ESPN’s 10-part documentary series, The Last Dance, dedicated an episode to Michael Jordan’s experience with the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball team — the first Dream Team.
And you may recall that when Jordan was specifically asked about Isiah Thomas’ omission from the Dream Team roster, Jordan said in the documentary via ESPN, “No matter how much I hate him, I respect his game. Now, it was insinuated that I was asking about him, but I never threw his name in there.”
Well, recently surfaced audio from a 2011 interview with sports reporter Jack McCallum told a far different story.
In the audio, which aired on the podcast, The Dream Team Tapes, Jordan admitted to telling USA selection committee member Rod Thorn that he wouldn’t play if Thomas was on the roster.
Jordan said:
“Rod Thorn called me, and I said, ‘Rod, I won’t play if Isiah Thomas is on the team.'”
In his own interview with Golic & Wingo, Thorn said that Thomas’ name never came up in conversations with Jordan. Via ESPN:
“There was never anything in my conversation with [Jordan] that had to do with Isiah Thomas, period. He said, ‘I’ll do it.’ … Isiah’s name never came up during that conversation. He never backtracked and said he didn’t want to do it from that time on, to those of us in the NBA office.”
So, clearly, someone here wasn’t telling the truth.
But we do know that Thomas — despite coming off an 11th straight All-Star season — wasn’t a part of the team. And, well, the varying explanations only point to Jordan’s feud with Thomas being a part of that decision.
