Well, Isiah Thomas just woke up and decided to casually toss a flaming hot take into the basketball universe. According to him, the Chicago Bulls would have still won six championships even if Michael Jordan was swapped out for Kevin Durant.
Yes, you read that right. Deep breaths.
Now, let’s not pretend this isn’t spicy. This is the kind of take that makes sports fans drop their snacks mid-bite, because we’re not talking about replacing a role player here. We’re talking about replacing Michael Jordan, the legend whose name is basically a synonym for winning. The man who turned the ’90s into his personal highlight reel.
"If they took MJ out… Would KD have won 6 championships? Absolutely." 🏆
Isiah Thomas says the Bulls would still have 6 NBA Championships if Kevin Durant replaced Michael Jordan 😱@MichelleDBeadle | @boogiecousins | @ChandlerParsons | @TeamLou23 pic.twitter.com/pUrELZDBfw
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) March 26, 2026
But Isiah? He’s unfazed. He’s basically saying, “Relax, it was a team effort.”
“I said this to Kevin Durant and I’m gonna say this to all of you sitting on the panel and I said to Kevin Durant. Hey, ‘If you would have played back in our era and they put you in the triple post at the mid-post area and they took Michael Jordan out and you played with Pippen and you played with Kukoc and you got to run into the mid-post? Shoot,” Thomas said on the “Run it Back FanDuel” show.
“Would he have won six championships? Absolutely,” Zeke added. “With Rodman and Pippen and Kukoc and BJ and Craig Hodges and all them around him and he get to post up in the mid-range and that ball is, you know, targeted to him every night and he’s getting up 25, 30 attempts? Yeah, he can do the same thing.”
At the end of the day, could those Bulls teams still win with Durant? Maybe. Would they win six? That’s where people start laughing nervously and checking the exits, because replacing Michael Jordan isn’t like swapping phone brands, it’s like saying, “Hey, what if we replaced gravity with vibes?”
Kevin Durant says Michael Jordan would’ve joined LeBron James in the 40,000-point club if not for his retirements and injuries.
“He could’ve played past 40, too. I would say MJ took off four to five years combined. You give him 300 more games of 30 points a night. That’s not an… pic.twitter.com/vgmkmehUst
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 17, 2026
