It looks like former NBA star Isiah Thomas wants it known that he was better on the court than Michael Jordan.
The Detroit Pistons star is rehashing an old beef he had with the Chicago Bulls champion back in the early 1990s. Newsweek reported that on Tuesday, Thomas spoke with Club Shay Shay host Shannon Sharpe of Fox Sports about their bumpy history and who was the better player.
“Until ’91, when I basically had career-ending wrist surgery, up until then, my record against him and his team—it really wasn’t competition there,” said Thomas.
Thomas says he is in fact ahead of Jordan, the six-time NBA champion. “Just head-to-head, I was dominant over him,” said the Pistons legend.
The Pistons won two championships with Thomas in 1989 and 1990 and Thomas says it wasn’t Jordan who was the team’s greatest threat.
“He just wasn’t my competition,” he adds. “My focus was Bird, Magic, Dr. J [Julius Erving], Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” said Thomas.
“Those were the guys. I don’t care what anybody says. You can go back and look at history—those were the guys.”
Over the years Jordan and Thomas are known for talking smack to each other.
NBC Sports recounted Jordan’s statements about Thomas on The Last Dance, the docuseries that takes an inside look at Jordan’s career and the Bulls final championship season in 1997-98.
Jordan had this to say about Thomas after the PIstons famously walked off the court without the customary handshake competitors exchange after losing to the Bulls in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals.
“Well, I know it’s all bulls–. Whatever he (Thomas) says now, you know it wasn’t his true actions then. He’s had time enough to think about it, or the reactions of the public has kind of changed his perspective of it. You can show me whatever you want. There’s no way you can convince he wasn’t an a——.”
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