It took three decades and one documentary for this Isiah Thomas about-face

Isiah Thomas is back in the news, and for a change it isn’t to revisit the multiple crimes and misdemeanors Zeke committed while running the Knicks. No, this time the charge is even more ancient, dating to May 27, 1991.

That was the day Thomas’ Pistons were officially dethroned as two-time NBA champions by the ascendant Bulls of Michael Jordan and company. The Bulls pounded the Pistons that day, 115-94, finishing off a four-game sweep, humiliating the Bad Boys in their own backyard. It was a gratifying, satisfying win. Except for one thing.

As was meticulously recounted in episode 4 of the ESPN documentary “The Last Dance” Sunday night, with 7.9 seconds left in the clincher the Pistons’ regulars walked off their bench, walked past the Bulls’ bench, and scuttled into the locker room – Thomas himself ducking his head and sheepishly hiding behind Bill Laimbeer as he dashed away.

“Laimbeer said, we’re not shaking our hands,” Thomas recounted on the show. “This is how we’re leaving.”

It caused a stir then, and a sizable one, but “then” was 1991 and so there was no such thing as social-media spit-storms to worry about. Twenty-nine years later there is. And there was. And what is crystal clear is that Jordan – an epic grudge holder – is still miffed about it. Handed a tape of Thomas trying to explain himself, Jordan’s eyes grew as wide as when he talks about getting cut from the team at Laney High School sophomore.

“I know it’s all BS,” he says, barely able to hide his contempt. “Whatever he said, I know it wasn’t his true actions, that he’s had time enough to think about it. The reaction of the public has changed his reaction to it.”

Thomas himself clearly recognized the losing battle in which he was engaged. In the movie, he tries to offer context: when the Pistons had finally beaten the Celtics three years earlier after years of trying, there’s a famous image of Kevin McHale wishing Isiah well at game’s end; Thomas pointed out that it was he who approached McHale – and only after Larry Bird and the others had already walked off – while the game was going on.

“That’s just how it was,” Thomas said.

How it is now, of course, is something else, which is why he wasted little time going back on ESPN Monday morning to express remorse and regret for something he did almost 29 years ago.

“I represented Detroit and the West Side of Chicago where I came from,” Thomas said, before referencing other Michigan natives on the ESPN set and adding, “the hurt that those guys feel for me having to be in this moment, I apologize to them and Detroit for all of us in this moment as a leader of the team and as a leader of that community.”

(Of course, Zeke being Zeke, he also mentioned how hurt he was to be left off the ’92 Dream Team, a caper almost entirely of Jordan’s doing. Of course, that had more to do with Isiah freezing Jordan out at the ’85 All-Star Game than anything, but ghosting the handshake line certainly didn’t help Isiah’s resume.)

“What it comes down to is simple,” Jordan says. “Respect. And sportsmanship.”

It’s a funny subject, sportsmanship. We are raised on postgame handshakes after Little League games, we are taught to pretend like we are just as honored receiving the Sportsmanship Trophy as the one given the league champion, and mostly we remain rooted there the rest of our lives.

It’s one reason Roger Federer and Phil Mickelson are so beloved, because they are just as gracious in defeat as they are in victory. It’s why one of the coolest traditions in sports is the post-series handshake in playoff hockey. Once, I saw Scott Stevens of the Devils nearly murder Eric Lindros with a vicious (and perfectly legal) check. I asked him if it was at all awkward later, when he shook hands with all Lindros’ Flyers teammates.

“Why would it be?” he asked, incredulously.

John McEnroe once told me, “If you saw enough of my matches, you know that more than once if I thought the other guy got hosed by a call, I’d essentially give him the next point. That goes back to calling your own lines as a kid. Sportsmanship is the only way it works.”

Isiah and the other Bad Boys got a reminder of that the past few days. Thomas did point out the flip side of this – that some are just as turned off by the everybody-is-everybody’s best friend aspect of modern sports, that it’s gone too far the other way, that everyone hugs and shakes hands now.

Or at least, they used to, until about two months ago.

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