Stephen A. Smith has given his fair share of bizarre takes over the years but he delivered perhaps the most bizarre one of the lot recently. Smith ranked this playoff run by Jalen Brunson as the greatest by a small guard, even ahead of all of Stephen Curry and Allen Iverson’s. He also didn’t have any of Isiah Thomas’ runs in his top five and the Hall of Famer responded on X.
“Let it be known my NBA playoff run for a small point guard, the ONLY small PG that led his team to Back 2 Back titles as the team’s leading SCORER and ASSIST.”
https://twitter.com/IsiahThomas/status/1791958682957152650
I believe it certainly was quite disrespectful to leave Thomas off that top five. His two championship runs in 1989 and 1990 with the Detroit Pistons were quite special.
In the first one, Thomas averaged 18.2 points, 4.3 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 1.6 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game. The Pistons beat Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in six games in the Conference Finals that year and then swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.
Injuries to Magic Johnson and Byron Scott certainly helped the Pistons, but that’s part and parcel of the game. Thomas had also injured his ankle when LA had beaten Detroit in seven games in the Finals the year prior.
As for the second championship run, Thomas averaged 20.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 8.2 assists, 2.2 steals, and 0.4 blocks per game in it. The Pistons beat Jordan and the Bulls once again in the Conference Finals and then dispatched the Portland Trail Blazers in five games in the Finals.
Thomas ended up leading the Pistons in points, assists, and steals in those two runs. You could argue that neither of his runs should be at the top of the list, but at least one of these should have been in the top five.
Smith had this run by Brunson and Damian Lillard’s run in 2019 in the top five and I think I would put both of Thomas’ ahead of those. Now, if the New York Knicks guard wins the championship this year, then you’d have an argument for putting this run near the top, but not just yet.
Isiah Thomas Also Reacted To Charles Barkley’s Comments On Him Being Left Off The Dream Team
Charles Barkley recently sat down for an interview where he spoke about Thomas and one of the topics was about him being left off the 1992 Dream Team. Barkley felt the Pistons legend should have made it in over John Stockton but had heard Michael Jordan didn’t want him on the team. Thomas reacted to those comments made by Barkley.
“The years of fraudulent blatant lies being covered up by mass marketing and propaganda being exposed.”
I think it is fair to say that if you look at the situation purely from a basketball standpoint, Thomas should have made it in over Stockton. Had he been on that team, he’d have also won the only thing missing from his incredible resume, an Olympic gold medal.
It is still not completely clear just how big of a role Jordan played in Thomas not being on that team. For his part, the Bulls icon has stated previously that he had nothing to do with it.
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