Magic Johnson Disses Isiah Thomas in New Book…Isiah Pissed,will not Kiss Magic Again

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It appears Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas will not be kissing each other again, anytime soon, like they enjoyed doing before tip-off of Game 1 of the 1988 NBA finals.

There is trouble in paradise today, and  the relationship clearly isn’t anywhere near as close.

Thomas told SI.com earlier this week that he is “really hurt” over criticisms levied by Johnson in a new book chronicling the careers of Johnson and Larry Bird. According to Thursday’s SI.com report, Johnson said Thomas questioned his sexuality after the Los Angeles Lakers star retired in 1991 after being diagnosed with HIV.

Ervin Magic Johnson’s new book,is called “When The Game Was Ours.”

The book, which will be released Nov. 4 and is co-written with Larry Bird and author Jackie MacMullan, deals extensively with the Lakers-Celtics-Pistons’s rivalry of the late 1980s and early ’90s.

The book dishes the dirt on everything from the reason for Thomas’ omission from the 1992 Olympic Dream Team (“Nobody on that team wanted to play with him,” Johnson says in the book) to an accusation that blamed Thomas for spreading rumors that Johnson was gay or bisexual after he was diagnosed with HIV in 1991.

On the Olympics, Magic goes further to say”Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. … Michael didn’t want to play with him. Scottie (Pippin) wanted no part of him. Bird wasn’t pushing for him. Karl Malone didn’t want him. Who was saying, ‘We need this guy?’ Nobody.'” 

“I’m really hurt,” Thomas, the coach at Florida  International University, told SI.com on Wednesday. “I really feel taken advantage of for all these years. I’m totally blindsided by this.”

“It’s so hypocritical,” Thomas said. “There is this public person and then there is this B.S. person. There’s Earvin and then there’s Magic . . . It’s just like the line he perpetuated that he got me the Knicks’ job. Oh, yeah? Ask Jim Dolan. Ask Barry Watkins. That’s a lie.”

On behalf of Dolan, Watkins, who is the Garden’s spokesman says,  “Isiah got the job on his own merits without any help or assistance from anyone.”

“I’m tired of getting punched and people using me because they think I’m not going to say anything,” Thomas said. “Those days are over. Game on.”

Last fall, Johnson said he would not recommend Thomas for any other NBA jobs, after Thomas’ stints with both the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks were rocky at times — particularly so in New York.

“I wish he would have had the courage to say this stuff to me face to face, as opposed to writing it in some damn book to sell and he can make money off it,” Thomas said.

Johnson is still upset over the rumors that Isaiah was questioning his sexuality among friends, and questioned his loyalty. Magic proclaims…The one guy I thought I could count on had all these doubts. It was like he kicked me in the stomach,” the book says.

Lets hope these two gentleman can work out their differences, or at least move forward in life, and forgive each other.

There is far too much conflict in our society to be perpetuating old differences.

The Kiss off