The Last Dance has been one of the only basketball diversions we’ve had during the last couple months and the documentary has certainly unearthed a lot of good feelings and nostalgia, but it’s also opened up some wounds, both new and old.

For as many genuinely enjoyable moments and behind-the-scenes look at the GOAT, there has been no short of detractors of the 10-part series. And there were plenty of moments, glaring omissions, and controversies that are now all being re-litigated.

Who kept Isiah Thomas off the Dream Team?

One of the basketball’s biggest conspiracy theories revolves around an omission that was actually included in the The Last Dance. That controversy revolved around whether Michael Jordan was the overriding factor in the decision to leave Isiah Thomas off the 1992 Dream Team.

Up until the release of the documentary, it was all but assumed that Jordan was the primary factor in Isiah’s omission from that legendary team. That’s until The Last Dance touched on the subject again. This allowed Jordan to directly respond (again) to the accusation of “Did you keep Isiah off the Dream Team?”

Jordan would preface the topic with no matter his feelings, he admitted that Isiah was the second best point guard in NBA history.

“I respect Isiah Thomas’ talent. To me, the best point guard of all time is Magic Johnson and right behind him is Isiah Thomas.” Jordan would go on to say. “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.”

(That’s important to remember as we look set the table for those fateful moments thirty years ago).

“You want to attribute it to me, go ahead and be my guest. But it wasn’t me,” Jordan said.

“Before the ’92 Olympics, Rod Thorn calls me and says, ‘We would love for you to be on the Dream Team.'” Jordan said in The Last Dance. “I say, ‘Who’s all playing?’ He says, ‘What does that mean?’ I say, ‘Who’s all playing?’ He says, ‘Well, the guy you’re talking about or you’re thinking about, he’s not going to be playing,'” 

The assumption there was Jordan asking if Magic and Bird and what other superstars have confirmed.

“The Dream Team, based on the environment and the camaraderie that happened on that team, it was the best harmony,” Jordan said. “Would Isiah have made a different feeling on that team? Yes.”

Jordan did it, guys (and there’s proof)

Was Jordan telling the truth? It was very clear what Jordan’s said publicly and what he actually thought (and sometimes said) collided. The Isiah-Dream Team controversy is no different.

In Jack McCallum’s 2013 book “DREAM TEAM“, the seasoned basketball journalist not only reported that Jordan gave an ultimatum to the U.S. Olympic Selection Committee at the outset of the process, but that Jordan directly re-confirmed that much to McCallum several years later.

The book goes into the how the NBA became involved with Olympic basketball, ultimately taking over the entire process. Then on page 82, when the selection team was working with a short-short list of NBA names they wanted on the team, they strategically matched committee members with those players they had relationships with.

So instead of going through their respective agents, the chosen members went directly to Jordan, Magic Johnson,  Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, Chris Mullin and David Robinson to gauge their interest. Rod Thorn was assigned to convince Jordan to join the team:

“Rod Thorn, who as general manager of the Bulls in 1984 had drafted Jordan, was assigned the most important task: pulling the prize catch into the boat. Thorn called Jordan directly sometime during the summer, after the Bulls had won their first championship.”

So what happens during that fateful phone call in 1991? Only Jordan and Thorn know for sure, but here’s what McCallum reported in his book word-for-word:

“So let’s be clear right now about what Jordan said in that first phone call. ‘Rod, I don’t want to play if Isiah Thomas is on the team,’ Jordan said. I wrote that in Sports Illustrated at the time, not because Jordan confirmed it, which he didn’t, but because at least two reliable sources did.”

Depending on what you think of anonymous “reliable” sources, that alone was all you had to hear or not nearly enough to confirm anything. After all, it wasn’t a direct Jordan quote. If you have a problem with McCallum’s sources, here’s Jack again confirming with Jordan himself several years

“At the time, Jordan more or less denied that he would stand in Isiah’s way. But he did confirm it to me in the summer of 2011. ‘I told Rod I don’t want to play if Isiah Thomas is on the team.’ That’s what he said.”

In interviews with Thorn, McCallum read between the lines and it was pretty clear to the acclaimed journalist that no one was more important to that 1992 team than Jordan. And Jordan knew it.

Thorn knew his part. I don’t know how explicitly he said it — and Thorn won’t say  but he made it clear that no one would be on the team if Jordan didn’t want him on the team.

So Thorn went back to the Men’s Olympic Team Committee and reported to the thirteen members that would ultimately make the decision. That group was comprised of Bob Bass, Quinn Buckner, P.J. Carlesimo, Billy Cunningham, Wayne Embry, Charles Grantham, Mike Krzyzewski, Jack McCloskey, C.M. Newton, George Raveling, Thorn, Jan Volk, and Donnie Walsh.

As far as Chuck Daly, it seemed that the Pistons Head Coach knew how big a shadow Jordan cast. So Daly stayed quiet and didn’t go to bat for Isiah.

“No one on the committee had to communicate that to Daly because Daly knew it himself, as Jordan had told the coach in an early phone call, I don’t want to play if Isiah Thomas is on the team. And Chuck let it be known that he wouldn’t fight for Isiah.”

In another interesting event involving allies, Buckner and McCloskey were part of the sub-committee and both would resign during the process (Willis Reed replaced them).

If you don’t know, Isiah grew up in Chicago, won an NCAA Championship with Indiana University and considered Buckner an idol and mentor. Buckner also grew up in Illinois and attended Indiana University before Isiah. The two former Illinoisians and Hoosiers had a close relationship.

Isiah was the heart, unquestioned leader and star of the Detroit Pistons teams that won back-to-back NBA Championships. During those runs in the 1980’s, McCloskey was the General Manager of the Pistons during those times and the two shared an emotional embrace when the Pistons were eliminated by the Chicago Bulls. McCloskey resigned over Isiah’s omission.

Jordan impeaches himself

If you need further proof that Jordan strong armed the process, McCallum brought the receipts with his The Dream Team Tapes, a podcast series where McCallum narrates around the audio clips and interviews with Michael, Magic, Bird, Drexler, and the Dream Team during that time.

Prior to the release of the first episode of The Dream Team Tapes, McCallum was a guest on Zach Lowe’s The Lowe Post podcast to promote the series. The two discussed those series of audio clips that were recorded by McCallum during his interviews for his 2012 chronicling of the Greatest Basketball Team in history. And in those audio clips is Jordan saying exactly what he’s denied and what McCallum reported years ago in his book (as referenced above).

Update: Now that the podcast episode has been released, here’s the actual audio:

Audio of Michael Jordan admitting that he told Rod Thorn that he wouldn’t play on Dream Team if Isiah Thomas was on the team pic.twitter.com/TXI27fRFhV

— Viral Sports (@NotScTop10plays) May 25, 2020

You can listen to the entire episode here.

“Lo and behold, I listen to the third episode of The Dream Team Tapes, and there is Michael Jordan on tape, his voice in my ears.” said Lowe on his podcast. “Michael says that on tape. In his voice. You have him dead to rights.”

Jordan didn’t want Isiah, so Isiah wasn’t there

It’s simple, Jordan didn’t want Isiah there, so Isiah wasn’t there. That’s it.

Yes, Isiah Thomas had problems with some of the players on the team.

Isiah has had a troubled history with Larry Bird, but knowing Larry Bird, he’s not someone that would involve himself into drama or that type of politicking. Bird was more concerned that he wasn’t going to be a “token” and wanted to contribute. Bird participated because he wanted to bring the Gold Medal back to the United States period.

Despite their close friendship, he and Magic weren’t getting along at that time due to some rumors about Magic’s sexuality and his HIV diagnosis. Magic would later admit that there wasn’t anyone fighting for Zeke to be on the team, but who knows what conversations actually transpired? If Magic did try to keep Isiah off the team, it would have been because of the dozens of phone calls he had trying to convince Jordan to participate.

Years later, Scottie Pippen made it clear he wasn’t a proponent of Thomas being on that team, but we’re pretty sure someone that didn’t think they belonged on the team in the first place would have said anything at the time. During the Dream Team documentary, Pippen said. “I didn’t feel like I truly deserved to be called, but I truly wasn’t gonna tell them that.”

All those reasons could be added to the fire why Isiah wasn’t on the team, but let’s be clear: the reason Isiah Thomas wasn’t named to the 1992 U.S. Men’s Olympic Team was because Jordan gave the selection committee an ultimatum.

It came down to Jordan or Isiah and that’s a choice that Isiah Thomas, no matter how great and deserving, could not and would not win. And unsurprisingly Isiah lost out on that power play. At the time, it was big news because it was common sense that Isiah should have been on that team. The media called it a disgrace, political retaliation, and the biggest snub in history.

A pure basketball decision that was not based on basketball, but on politics. And unfortunately, the rest is history.