Detroit Pistons legend Joe Dumars has given his two cents worth on what has been the talk of the town of late: the intense rivalry between Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls and the Pistons during the late-1980's and early-1990's. This was brought about by Sunday's episodes of The Last Dance docuseries, which centers around the same.
Dumars went on The Odd Couple Podcast and talked about that controversial walk-off after one of the most heated matchups between the Pistons and the Bulls. According to Dumars, it was his instinct to just shake Michael Jordan's hand after the Bulls had just eliminated them from the Eastern Conference Finals.
“It never even dawned on me to not shake their hands,” the former Pistons guard explained. “Previous years we had beaten them, and we had ended their season. I can just tell you that every single time that we eliminated them, Mike found me, shook my hand, just whispered, ‘Tough battle. Great battle. Good luck in the Finals.' So when we were walking off, I saw him. I stopped and said the exact same thing to him.”
While Pistons teammates Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer refused to shake hands with the Bulls at that moment, Dumars said that in his mind, it was a non-issue at that point.
“It's a really big deal now and since then, but at that moment it wasn't really a big deal in terms of just walking and stopping and shaking their hand,” he added. “I have nothing but respect.”
That was an absolute show of class from the Pistons legend. It's not easy to swallow one's pride after suffering such a heartbreaking loss, which just shows what type of character Dumars has as a player and as a person. Thomas also spoke out more recently on the walk-off against Chicago.
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