Bill Laimbeer Calls Michael Jordan, Bulls 'Whiners' After Criticism of Bad Boys

Sunday's two episodes of ESPN's documentary miniseries about the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, The Last Dance, further explored the team's rivalry with the Bad Boys Detroit Pistons in the late 1980s and early '90s. 

Namely, it examined the Pistons' controversial decision to not shake hands after the Bulls finally beat Detroit in the postseason during the 1991 Eastern Conference finals. Michael Jordan and members of that Bulls team ripped the Pistons for walking off the court without shaking hands, but former Pistons big man Bill Laimbeer told ESPN's Rachel Nichols on The Jump that the Bulls were "whiners":

"They whined and cried for a year and a half about how bad we were for the game, but more importantly, they said we were bad people. We weren't bad people. We were just basketball players winning, and that really stuck with me because they didn't know who we were or what we were about as individuals and our family life.

"But all that whining they did, I didn't want to shake their hand. They were just whiners. They won the series. Give him credit: We got old, they got past us. But OK, move on." 

And while Isiah Thomas said it was "unfortunate" that the Pistons didn't shake hands with the Bulls, feeling it unnecessarily tarnished the team's reputation—"Looking back, over the years, had we had the opportunity to do it all over again, I think all of us would make a different decision," he said on ESPN's Get Up on Monday—Laimbeer has no regrets. 

"Why would I regret it now today? I don't care what the media says about me. I never did," he told Nichols. "If I did, I'd be a basket case, especially back then. I was about winning basketball games and winning championships and did whatever I had to do to get the most out of my ability and our team—and we did. At the end of the day, we're called world champions."

The context of the rivalry between the Pistons and Bulls is important to understand. The Pistons eliminated the Bulls in three straight postseasons between 1988 and 1990, going on to win two titles behind players like Thomas, Laimbeer, Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman. 

But it was how the Pistons beat the Bulls—and how they played in general—that stoked the fires. The Pistons had a set of rules to defend Jordan, but when all else failed, the plan was simply to beat him up physically and knock him to the ground when he drove to the basket. 

That physical style of play had long been a hallmark of the Bad Boys Pistons. Laimbeer, in particular, had a reputation for being an aggressive and dirty player, as evidence by his litany of unflattering nicknames. He was called during his career "the prince of darkness," "a street thug," "an ax murderer" and "His Heinous," per NBA.com.

"Tell you the truth, if I didn't know Bill, I wouldn't like him either," Thomas once said of his friend. 

So Jordan and the Bulls already despised the Pistons. That the Pistons didn't shake their hands after the Bulls finally beat them gave players like Jordan the chance to further rip the Pistons publicly. They took that opportunity then, and they continued to do so in The Last Dance. 

"Straight up b---hes," former Bulls player Horace Grant said of the Pistons choosing not to shake hands.

It's a sentiment the rest of the Bulls seem to share. Laimbeer, however, doesn't care.