"You ain't got no brothers?" - Larry Bird felt disrespected when Isiah Thomas told him that he was being guarded by white NBA players

Isiah Thomas recently recalled a hilarious encounter he had with Larry Bird. Thomas and Bird knew each other from their time in Indiana. Thomas spent his entire NBA career playing for the Detroit Pistons, where he won back-to-back NBA titles leading the “Bad Boys” outfit.

The team had a physical style of play spearheaded by Dennis Rodman, Joe Dumars, and Bill Laimbeer. The Pistons’ rise in the East meant that they came up against Bird’s Boston Celtics multiple times in playoff situations.

On the "All the Smoke" podcast, Thomas recalled that Bird once had a problem with the players he was being guarded by.

Thomas said:

“We walk out on the court, and he’s saying, “who guarding me?” I was like, you know, we got Kelly, we got Lam, we got Benson. He is like, 'you aint got no brothers?' He is like, 'you’re disrespecting me.' That is what he said. He is like, 'you can’t put a white dude on me. That is straight disrespect'”.

However, once Dennis Rodman was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in the 1986 draft, things changed:

“So the next year, we come back, I say I got I got somebody for your a**. I say, “I got Rodman. Alright, he is a little bit better!.”

Isiah Thomas thinks Dennis Rodman is the best athlete he ever played with

Dennis Rodman went on to have a highly successful career with the Chicago Bulls. Considered to be one of the best rebounders and forwards of all time, he won five NBA titles, and was the defensive lynchpin that the Detroit Pistons relied on.

Isiah Thomas claimed that what made Rodman special was how he scientifically broke down the rebounding process.

“I never saw anybody scientifically break down rebounding the way that Dennis Rodman did. So, our first couple of games, you know, we be in the lay-up line, and then he stopped. And he, you know, just stands under the rim.

He added:

And, you know, used to be you lay it up, and after you do your lay-ups, then you start taking little, short pull-up shots, right? And, so, whenever we start taking short pull-up shots, he would stop. And, so, finally, you know, I’m like, ‘What you doing, man? Get in line.’ Like, you know … He’s like, ‘Nah, I’m counting.'”

Isiah Thomas went on to reveal that Rodman was counting the number of spins on the ball when he and other Pistons players were shooting.

“This dude was counting the rotations on the ball on every player. He knew how long it was going to be in the air, how many times it rotated, where it was gonna hit, where it would bounce.”

This explains how Rodman was able to form one half of one of the most-feared duos in NBA history alongside Michael Jordan.