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00:00All guests on 95.7 The Game appear on the River Islands guest line.
00:03Isn't it time for you to discover the islands, River Islands and Lathrop?
00:07And we've got a great, great surprise for you guys. Isaiah Thomas, two-time NBA champion,
00:13Hall of Famer, 12-time All-Star, also won a national championship with Indiana.
00:18Isaiah, thanks for joining us, man. I really appreciate it.
00:22Hey, my pleasure. And thanks for inviting me on the show.
00:24Absolutely.
00:26How are you guys doing today?
00:27Oh, we're doing great.
00:29Everybody is loving the Jimmy Butler trade, and I guess that's where I want to start with you,
00:35Isaiah. What has been the difference between Jimmy Butler coming to the Warriors and when
00:42he wasn't here? They're 16-3 when he plays. Did you sense something like this coming,
00:48or are you surprised?
00:51I'm not surprised, and I think you have to look at what Jimmy did in Miami.
00:59He took Miami to the NBA Finals, and they were in the Eastern Conference Finals battling against
01:05Boston. And he was playoff Jimmy, and everyone knew what he was capable of doing. And combining
01:13him with Steph and Draymond, I think Draymond said it best. When Jimmy walked through the door,
01:20he gave them belief again. Golden State had kind of lost belief in terms of not how good
01:29of players they were, but could they be champions again? And Jimmy gives them that belief factor,
01:35and then once you get that, you know, the door is open for you to have tremendous success
01:43once you start believing that you can do it again.
01:46Isaiah, the other night, speaking of Draymond Green, Steve Kerr was talking about the greatest
01:51defenders he's ever seen, and a couple guys he threw in there were alongside Draymond,
01:56Scotty Pippen and Dennis Rodman. And I know you played with Rodman, played against Pippen.
02:02Do you think that's a fair assessment, and is Draymond someone that you believe is
02:07a generational defender?
02:10In this era, absolutely. And when you look at, you know, that Chicago team that had Pippen and
02:18Rodman, you know, arguably had two of the best defenders on that team, you know, of all era
02:27playing. And I 100% agree with Coach that, you know, Rodman, Scotty, and then in this era,
02:38you would have to include Draymond as one of the top defenders in this era. Absolutely.
02:43Isaiah Thomas joining us on 95.7 The Game, former Detroit Piston two-time NBA champion.
02:51Let me take you back to 1989. You guys had made the finals in 88, and you made a midseason trade.
02:59You acquired Mark Aguirre for Adrian Dantley, and that, I mean, you guys were a good team,
03:05but I think it's fair to say Aguirre took you to another level. What, you know, what
03:10happened there when that trade was made to elevate you guys to NBA champions?
03:18Well, two things happened. You know, of course, Aguirre came over as a great scorer,
03:24but most importantly, he came over as a great teammate, and he allowed Dennis Rodman to play
03:32more with Dantley. Dantley had to play a certain amount of minutes a game for us to have peace
03:41within the team in the locker room, and therefore Rodman wasn't getting enough time on the floor.
03:47And you saw when Mark Aguirre came from Dallas, they were going to the Western Conference Finals
03:54or to the second round of the playoffs every year getting knocked out by the Lakers or Seattle.
04:03Aguirre was averaging 27, 26 points a night playing 35 minutes. He comes to Detroit,
04:10he makes the ultimate sacrifice to win a championship. He drops down to about 26,
04:1624 minutes a night. Rodman gets more time on the floor. We've become a better defensive team.
04:22We've become a better rebounding team. And Aguirre, because of his selflessness and being a
04:30great teammate, allowed us and gave us the opportunity to win back-to-back championships.
04:37Now, in the game of basketball and the way the sport is, it's talked about nowadays,
04:44it's talked about more in terms of individuals, what they do, you know, how many points you score,
04:50how many rebounds you get. Back then, it was about being a part of a team and being a great teammate.
04:57And Aguirre, basically, had he stayed in Dallas, there's no doubt about it in anybody's mind,
05:06he would be in the Hall of Fame right now without championships. He comes to Detroit,
05:13makes the ultimate sacrifice, becomes a great teammate, wins back-to-back championships,
05:18and the championships don't count on his resume. It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen in this
05:24day and age. But I guess that's how the young people want it.
05:29Well, Isaiah, you know, Jimmy Butler has been the alpha and the number one on every team he's
05:34played with up until Golden State. He said that coming in, he knows that it's Curry's team.
05:40You, for your team, were Curry, were the leader, the guy. How easy or complicated was it for you
05:49to welcome someone else into that locker room? How do you make that locker room a place
05:54that is open and embracing for someone else that has been a lead dog in their previous locales?
06:01Well, first of all, let's talk about what I always thought was the leader of the team and
06:10how I always tried to conduct myself as the lead. It goes beyond the locker room.
06:17You know, it really is the fans' team. When I was in college, it was the students' team.
06:22It's more about the fans and the students, and we play for them, and we play to give them joy,
06:30excitement, belief, you know, and that permeates out on the floor. Now, when you get inside the
06:38locker room, then it's about, you know, executing what the coach is diagramming on the board,
06:44and your job and my job was to make sure that not only did we go out and execute a game plan
06:52to beat the other team, but also make sure that it was enjoyable enough for us as players
06:58and also for the fans. So, you know, this concept of lead dog and my team, your team,
07:07you know, none of that, you know, these are new definitions and kind of new terminology that has
07:14been brought to the game. You know, when I looked at, when we played the Celtics, I knew Bird was
07:21the best player, but I never looked at it as, oh, we're playing against Bird's team. We're playing
07:26against the Celtics. Magic and Kareem is like, you have to beat Magic and Kareem and Worthy and
07:32all the other guys they had. You know, the new terminology that has been brought into today's
07:38game has been more individualistic and more individualized to kind of make the talking
07:49points that we have today, but the game was always meant to be played from a team standpoint
07:58and a team concept. So, I never said I was the captain. I never said I was the leader.
08:06I was voted the captain and I was voted the leader. That's because my teammates gave me the trust
08:15that they knew that I would be, you know, I guess, accountable and do the things that
08:21needed to be done out on the floor, but I never walked into a room and said, I'm the leader,
08:27I'm the lead dog, I'm the bad motherfucking all that. That never happened. Yeah, right.
08:32Excuse my language. Excuse my language to your audience, but you know, it's like,
08:36the way people talk now, it's such BS. No one talked like that. Yeah, no, not back in the day.
08:45I know that and speaking of which, so... And I don't know how they talk today,
08:51but I'll tell you this. I have never been around an NBA player today and you know, I'm in the NBA
09:0024-7. Right. And I have never heard an NBA player walk up to me and tell me he was the lead dog,
09:10he was the alpha, he was the man, he was all... And I sat down with everyone. I've never heard
09:18one top player say that to me. Yeah, interesting. Isaiah Thomas joining us on 95-7, the game two
09:27time NBA champion, Hall of Famer. Let me ask you this. When you won your first title in 89,
09:33obviously, you know, you had knocked on the door with Dumars. We actually won it in 88,
09:39but I'll take 89. Oh, you mean? We had cheated in 88. Well, you know what? You want to go there?
09:48They never won game seven. The crowd came out with three seconds left. Tell me about it.
09:57And I get the ball to go up to him. Magic clips me, right? Yes. You know, and the fans are all
10:04out on the floor. Lambeers pushing people aside, trying to get them out of the way
10:09so he can inbound the ball. And the Lakers, being smart as they were, because they knew we had them,
10:16right? They just went, even their bench ran out on the floor like, yeah, the game's over. We won,
10:23we won. But that was the smartness of the Lakers and the Celtics. They took advantage of every
10:39competitive thing that they could to win the basketball game. And we learned from them,
10:44and I admire them for being great teachers to us. Well, let me follow up on that because,
10:51all right, you kind of won it in 88, and you knew you had you, you had Dumar, you had Vinnie
10:57Johnson, you had Lambeer, but you also had two young guys, John Sally and Dennis Rodman. And
11:02it felt like they injected, when they got here to Detroit, something that took you guys over the top.
11:10I'm looking at the Warriors now. They got Butler, Steph Curry, and Draymond Green, two of them
11:16champions, but they have young players, rookies and second-year guys. How did you know that Sally
11:23and Rodman were championship pedigree, as opposed to maybe a young player that didn't have it? Do
11:31you think you could have won it without those two guys? Oh, we never would have won without Rodman
11:38and Sally. It just wouldn't have happened. No way. What they brought, they brought defense,
11:47shot blocking, rebounding. And, you know, every team that I've played on has arguably been the
11:56best, has been looked at as some of the best defensive teams in history. And my high school
12:04team at St. Joe's, my college team at Indiana, we went through the tournament and UConn just
12:13kind of knocked us out of our record. We were the only team that had won every game by double digits.
12:22And my NBA team is known as one of the best defensive teams ever. So there's one thing that
12:29when you talk about me that I have in common, it goes defense and rebounding. We got Rodman and
12:35Sally, what they brought is defense, rebounding, shot blocking. And I always believe that, hey,
12:42if I can score and I can stop the other team from scoring, keyword, if I can stop the other team
12:49from scoring, then I got a chance to win. And that's what Rodman and Sally brought to us.
12:54How did I know that they would be great? Actually, Mark Aguirre calls me from Dallas
13:03doing the draft. He's with the Dallas Mavericks and he had been playing pickup basketball
13:10against Dennis Rodman in the gym. And he said, we don't have a pick. And I've talked to all guys
13:19about drafting Rodman, but they're not going to draft him. He said, but if you guys got a pick,
13:25he said, Zeke, I'm telling you, I play against this guy every single day, draft him. Now we go
13:34to, everybody goes to Portsmouth to work out. Rodman has asthma. So he couldn't, he couldn't
13:44really perform and play the way he needed to play. And his game was such that, you know,
13:50in the NBA, all they, they want to know is, can you shoot? Can you make a layup? Can you dunk?
13:54Well, the defenders never really get looked at. So we draft Sally and Rodman, they come to our
14:02team and we immediately jump up because we, we got Lambert was the number one rebounder in the
14:09league at that time. And then, then we get Rodman who knocks Lambert down to number two or three.
14:17So anytime you missed a shot, there was no such thing as a second shot against the Detroit
14:23distance. We got every rebound. We stopped you from scoring. And then we went down and scored.
14:29Isaiah, I want to ask you about the longevity of Steph Curry, because I know that things were a lot
14:35different back when you played, but at the age 32, 33, when, when you finished and hung him up,
14:42Steph is, he's 37 now. And I just, I'm curious if you ever thought that a player would be able
14:48to sustain that the way that Curry has, the way that LeBron has, but specifically Steph and the
14:55position that he plays at his height and frame, just what he's doing at this age, did you ever
15:00think that that'd be possible? Yeah, you got to remember, I played in an era where my last game
15:08was against, I mean, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's last game was against me in, in 89 in the NBA finals.
15:18He was 40 and we were still double teaming him. Right. And then, and then you look at Stockton
15:26who went until 40. So, um, you know, you, you, you got a big guy and you got a small guy.
15:32So yeah, it's been done before. Now I tell you what hasn't been done.
15:37Um, Steph Curry, the way he shoots the basketball, and this is the scary thing for the NBA.
15:45The older you get, the better you shoot. So, you know, it's like the, it's like the,
15:53it's like the old guy in the park who's, you know, 52 years old and he can still shoot this
15:59and don't leave him over and don't leave, don't leave that old guy open because he can knock it
16:03down. Well, Steph Curry's greatest talent is shooting the basketball and that's never going
16:10to go away. That's the only going to get better with time. So, uh, he has the, he has the best
16:19skill and he's, he's with the right coach and the right organization because their style of play
16:29allows him to move without the basketball, catch, shoot, and, and then be creative and imaginative.
16:38So you can't necessarily say a Steph Curry is going to catch it on the left side of the court.
16:43Right. Then he's going to dribble two times. Then he's going to take a shot. And you know,
16:47when he does that, he shoots 45% from that. And then Steph Curry, they're going to run a play
16:52call. Um, that play is called 22 down. And when he catches it at the top, you know, he's going to
16:59dribble two times to the left and then he's going to shoot it from there. And by the way, he shoots
17:0338% from there. So when Steph Curry gets it at the top of the key and 22 down, this is what we're
17:09going to do. Well, when you plan Golden State, you can't, there is no 22 down. There is no 47 up
17:18there. You know, there, you know, they, they read and react and, and Steph is allowed the freedom
17:24to play, which he can play like this for a very, very long time and play at a very high level.
17:32Wow. Isaiah Thomas joining us on 95.7, the game. Uh, I'll let you go on this one. And you've been
17:37super generous with your time. Thank you so much. The Warriors have a young player,
17:41Jonathan Kamenga. He's 22 years old. Uh, he's in his fourth year and there's been some fits and
17:47starts. He's got a lot of talent. Um, but he got drafted onto a team with, with, uh, you know,
17:53championship pedigree and championship thoughts. So he's, it's been a little uneven for him. Do
17:58you have any thoughts on Jonathan Kamenga and, and his game? Well, he's, he's extremely talented
18:06as all of you have seen. And all of us know, um, you know, he's, he's battled injuries, uh,
18:13his game, uh, fits perfectly with the Warriors and who they are and what they're trying to do.
18:19Um, you know, you, Hey, you got, you got first-class talent, first-class organization,
18:26first-class people. So, you know, you, you got a chance to win. You got a chance to win.
18:31They can win at all. You think, you know, I, I, I, I hesitate when I say this, because
18:39this is probably the first time I think, uh, and me being around the NBA,
18:47that literally you can look at eight, nine teams and say, if they catch fire for 30, 40 day period,
18:58they can end up winning. They can end up being the champion. You know, we,
19:02we've always asked for parody in the NBA. We've talked about it for a lot of years,
19:08but we never really achieved it. I think this year we have what the NFL has achieved in terms of
19:16parody and, um, Hey, the last 40 days, who's, who's ever playing the best basketball the last
19:2440 days, they really do have a chance to win it. You look at the West and tell me one through 10,
19:30you know, any one of those teams can get hot and be like, Hey, we can't beat them. You,
19:36you go to the East and you look at, you know, their top six, seven teams, you know, they,
19:43it's, it's really competitive. And in the standing short on any given night,
19:49you can drop from three all the way down to eight. If you go have a three game losing streak.
19:55Hey, Isaiah, man, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it. And, uh, we'll look
20:00for you on NBA TV and we love your stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you guys.
20:05Appreciate the questions and good luck to you. I hope you make a lot of money and they pick your
20:09show up. And one day you become like Stephen A. Smith and make like a hundred million dollars.
20:14So good luck guys. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Isaiah, Isaiah Thomas. Oh, Zeke. Oh man.
20:20One of the greatest point guards of all time. That's that's cool, dude. That's not even a hot
20:25take. One of the greatest point guards of all time. One of the great players of all time.