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In 2023, Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon dismissed Jalen Brunson as the guy on the New York Knicks because, according to her, the 6’2″ Brunson is too short to be the lead player on a championship-winning team.
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But Brunson proved Hammon wrong last season when he not only led the Knicks to the 2026 NBA title but also won Finals MVP honors. Aside from that, former Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas also said that Brunson winning it all last season also proved how great Detroit Pistons legend Isiah Thomas actually was.
“After Brunson won, it made me rethink how good Isiah Thomas was. When you’re talking about a guard and you are 6’2″ and you are the best player on the team, winning a championship and you’re talking about, in this history, there’s only been three of you and we watched what Brunson did so we know how hard that was,” Gil explained.
Gilbert Arenas says after Jalen Brunson won a championship, it made him rethink how good Isaiah Thomas was:
“The reasons that is, when you’re taking about a guard being 6’2 and you are the best player on the team. Winning a championship you’re talking about in this history there… https://t.co/6XOay9O1t5pic.twitter.com/BxOe5FXW08
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) September 17, 2026
Isiah ran through the entire gauntlet to win back-to-back titles
When talking about history, Thomas is the first player 6’2″ or shorter to be the lead player on a championship team. Isiah not only led Detroit to the promised land, but he steered them to back-to-back titles in 1989 and 1990. More impressively, the 6’1″ Zeke became the shortest player in NBA history to win the Finals MVP award, doing so in 1990.
As if those feats are not impressive enough, Isiah did his thing during the ’80s when Larry Bird and Magic Johnson ruled the NBA and Michael Jordan was beginning his rise. In 1988, Thomas’ Pistons dethroned Bird’s Celtics as Eastern Conference champions before losing to Magic’s Lakers in a championship series, which they could have easily won if Isiah had not suffered an injury in Game 6.
The following year, they finally won it all, beating the Celtics, Bulls and Lakers in the same postseason, although Larry Bird did not play in their first-round series. Detroit repeated the following year with Thomas winning the Finals MVP award.
“So it made me rethink back, you know how good and on-point you had to be to win back-to-back championships while there was a Lakers team, a Boston team and Chicago coming in. He is way better than what history is saying,” Gil added.
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Zeke never got the respect that he deserved
History tells us that Thomas was the jealous veteran who froze Michael Jordan in his first All-Star game. He was also the bitter rival who took it personally, believing that it was Mike who did not want him to be part of the Dream Team.
And so, although he became a Hall of Famer after retirement, Thomas isn’t highly regarded as one of the greatest of all time, even among the all-time great point guards.
“He feels overlooked to a certain degree because Magic was playing and Jordan was out there. ‘Dog, I won two chips when those guys were out there.’ And if you really go back and do history, it should have been three. They had the Lakers on the brink. There was a phantom foul against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He would have had a game that would have gone down as the greatest of all time in the Finals cuz that was the ankle game,” said Arenas’ new co-host Brendan Haywood.
“So to your point, Isiah Thomas definitely feels overlooked,” Haywood added.
Thomas’ Pistons are arguably the most disrespected NBA champions of all time. And it may be because of their Bad Boys persona or the physical style of play, which was really borderline dirty. But as Gil said, being a small guy leading a team to an NBA title is rare.
Only Zeke, Steph and recently, JB have accomplished the feat.
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This story was originally published September 18, 2026 at 5:19 AM.