'It's all bulls**t': Classless act that still infuriates Michael Jordan
It's fair to say basketball fans are bubbling with excitement over the first two instalments of ESPN's highly anticipated documentary series on Michael Jordan, 'The Last Dance'.
The 10-part docu-series on Netflix is set to focus on Jordan's final year at the Chicago Bulls - culminating in his sixth NBA champion and second 'three-peat' with the franchise.
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Plenty of Jordan's teammates and sparring partners are set to feature in the series, which includes never-before-seen footage and interviews from the 1997/98 season.
One man who provided several interviews for the series was one of Jordan's fiercest rivals, Isiah Thomas, who was part of the Detroit Pistons side that famously refused to shake hands with Jordan and his teammates after losing to the Bulls in the 1990-91 Eastern Conference finals.
The victory was momentous for Jordan and the Bulls after they'd been bundled out by the Pistons during the Eastern Conference finals series the previous three seasons.
However, the handshake snub has proved a bone of contention for years and it's still as raw as ever, nearly 30 years on.
In an interview set to feature in The Last Dance, Thomas explains the reason why his team left the court without shaking the hands of their opponents, claiming the Boston Celtics and their superstar Larry Bird, had set a precedent.
"When we beat Boston, (Larry) Bird didn't shake none of our hands... I find it interesting the target shifts and the narrative changes."
Thomas says in hindsight that he regrets the decision but insists the narrative around the story spiralled out of hand.
“As we’re coming out of the game (against Chicago, Bill), Laimbeer says, ‘We’re not shaking their hands, this is how we’re leaving’,” Thomas says.
“To us, that was OK. Knowing what we know now and the aftermath of what took place, I think all of us would have stopped and said congratulations like they do now.
“We would have done it, of course we would have done it. But during that period of time, that’s just not how it was passed. When you lost, you left the floor – that was it.”
Jordan calls ‘bulls***’ on handshake snub excuse
Despite having three decades to come to some sort of peace over the incident, Jordan still can't stomach Thomas' "bullshit" excuse.
“I know it’s all bulls***,” Jordan, 57, says of Thomas’ justification. “Whatever he says now, you know it wasn’t his true actions then.
“He’s had time enough to think about it or the reaction of the pubic that’s changed his perception of it. You can show me anything you want, there’s no way you can convince me he wasn’t an a**hole.”
The Bulls legend says the respect his side showed after losing to the Pistons in the 1990 Eastern Conference Finals, was simply not reciprocated by their rivals.
“All you’ve got to do is go back to us losing in Game 7. I shook everybody’s hands,” Jordan says.
“Two years in a row, we shook their hands when they beat us. There was a certain respect to the game that we paid to them. That’s sportsmanship, no matter how much it hurts. And believe me, it f***ing hurt.
“But they didn’t have to shake our hands. We knew we whipped their a** already and that to me was in some ways better than winning a championship.”
The handshake furore proved a major talking point for years to come, with conspiracy theories emerging that it was the reason Thomas was overlooked for the famous USA Dream Team that would go on to claim gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.
Thomas says he hopes The Last Dance would shed light on the enormous respect he had for Jordan during their playing careers.
"I hope the full content of what I was trying to express in the admiration we all had for him as a player is shown from my comments. All of us who talked about him talked about how we admired how great a player he was, and we couldn't stop him other than to double or triple-team him."
The first two episodes of The Last Dance will air on Netflix in Australia on the evening of Monday, April 20, with two more episodes released every week.
with agencies