Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas weren’t the best of friends during their playing days, and their relationship has only gotten worse post-retirement. Jordan and Thomas have fired shots at each other, and the latter took one at the former recently. Thomas shared a clip as a story on Instagram in which an individual claimed that Jordan played in the easiest era.
Here is the clip that Thomas shared.
Thomas basically played in the same era as Jordan, so he’s minimizing his own accomplishments by sharing that video. He should think twice before putting something like this out there for the world to see.
Now, as for the video itself, did Jordan benefit from the illegal defense rules during his career? Yes, but so did every other great player from back then. None of them from his era came anywhere close to having the kind of success he had.
Jordan won six titles, six Finals MVPs, five MVPs, a DPOY, and a record 10 scoring titles during his career. He was a scoring machine, and it would be unfair to diminish his achievements by claiming that it was all down to the rules. Deep down, Thomas would know that as well. When you just don’t like someone, though, you would have a hard time admitting that.
This is far from the first time that Thomas has tried to diminish Jordan’s greatness. Back in 2024, Thomas claimed the Chicago Bulls were good enough to win multiple championships without Jordan. He felt Scottie Pippen and Toni Kukoc were good enough to win one or two.
It’s hard to say if Pippen and Kukoc would be capable of leading a team to a title. They did win 55 games together in 1993-94 after Jordan retired for the first time and only lost in controversial fashion to the New York Knicks in the playoffs. They were pretty good, but were they good enough to win it all?
We’ll never quite know for sure, but probably not. At the end of the day, Jordan was who made those Bulls teams nearly unbeatable, and it’s why he gets most of the credit for those title runs.
Dwyane Wade On Isiah Thomas’ Hatred For Michael Jordan
Dwyane Wade had heard all about the tensions between Thomas and Jordan, and he got to experience it firsthand at the ceremony for the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team. Wade shared how Thomas reacted to Jordan’s presence.
“So I’m sitting here next to Steph, and we just—me and Steph geeking because we like, ‘That’s Mike and that’s Magic.’ We geeking out as basketball players. And then I’m looking at Zeke… This is a moment—a celebratory moment for us. We’re about to get called on the stage as one of the top 75, baby, like, let’s go.”
“Zeke hot. Zeke got his hands like this. Zeke shaking. I think Zeke talking to himself. So, I’m a little messy. I walk up and say, ‘Zeke, what’s wrong? What’s up, bro?’ He said, ‘Back there.’ So I turn, I say, ‘Y’all still beefing?'”
“They did not speak. There was no conversation. And my guy Mike and Magic back there laughing, and I know it’s making Isiah even hotter because Isiah ain’t got his road dog with him. He ain’t got nobody to laugh at the jokes he’s saying, you know what I’m saying?”
“I’m looking at this, and I’m like, these old players are still bitter at each other, dog. They hot.”
Jordan and Thomas are highly unlikely to mend fences either. There is a lot of bad blood here, and expect more shots to be fired in the coming years.
