‘Sports Illustrated’ in 1981 and chose to mention four players, excluding freshman Jordan, it became another reason to show someone else what they had failed to recognise.
In the NBA, Chicago Bulls coach Kevin Loughery, owner Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager Jerry Krause weren’t spared. Neither were coaches Pat Riley and Jeff van Gundy. And the media at large were not about to escape the arrows Jordan drew from his quiver.
Prices
He even took a shot at the Hall of Fame itself for raising the prices of tickets-to-attend from $200 to $1,000, perhaps as a nod to Jordan’s selling power.
Eleven years later, Jordan sits on his throne as the majority owner of Charlotte Hornets, far less successful in that role than as a player where he averaged 30.1 points through a 14-year career, including a perfect finals record of six NBA championships, underpinned by six finals MVPs.
However, the competitive fire is still burning hot enough to make forgiveness impossible when it comes to his greatest enemy – the Detroit Pistons. ‘The Last Dance’ documentary became the latest chance for Jordan to extend an olive branch to the ‘Bad Boys,’ led by the legendary point-guard Isiah Thomas.
Instead, Jordan doubled-down on his disdain for the club that devised ‘The Jordan Rules’ to stall the rise of the GOAT (greatest of all time).
The two-time NBA champion Pistons double- and triple-teamed Jordan, forcing who Shaquille O’Neal likes to label ‘the others’ to try to beat them in 1988, 1989 and 1990.
The Bulls could not get over the hump in what turned into a very personal vendetta. Jordan was harangued and hacked as Detroit played on their motto of ‘domination by intimidation’.
Their band of hard men, Bill Laimbeer, Rick Mahorn and Denis Rodman, were led by their floor general Thomas, a 6’ 1” leader with an assassin’s arsenal on the court and a passive-aggressive nature fronted by a 1,000-watt smile off it.
When the Bulls finally came out on top in the 1991 Eastern Conference finals in a four-game sweep, Detroit refused to shake their hands, leaving the floor with time left on the clock, something which Jordan has never been able to let go.
“I know it’s all bulls**t,” said Jordan, 29 years later on the documentary currently showing on Netflix.
“Whatever he says now, you know it wasn’t his true actions then. He has had time enough to think about it or the reaction of the public has changed his perspective on it.
“You can show me anything you want. There is no way you can convince me he wasn’t an a**hole.”
The bad blood that flowed between Jordan and Thomas extended to the latter being controversially left out of the United States 1992 Dream Team, Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird’s brilliance causing a worldwide spike in interest in the NBA at the Barcelona Olympics, something Thomas has carried as “a deep personal hurt” to this day.
‘You show me anything. There is no way you can convince me he wasn’t an a**hole’
Grudges
It would seem the grudges Jordan used to fuel his career have mostly been replaced by an acceptance that those slights were good for him.
Leroy Smith, Buzz Peterson, Dean Smith, Kevin Loughery, Jerry Reinsdorf, Jerry Krause, Pat Riley, Jeff van Gundy and a whole host of others have become part of Jordan’s superhuman story from the overlooked to the overlord.
Even now, Isiah Thomas and the Detroit Pistons remain unshakeable in his conscience as those bitter rivals who have left too sour a taste to fade from his palate.