When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [128]
Yet the most glaring omission was Isiah Thomas, the point guard of the Pistons' back-to-back championships in 1988 and 1989. Thomas was an eleven-time All-Star and three-time first-team All-NBA selection, and his coach, Chuck Daly, had been tabbed to coach the Dream Team.
Bird was startled that Thomas didn't make the cut. He shouldn't have been. Jordan had made it clear that he wanted no part of playing alongside Thomas in the backcourt. Michael had not forgotten the All-Star freeze-out in 1985 or the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals, when the Bulls supplanted the Pistons in the East and Isiah, Bill Laimbeer, and Mark Aguirre walked off the court with four seconds left on the game clock rather than congratulate the Bulls. It was a blatant sign of disrespect that was roundly condemned throughout the league.
Magic, still wounded by Thomas's reaction to his HIV diagnosis, did not hear from him during the Dream Team selection process. Pistons public relations director Matt Dobek called Magic on Isiah's behalf, but Magic refused to advocate for him.
"Our relationship was really strained at that point," Magic explained. "We didn't speak for years, and Isiah knew why. He questioned me when I got my HIV diagnosis. How can a so-called friend question your sexuality like that? I know why he did it, because we used to kiss before games, and now if people were wondering about me, that meant they were wondering about him too.
"I was so upset by that. When I started working for NBC, [New York Post reporter] Peter Vecsey tried to get us together. He was telling me, 'Isiah is hurting, you guys need to talk.' But I wasn't interested. I told him, 'Forget it.'
"Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him.
"Isiah's problem was he always felt he had to fight for everything. Even when he finally got among the elite, he couldn't stop fighting.
"The comments about Larry being overrated [in the 1987 Conference Finals] were out of pure frustration. He was jealous. He felt Larry was getting too much attention and he wasn't getting his.
"He always wanted to be in that conversation when people talked about the great players. Michael, Larry, and I were always in that discussion. He could have been if he had handled things differently. But because of the petty decisions he's made, no one gives him his due.
"I'm sad for Isiah. He has alienated so many people in his life, and he still doesn't get it. He doesn't understand why he wasn't chosen for that Olympic team, and that's really too bad. You should be aware when you have ticked off more than half of the NBA.
"If you went strictly on terms of ability, then Isiah should have been chosen for the Dream Team. But Michael didn't want to play with him. Scottie wanted no part of him. Bird wasn't pushing for him. Karl Malone didn't want him. Who was saying, 'We need this guy'? Nobody.
"Michael got singled out as the guy that kept Isiah off, but that really isn't fair. It was everybody. We all understood the camaraderie wouldn't be the same.
"What happened with Isiah has been the biggest personal disappointment of my life. Nothing else is even close. Here's a guy I trained with, I vacationed with, who I counseled, and he counseled me. And he threw it all away out of jealousy.
"When I see him now, we're cordial. That's about it. When the Knicks were looking for someone to run their team, [Madison Square Garden Sports president] Steve Mills, who is a good friend of mine, called me asking what I thought. I told him, 'Hey, you should talk to Isiah.'
"I can separate the personal from the professional. In spite of what happened between us, I still respect his knowledge of the game.
"But even with the Knicks situation, he had to be stubborn. When things went bad there, he kept fighting and fighting instead of saying, 'Okay, I better give up something here.' If he