Audio evidence reveals that Michael Jordan deliberately lied when he claimed resolutely that he had nothing to do with keeping fellow legend Isiah Thomas off the iconic Dream Team.
Jordan, 57, said on the record-breaking documentary “The Last Dance” that he didn’t have any influence on keeping his mortal enemy Thomas off the 1992 Spain Olympics squad. Thomas, 59, a two-time champion, employed extreme physicalities to defeat Jordan’s Bulls for three straight years in the 1980s, creating permanent ill will between the two men.
Jack McCullum, a longtime sportswriter for Sports Illustrated, revealed the audio that proves MJ actually did play a major role in keeping Thomas, aka “Zeke,” off the team, according to Page Six.
“When they called me to ask me to play, Rod Thorn called me,” Jordan said. “I said, ‘Rod, I won’t play if Isiah Thomas is on the team.’ He assured me. He said, ‘You know what? Chuck doesn’t want Isiah. So, Isiah is not going to be part of the team.'”
“No matter what you heard, there was never much of a chance for Isiah Thomas to make the Dream Team,” McCallum said in his podcast, ‘The Dream Team Tapes.’ “For this reason mainly, Michael Jordan did not want him. I wrote that back in 1992 because a source close to the situation, not Jordan himself, told me that was the case. But Jordan’s reaction to the question — Did you keep Isiah off the team? — was either angry — ‘No’ — or dismissive — ‘No Isiah questions please’ — or coy — ‘Hey, I didn’t pick the team.’”
Almost two decades later in 2011, as McCullum was preparing to write his book about that venerated 1992 team, the sportswriter decided to try one more time to get Jordan to speak about Thomas’ exclusion from the historic squad.
“So when I went to interview Jordan for the Dream Team book in 2011, I wondered how I would nudge the conversation to Isiah Thomas. But against all odds, Jordan went there himself, suddenly and without warning.”
Neither Jordan or Thomas has responded yet to this explosive report.
