The Last Dance: Did a Laker keep Isiah Thomas off the Dream Team?

The Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas issues go further back than 1991.

If “The Last Dance” has taught the younger generation what the basketball purists already know is this common rule.

Under any circumstances, do not piss off Michael Jordan. It fires him up and the man just will not let it go. He never forgets a slight.

Michael Jordan’s story starts with him being left off the varsity team his sophomore year in high school. We all should know the name of the guy that made the team in front of him, Leroy Smith (That’s Jordan’s alias when he’s in hotels!). Leroy’s life was affected negatively just from that story alone.

The documentary will show this as the reason that Isiah was left off the team. Something that has been rehashed for great promotion for the documentary. Like the interview here on ESPN’s First Take.

It possibly goes a lot further back than that. Like all the way back to Michael Jordan’s first All-Star game aka the “Freeze out” game back in 1985.

The word around the campfire says that Jordan’s veteran teammates didn’t pass him the ball because they were trying to prove a point. Seemingly the issue started with Jordan in the dunk contest rocking  Nike warmups with a gold chain around his neck. At the time, the three “alleged” co-conspirators were Thomas, Magic Johnson and George Gervin. (Johnson and Gervin were on the Western Conference team.)

Jordan finished the game with seven points on 2-for-9 shooting, taking fewer shots than any of his fellow East starters. Then Chicago hosted the Pistons in the first game after the break, he went off for 49 points, 15 rebounds, five assists and four steals.

It was reported that Isiah Thomas tried to clear the air the next year, but if Jordan hasn’t gotten over it to this day, just think about how infuriated he was being shown up and embarrassed then?

The burned bridges probably started here and the 1991 walk off was the Earth being salted where any chance of a reconciliation was buried.