Isiah Thomas on the Bad Boys and Why Detroit Never Got Credit | Living for the City Full Interview

Isiah Thomas is a Basketball Hall of Famer and the captain of the Detroit Pistons' "Bad Boys," the back-to-back champions who played the game their own way and never apologized for it. This conversation goes far beyond basketball. This is his full conversation with host Hanif Abdurraqib.

Thomas walks through the sound of the Bad Boys locker room, the shift from funk to hip hop, "Freaks Come Out at Night" as the team's entrance music, and the season MTV and Downtown Julie Brown followed the team around Detroit. He talks about the crowd erupting to Hava Nagila one quarter and Prince the next, the third jersey that started as pure Detroit innovation, and why the team's national reputation as villains never matched how the city actually saw them. He gets specific about Kid Rock and Eminem sharing the arena, MC Hammer bringing TLC to the Palace, and the Dietrich furs that became part of a swagger the team built by actually being in the neighborhoods.

He also opens up about his decades-long friendship with Aretha Franklin, from the day her family reached out to a young player who didn't know how to pay his bills, to the night he escorted her to her final performance at the Kennedy Center, and the eulogy he gave from the heart at her funeral. He talks about the vets who raised him, Phil Hubbard and Greg Kelser, what he thinks sports mentorship has lost, and why Detroit felt like home from day one.

CHAPTERS

00:15 - The Bad Boys Locker Room: From Funk to Hip Hop

01:13 - MTV, Downtown Julie Brown, and Breaking Mariah Carey

03:07 - Villains Nationally, Motown at Home: The Real Detroit Story

06:04 - "Freaks Come Out at Night" and the Sound of the Bad Boys

10:10 - The Third Jersey and the Birth of Bad Boys Marketing

13:20 - Kid Rock, Eminem, MC Hammer, and a City That Never Got Credit

16:57 - Dietrich Furs and Building Real Swagger

19:30 - Aretha Franklin: Friendship, Community, and a Eulogy From the Heart