A lot has been said about Isiah Thomas’ snub from the 1992 Dream Team that represented the USA in the Summer Olympics of that year. The Detroit Pistons legend was one of the best players in the world at the time, which is why it was a big surprise when he wasn’t selected to represent the country in Barcelona.
Many people blamed Michael Jordan for not wanting Isiah to be part of the team, which he denied. This has been a hot topic around the league since The Last Dance talked about it two years ago. It’s been a while since that moment, but it’s still a famous thing to discuss.
More recently, John Salley claimed that it was Magic Johnson who didn’t want to have Isiah on the Dream Team, not Michael Jordan. Shaquille O’Neal recently gave his two pennies on this situation, saying that Isiah holds some grudges against certain people, especially Scottie Pippen.
During a recent conversation with Jackie MacMullan on The Ringer’s ‘Icons Club’ podcast, O’Neal had this to say:
“He thinks, I don’t want to repeat what he said, but he figured it was some trickery involved in that. Couple people didn’t want him… Let’s put it this way, he hates Scottie Pippen.”
This isn’t weird to know, as Thomas previously mocked Scottie Pippen for saying he didn’t want him on the team. Their relationship wasn’t the best before, during, and after their retirements and Scottie isn’t worried about that. In fact, he revealed that Thomas reached out to make amends with him, but Pippen had no interest in that.
Learning the new info provided by Shaq, it makes more sense that these two have no love for each other.
There’s nothing anybody can do to change what happened, but a lot of people still enjoy talking about this situation. Thomas didn’t have the best relationship with almost everybody on that team and it’s more likely that several people didn’t like him on the team than putting the blame on only one person.
