Any NBA aficionado knows that Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan have a longstanding beef. It goes all the way back to the mid-1980s, when Jordan arrived in Thomas' hometown of Chicago, and Thomas was with Detroit.
Since then, they had their battles, and that bitterness lingers to this day. Recently, Thomas made his case for why Jordan isn't the GOAT, per Run It Back on FanDuel TV.
Essentially, Thomas says that because Jordan isn't the all-time leader in every statistical category, he can't be the GOAT.
“I’m a historian of the game and I’m not a hater,” Thomas said. “When I speak facts, people think it’s hate. In no sports category, when we talk about track, when we talk about tennis, when we talk about football, baseball, arguably the best players or athletes in those sports, they hold the world records. I know we talk talk about Jordan, but he leads in no statistical basketball category. But yet there’s an argument about him being the best. But then you look at Kareem and you look at LeBron, those guys lead in several statistical categories. But yet we say somebody else is better and I’m just giving you the evidence.”
Jordan is 5th on the all-time scoring list with 32,292 points. Meanwhile, LeBron James is the all-time leading scorer with 42,575 points and counting. Jordan has the all-time PPG at 30.12.
The root cause of the Isiah Thomas/Michael Jordan feud
Article Continues Below
In the late 1980s/early 1990s, the “Bad Boys” Detroit Pistons invented what became known as “The Jordan Rules. It was their defensive strategy to physically hammer Jordan whenever he came to the basket.
Something that Thomas accused Jordan of complaining about.
Thus, igniting the bad blood. When the Bulls swept the Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, the Pistons, led by Thomas, intentionally refused to shake hands with the Bulls and walked back to the locker room with time remaining on the clock.
Then, in 1992, Jordan allegedly played a role in keeping Thomas off the Dream Team. Plus, Jordan admitted he disliked Thomas in the 2020 documentary The Last Dance.