“I couldn’t even begin to tell you if there was any other beef beyond basketball” – Joe Dumars says hatred between Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan is overstated originally appeared on Basketball Network.
The Detroit Pistons and the Chicago Bulls were opposing ideologies — one bred in grit, the other built in greatness. In the middle of that storm stood Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan, two legends, but never quite landing on the same ground.
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It’s been three decades. The story of that legendary rivalry that set the tone for an entire era of NBA basketball is still discussed.
The narrative is well known: Thomas iced Jordan out of the 1985 All-Star Game; Jordan returned the favor by keeping Thomas off the 1992 Dream Team; and everything in between was just cold war basketball.
Just a basketball rivalry
Documentaries, interviews and locker room whispers have only helped fan the flames of the Jordan-Thomas rivalry or hate. But not everyone buys into the drama. Joe Dumars, a man who stood right in the thick of it all, offers a more grounded take on the tension.
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“I’ve had conversations with both these guys,” Dumars told Fox Sports Radio. “I couldn’t even begin to tell you if there was any other beef beyond basketball stuff. If there’s a stuff beyond that, it’s beyond me fellas.”
Dumars was the calm counterbalance to the fury of the Bad Boy Pistons and he knew how to keep his head down and his feet planted. While Thomas led the charge, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman rattled cages, Joe delivered efficiency and silence. He played with both grace and steel, a Finals MVP in 1989 and a six-time NBA All-Star.
And in those years, no rivalry loomed larger than the one against Chicago.
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Between 1988 and 1991, the Pistons and Bulls met in four straight playoffs. Detroit won the first three series, famously developing the Jordan Rules to contain MJ’s explosiveness. Every game was a slugfest. Cheap shots and elbows were the tall order. Still, Dumars insists it never escalated into anything personal, at least not from what he saw.
It wasn’t a secret that the Eastern Conference was the bloodiest gauntlet in professional sports back then. In 1990, the Bulls fell just one game short of the NBA Finals after a bruising seven-game war with Detroit. The next year, Chicago swept them clean in a merciless 4-0 sweep and the Pistons left the court without handshakes.
Between truth and nostalgia
It’s easy to flatten sports history into moral binaries. Heroes versus villains, victims and aggressors. But the 1980s and 1990s NBA didn’t operate in such simplicity. The Pistons were built on toughness because they had to be. There was no space for finesse in a league where post-ups were war zones and perimeter shots were luxuries.
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Detroit earned every bit of its reputation by defending titles against giants like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and most notably MJ. The media, especially after “The Last Dance” aired in 2020, resurfaced old scars. In it, Jordan described Thomas as someone he didn’t respect, calling the Pistons “undeserving champions.”
Thomas fired back in various interviews, defending his legacy, claiming he was wronged by teammates and painted unfairly. The Dream Team snub remains one of the most debated omissions in sports history. Even Johnson, once a close friend to Thomas, eventually turned distant before reconciling years later. But to Dumars, all these were just aimed at the basketball side of things.
“I don’t know of any other beef other than [basketball],” Dumars said. “For me, it was just how intense this was and the stakes were so high.”
Still, Joe has always resisted the pull of dramatics. He has worked in front offices, served as an executive for both the Pistons and the NBA league office and remained a respected voice in basketball corridors. His tone now is the same as it was on the floor — measured, focused and unmoved by narratives that don’t serve the game.
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Thomas averaged 21.2 points and 11.3 assists during the 1988 and 1989 championship runs. In those same postseasons, Jordan averaged over 30 points per game but couldn’t get past Detroit until the Bulls matured as a unit.
And as Dumars suggests, that rivalry may not be as personal as it’s been painted to be. It might just be exactly what it always was, two hyper-competitive legends colliding at the sport’s highest level, with nothing but the Larry O’Brien trophy between them.
This story was originally reported by Basketball Network on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.