King without a crown
Isiah Thomas is one of the NBA’s unsung heroes. A two-time champion responsible for effectively creating the Detroit Pistons franchise in the late 1980’s, he remains in many ways in the shadows of giants who stood before him, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and after — that would be Mr. Michael Jordan…
If you haven’t watched Netflix’s The Last Dance yet, do yourself a favor and binge it. It amounts to 10 episodes of grade A athleticism mixed together with remarkable teachings on marketing, management… and life in general. In short, it tells the story of Michael Jordan’s last season with the Chicago Bulls — and last crowning achievement(s). That show was one of the Covid era’s biggest hits, with fellow NBA great and current TV host Charles Barkley admitting that, if it wasn’t for the The Last Dance, daily sports shows would have had nothing to talk about in 2020…
One of the more interesting elements from the series is the cast of “bad guys” highlighted throughout. Every hero needs a nemesis (in this case several, on and off the court), and Detroit Pistons point guard Isiah “Zeke” Thomas happened to fit that bill. His team had won the championship back to back in 1989 and 1990 with a very well structured, if not spectacular, gameplay and the man was clearly intent on extending that winning streak. One of the Pistons’ tricks mentioned in the show are the “Jordan rules”, aka a set of specific instructions for Pistons team members to neutralize Jordan. Try as they might, though, we know how that story ended: Jordan and his Bulls won a historic 6 championships from 1992 to 1998. There was not much Thomas and his rules could do about that…
Another snub came in 1992 for the Pistons leader, with the Olympic games US basketball “Dream team”. Arguably the best ever collection of players ever assembled in any team, it included the aforementioned Charles Barkley, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird as well as other giant stars like Scottie Pippen… and Michael Jordan himself. But not Isiah Thomas, even though he was (still) at the top of his game — and his coach led the team… There were rumors of a secret meeting to decide whether or not he would join, no one knows for sure if it took place or what transpired. What we know was — Thomas was not in that team, that went on to win everything, paving the way for worldwide NBA fame.
Decades removed from these events, what would the man have to say about any of that? Fellow NBA champions Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes invited Zeke on their podcast to find out. The result is a nearly 4-hour long, two-part in-depth interview where a few things become evident:
Isiah Thomas is a brilliant human being. Not that it would surprise anyone familiar with elite level sports, let alone basketball: it takes a certain kind of mind to be able to handle that level of pressure, athletic prowess and tactical awareness all at once, not to mention the vision you also have to have in order to maintain a balanced lifestyle on and off the court. Needless to say, Thomas has that in droves: incredibly driven yet very strategic, he never missed a beat when it came to big decisions, be they in sport, business or life in general. Which makes him a highly successful businessman today, after having been a highly successful athlete for decades.
The accusations against him are somewhat easy. The “bag guy” image that transpires in The Last Dance clearly does not do justice to the complexity of the man. Obviously, he was (or is) no angel: you can’t be one and succeed at that level. But is he any worse than his former colleagues? Many accounts tend to point out that Jordan himself was impossible to handle, way harsher on everybody than Zeke ever was, no matter how utterly brilliant he also happened to be. But is he any different than his former colleagues? The “Jordan rules” story offers a great answer to that: as Thomas points out on the podcast, every (winning) team in the NBA had such rules in place against every opposing (star) player. In other words, the Pistons also had “Bird rules” and “Magic rules”. It just so happens that Jordan was a once-in-a-generation athlete and that his rules were all the more specific…
If anything, time has made Isiah Thomas wiser. By all accounts, he was always a smart kind of player, but his older self is obviously self-aware in a way few stars of that caliber, no matter the field, ever are. The way he addresses the Dream team episode is the epitome of that: although he admits to have gone through all the emotions at the time, he came to not only accept that turns of events, but embrace it. As he puts it: people have repeatedly questioned the fact that he was not on the team, to the point that the blame now lies on the organisation — not him. And that is both a satisfying — and healthy — way of looking at it…
All in all, this discussion shows that it is perhaps more interesting to talk to an Isiah Thomas than a Michael Jordan. For a very simple reason: Jordan is a living legend, considered by many as the greatest to ever play the game; it is therefore quite hard to put such a stellar career — and individual — in perspective. Thomas, meanwhile, also happens to be a remarkable athlete, but the challenges he still had to face make him a more interesting interviewee. Because, although he accomplished more than virtually everyone on this earth, he still gets the meaning of hardship…