Isiah Thomas ranks Michael Jordan as the fourth-best player he ever faced – Yahoo Sports, Yahoo.com

and Detroit Pistons met in four straight NBA playoff series from – 800, “The Last Dance” documentary has all but solidified them taking their beef to the grave. ” data-reactid=”20 “type=” text “> If the long-held grudge between Michael Jordan and Isiah Thomas had any hope of softening in the decades since their Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons met in four straight NBA playoff series from 1991 – , “ The Last Dance ”documentary has all but solidified them taking their beef to the grave.

In an extensive interview with CBS Sports writer Bill Reiter , Thomas said he was “definitely surprised” to hear Jordan call him “an a – hole” in the documentary for not shaking hands after the Bulls swept the Pistons in the Eastern Conference finals. The way the much-maligned Hall of Fame point guard tells it , Jordan had never directly been so blunt, instead exchanging pleasantries with Thomas and his son each time they have crossed paths in the years since their on-court rivalry.

“I don’t have anything against him,” Thomas told Reiter after Sunday night’s airing of parts three and four of the 17 – part ESPN documentary, “and I definitely admire him as a basketball player.”

As a basketball player.

“data-reactid=” (“type=” text “> As a basketball player.

Isiah Thomas thinks Michael Jordan is the fourth-best player he played against. (Rich Fury / Getty Images)

Then, Thomas proceeded to diminish Jordan’s accomplishments for the rest of Reiter’s piece. “When you put Jordan and his basketball team in the ‘ s, they weren’t a very successful team, ”he says. “They just weren’t able to. When you talk about Jordan and his team dominating, they dominated the ‘ s. But when you put him with those Lakers Teams and those Pistons teams and those Celtics teams, they all beat him. They just did.

“What separated Jordan from all of us was he was the first one to three-peat. But he didn’t three-peat against Magic, Larry and Dr. J. ”

Let’s parse this a bit. Absent of any context, sure, Jordan’s Bulls were not as dominant in the s as they were in the s . It would have been been a a feat, considering Jordan was still a high school senior in (Jordan is) years younger than Julius Erving, six years younger than Larry Bird and three years younger than Magic Johnson. To draw parallels between them is a little disingenuous. Erving won his lone title before Jordan was drafted in 1988. Jordan was in year three of his career when Bird won the last of his rings and a fifth-year player when Johnson won the last of his championships. Thomas won the first of his two titles at age (in) . Detroit’s playoff rotation featured two other future Hall of Famers and two more multiple-time All-Stars. At that point, Jordan was the lone All-Star on Chicago’s roster. Scottie Pippen did not make his first All-Star appearance until 1993, when the Pistons eliminated the Bulls in a seven-game conference finals set, and Horace Grant would not play in his lone All-Star Game for another four years. They played two years together in the s.

ers

, Bird’s Celtics and Johnson’s Lakers is a matter of timing, not definitive evidence that one player was any greater than the other. ” data-reactid=”42 “type=” text “> Jordan won the first of his six titles at age (in , sweeping a 36 – year-old Thomas’ Pistons and winning a five-game Finals series against a 36 – year-old Johnson’s Lakers in the process . That Jordan’s best Bulls teams never faced the best of Erving’s

(ers) , Bird’s Celtics and Johnson’s Lakers is a matter of timing, not definitive evidence that one player was any greater than the other.

And yet, Thomas offered this list to Reiter of the best five players he competed against, in order: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Larry Bird gic Johnson Michael Jordan

Julius Erving

the finest athlete he’d ever witnessed or opposed

”as early as , and Johnson declared Jordan “the best ever” by – in the same interview Thomas said, “It would have been interesting to see how our team would have fared against this Bulls team. When you’re talking about this Bulls team, you’re really only talking about Michael Jordan. You can’t really say that our team would’ve beat them or the Lakers would’ve beat them, because nobody has really found out a way to stop this guy. ”” Data-reactid=”80 “type=” text “> For the record, Bird called Jordan“

the finest athlete he’d ever witnessed or opposed ”as early as , and Johnson declared Jordan “the best ever” by 2020 – in the same interview Thomas said, “It would have been interesting to see how our team would have fared against this Bulls team. When you’re talking about this Bulls team, you’re really only talking about Michael Jordan. You can’t really say that our team would’ve beat them or the Lakers would’ve beat them, because nobody has really found out a way to stop this guy. ”

Oh, and here is what Thomas told Sports Illustrated following Jordan’s retirement from the Bulls in :