Michael Jordan (Photo via a CC BY-NC 4.0 license).
In many cases, a lie or a rumor told over time can morph into the truth.
Also, by the time the lie or rumor is disproven, it may be too late.
Where’s the truth?
Some would say a rumor has its roots in the truth.
Sportswriter Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson gets to the bottom of things via his new mini-documentary “Freeze-out,” where he speaks to some of the players who were at the 1985 NBA All-Star Game that was the backdrop for an alleged “Freeze-Out” of newly-minted Bulls superstar Michael Jordan by Pistons point guard Isiah Thomas, born and bred Out West.
The mini-documentary premiered earlier this week on Robinson’s YouTube channel.
The “Freeze-Out,” again, was an alleged attempt to put Jordan in his place behind the NBA’s established superstars of the day (Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Chicago native Terry Cummings, Moses Malone and Julius Irving, et al.)
While working on his Scoop B Radio Podcast, Robinson interviewed Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins, who participated in NBA All-Star Weekend’s Slam Dunk Contest back then, besting Jordan to win the crown.
Something Wilkins said — or quite frankly didn’t say — piqued Robinson’s interest.
“… When I asked the question, he was hesitant, and I found that interesting because I’ve always heard about it,” said Robinson. “There was always this mystery to it, but it was like [an] urban legend. People would say it happened, and everybody believed it — and it was law.
“And so what happened was when we dropped a few months after I interviewed him, the feedback was crazy. The blogs wrote about it like crazy. It was people who wrote big pieces. And I said, ‘Man, people really have an interest in something,’ but this was pre-internet digital age. And I said I want to expand on this more. Of course, ‘The Last Dance’ came out five years ago, and so there’s this stuff out there. I started asking people questions just about the “Freeze-Out” game, and it was interesting.”
Jordan scored seven points in the 1985 NBA All-Star game. In the Bulls’ next meeting with the Pistons, Jordan erupted for 49 points with 15 rebounds, five assists and four steals in a victory over their division rival.
For the “The Freeze-out,” Robinson, a hoops insider and historian, interviewed some of the All-Star game’s participants including Bucks guard Sidney Moncrief and Nets guard Michael Ray Richardson.
Moncrief and Richardson, Robinson says, shot down any talk that a “Freeze-Out” of Jordan took place.
“When I spoke to Sidney Moncrief, for example, he said to me that he didn’t hear about a ‘Freeze-Out’ until years later. It wasn’t something that guys had a meeting about and said: ‘Hey, we’re going to freeze Michael out,’” said Robinson. “I asked him, ‘Did he think it was possible that people could have conspired?’ And he said, ‘Sure, in basketball, you could do it,’ but he said he didn’t feel that in this particular game; it could have happened that way.”
Richardson, whom Robinson says, like Moncrief, also heard about the “Freeze-Out” years later, believes the flow dictated the outcome.
“… He said that he didn’t see how that could be at all possible based upon just the flow of the game. There were times where Isiah actually passed [Jordan] the ball. Isiah was actually hurt in the second half of that game. He had, I think, a hamstring injury in that game…So even the notion of him freezing the ball, he played more limited minutes in the second half. I watched the game, and just the way he was playing in the first half versus the second half, there were some significant differences there as well.”
NBA Insider and media personality Brandon Scoop B Robinson drops a mini-doc on the infamous Jordan Freeze-Out game (Images Provided).
In Robinson’s estimation, the “Freeze-Out”, albeit proven to be false, along with the very real feelings stemming from the Bulls-Pistons rivalry, led to Thomas’s glaring omission from the 1992 Dream Team.
As many of us witnessed during the ballyhooed “The Last Dance” documentary series chronicling the Bulls championship runs, et al., those hard feelings created by playoff battles remain.
Robinson says as much. He’d like viewers of the mini-documentary to gain a measure of perspective regarding the “Freeze-Out,” which has gained so much lore over the years.
He also makes it clear that the beef was indeed real, no matter how it started.
“I think sometimes, and people say it enough, it’s believable,” said Robinson. “And even if you know they come away not believing it, it just gives a different perspective in barbershop conversations and family gatherings, and I think just in everyday conversations amongst people who watch basketball. I think it gives people something else to talk about. And I think that’s what me and my team hope to accomplish from all of this.
“I think I’d be dumb to think that there wasn’t something there between [Thomas] and Michael. I think that the both of them were competitors, and I think that there was something that was said. I can’t get a gauge on what it was specifically. And if I had to fuse everything together from folks that I’ve spoken with, if there wasn’t a ‘Freeze-Out’ game, I think what was the case was that those teams were bitter rivals.”
About Post Author
