Isiah Thomas isn’t shy about where he stands in the conversation with the legends of his era. On The Good Investor podcast, the Hall of Fame point guard made his case the old-fashioned way: by pointing to what happened when his teams actually lined up against Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird.
“I feel like I get enough credit, right?” Thomas said.
“And then I also get enough disrespect, and the way I look at it is like from a playing standpoint, all the guys that you have ranked above me, I can’t debate or compete with your opinions or your beliefs, right? But all I know is when we were on the court in between the four lines, head-to-head competition, referees, people watching, TV audience, my team against their team, my team beat their teams more than they beat mine.”
Co-host Chris Broussard pressed him on whether he meant the Detroit Pistons had the edge against Jordan, Johnson and Bird’s teams. Thomas said yes, and his point held up in the records.
Against Jordan in the postseason, Thomas finished 12-10. Detroit knocked Chicago out in the 1988, 1989 and 1990 playoffs before Jordan and the Bulls answered with a sweep in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. Even then, the overall head-to-head still leaned Thomas’s way.
The Magic Johnson matchup came next. Thomas went 6-4 against him in the playoffs, starting with the 1988 NBA Finals, when the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Pistons in seven games.
A year later, Detroit got its revenge in the 1989 NBA Finals and made it look easy, sweeping the Lakers. Johnson’s hamstring injury in Game 2 changed everything.
He played a few minutes in Game 3, then left again and did not play in Game 4. Over those two Finals meetings, the Pistons went 7-4 against Los Angeles.
Bird’s case was the closest of the three. Thomas said he went 11-11 against him, while the Pistons were 16-12 against the Boston Celtics during that stretch. Injuries affected both players along the way, which helps explain the split.
Thomas also pushed back on the idea that the stars ahead of him had a cleaner path because of the talent around them. Broussard noted that Jordan, Johnson and Bird had more teammates who landed on the NBA’s 75th Anniversary Team, but Thomas added another layer to his argument: size.
“They were bigger, taller,” Thomas said. “They were bigger than me… I can rest firmly on this.
If we all were the same size, there wouldn’t even be a conversation. Make them my size and see if they can do what I did.”
Thomas was listed at 6’1″, while Bird and Johnson were 6’9″ and Jordan was 6’6″. That gap mattered, and Thomas made no attempt to pretend otherwise.
The broader point is hard to miss. Very few small guards have ever led a team to a championship in NBA history, and Jalen Brunson joined that group this year.
Thomas was arguably the first. Over 13 seasons with the Pistons, he won two titles, a Finals MVP and an assists title.
What he might have done with more height is impossible to know. What is easier to say is that Jordan, Johnson and Bird would have had a much tougher road if they had been 6’1″. They still would have found ways to win and remain all-time greats, but the climb would have been steeper.
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