The bitter feud continues.
Much has been made of the rivalry between Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan, who were members of the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls, respectively, for the team’s clashes during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
After coming up short on multiple occasions, Jordan’s Bulls finally got the best of an aging Pistons squad in 1991 via a sweep, and in the final game of that series, Detroit came under heavy scrutiny for leaving the court before the buzzer had sounded.
Recently, Thomas himself set the record straight on that incident with the Bulls and how that set the stage for the current trend of players embracing on the court after games, per Come and Talk 2 Me.
“Up until 1991 when the Detroit Pistons got swept by the Chicago Bulls, nobody expected a handshake,” said Thomas. “After 1991, and they said Isiah didn’t shake Michael Jordan’s hand, and Michael Jordan was like, ‘Oh, Isiah didn’t shake my hand,’ and they were crying about not getting their hand shook. That’s when everybody started, after 1991, shaking hands.”
Thomas clarified that handshakes had usually taken place but generally out of the public eye.
“When y’all would lose in the playoffs, the losing team, after everybody left the floor, they would come into the locker room and come and shake your head and say good luck,” said Thomas. “It wasn’t a passing of the torch and everybody watching. That was such BS that they laid on me.”
A bitter rivalry between Bulls and Pistons
Raj Mehta-Imagn Images
Unlike former rivals like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson or Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, there doesn’t appear to be any love lost between Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan even in the year 2024.
The year after the Pistons’ infamous early exit against the Bulls, Thomas publicly speculated that it may have been Jordan’s influence that kept him off of the 1992 Olympic “Dream Team,” which won gold with a plethora of future Hall of Famers on the roster.
Thomas’ Pistons were really the only team to find consistent success against Michael Jordan and the Bulls during his entire career, defeating them in three-straight postseasons from 1988-1990.
The rivalry featured several ugly brawls and other incidents, including the infamous “Jordan Rules,” in which the Pistons allegedly aimed to play extra physical against Jordan, which in turn motivated the star to incorporate more weight training into his offseason regimen.
Despite the 30+ years that have passed since the days of the Bulls and Pistons rivalry, it wouldn’t appear that Jordan and Thomas are any closer to burying the hatchet.