The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All-Time - Elliott Kalb [38]
It’s a little easier to understand why USA Basketball refused to hear Daly’s plea for Thomas (and to a lesser degree, Dumars and Rodman). The U.S. needed Michael Jordan on the team, not to win a gold medal, but for the cache of having the greatest active player on the biggest world stage. Thomas, due in part to his competitive spirit, has never been a popular player. Jordan wasn’t the only player who had a past with Isiah. Dream Teamer Karl Malone gave Thomas forty stitches over his left eye, after famously delivering a hard elbow in the lane in December of 1991.
MY OPINION
The U.S. could still have won the gold medal in 1992 with Thomas, Dumars, and Rodman replacing Jordan, Pippen, and Stockton. It’s interesting that the coach of the Pistons, Chuck Daly, was the coach of the Olympic team but wasn’t given any of his players. USA Basketball desperately wanted Michael Jordan to join forces with Magic and Bird for a once-in-a-lifetime Dream Team. I do believe accommodations for Jordan’s preferences were made, but whether Thomas’ exclusion was one of them is hard to say. It is one of those things that will never be able to be proven as fact.
At least we can be sure that it wasn’t Daly who kept him off the team. Although there are a certain number of people who believe that Stockton was chosen over Isiah because of his skin color, I find that very, very hard to believe. The presence of Bird, Mullin, and Laettner is also good evidence against Stockton’s inclusion solely because he was white.
Thomas sometimes had problems (in the words of preschoolers’ report cards) playing well with others. It may not have been a conspiracy where a superstar forced the issue, but rather a meeting of minds concerning team chemistry. In either case, Thomas deserved a spot on the team, to my thinking, even more so than the great Michael Jordan.
CONCLUSION:
#8
Michael Jordan’s first retirement
Winston Churchill once said that “history is written by the victors.” In basketball history, there was no bigger victor than Michael Jordan. The NBA released a bio of Jordan on the nba .com website that says, “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” The records and awards won by Jordan will be remembered for generations. Jordan retired for the first time in October of 1993 at the ripe age of 30, while at the apex of his brilliant NBA career. I think it’s important to remember the time and circumstances surrounding Jordan’s first “retirement,” and what people were saying and writing about it at the time. There are many people who believe that Jordan was either serving a suspension, or was facing a situation where he felt he needed to “quit before he was fired.” In either case, his retiring would have spared both Jordan and the NBA untold embarrassment. I don’t necessarily believe or disbelieve Jordan’s intentions at the time, but I do think it’s important to look back.
Jordan completed his ninth season in the NBA in 1993, and although he missed all but eighteen games of the 1986 season with an injury, those first nine years were magnificent. He led the NBA in scoring seven consecutive seasons (1987-1993), was thrice named League MVP (1988, 1991, and 1992) and was named the Defensive Player of the Year in 1988. Most important, Jordan’s Bulls won three straight championships (1991-1993), having won forty-five of fifty-eight playoff games (more than 77%) over the three post-seasons. Jordan was named MVP of the NBA Finals all three seasons. In the 1993 Finals, his last before his sudden retirement, Jordan scored fifty-five points in Game Four, and averaged a record forty-one points per game in the series. It was clear at the time of his retirement that he was going out at the top of his game.
Along with great players like Magic Johnson, Clyde Drexler, and