Rod Thorn, a longtime NBA executive who played a key role in assembling the Dream Team roster for the 1992 Olympics, denied ever speaking with Jordan about keeping Thomas off the team.
“There was never anything in my conversation with [Jordan] that had to do with Isiah Thomas, period,” Thorn said Wednesday during an interview with ESPN’s Golic & Wingo. “He said, ‘I’ll do it.’ … Isiah’s name never came up during that conversation. And he never backtracked and said he didn’t want to do it from that time on, to those of us in the NBA office. Now, if that in fact happened, then it happened with somebody else; because when I talked to him, he ended up saying he would definitely do it”.
Thorn was the Bulls’ general manager from 1978 to 1985 and oversaw the team’s selection of Jordan in the 1984 draft. He said Jordan initially balked at participating in the 1992 Games. “I was the guy that called Jordan,” Thorn said. “And when I called Jordan, his first inclination was he didn’t know if he wanted to play or not — because, as he said, ‘I played on an Olympic team before’ with Bobby Knight in Los Angeles. … And so we continued the conversation, and at the end of the conversation, he said, ‘You know something? I’ll do it.’
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