Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan had a long rivalry with the Detroit Pistons legend Isiah Thomas. The two locked horns every time they matched up against each other. And this was a rivalry that the two players never managed to put behind them for the entirety of their careers. Jordan and Thomas did not like each other would be an understatement as they had much more strong negative emotions toward one another.

At first, you would think that the two might have had a conference rivalry. Since both, the Detroit Pistons and the Chicago Bulls were in the eastern conference. But there was so much more than that. The rivalry between the two grew so much that many have speculated that Jordan may have been the reason why Thomas wasn’t selected to play for the 1992 Olympic Dream Team.

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And the rivalry with Thomas was once used against him by Hollywood movie producers in 1987. Jordan was supposed to make a cameo in the movie Heaven Is a Playground. He was offered $50,000 for an appearance.

The threat did not faze Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan refused the offer as ProServ told them to come back with a six-figure deal instead. The producers tried to twist Jordan’s arm with a threat that they could get Isiah Thomas for the same $50,000 for the movie.

And ProServ ended up telling them to go ahead and sign Isiah. Clearly, the producers had no interest in signing Thomas as they came back with an offer for Jordan. MJ ended up signing a deal for more than $400,000 later. The Isiah Thomas threat did not faze him which led to him getting a deal eight times more than the initial offer.

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The movie Heaven Is a Playground was about a lawyer and a coach with the hopes of getting school kids out of the neighborhood. And into college programs with the help of basketball. The movie got delayed due to financial problems and was released in 1991.

Watch This Story – From Michael Jordan vs Isiah Thomas to LeBron James vs Stephen Curry, the best rivalries of all time

But a few years later, Jordan made his acting debut starring next to Bugs Bunny in Space Jam. The movie ended up becoming the highest-grossing basketball movie of all time.

Do you think Space Jam is one of the best basketball movies ever? Let us know in the comments.