Dennis Rodman said he never regretted the Detroit Pistons' decision to walk off the floor without shaking hands with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls after the 1991 playoffs, revisiting one of the most criticized moments in NBA postseason history. Asked about it by The Athletic, Rodman answered, “Well, not really,” and said the Pistons headed straight into the tunnel in Game 4 because they did not want to stay and watch Chicago celebrate a sweep on Detroit's home floor.
Rodman framed the reaction as the end of a rivalry Detroit had controlled for years before the 1991 Eastern Conference finals, when the Pistons used “The Jordan Rules” to batter Jordan and repeatedly keep the Bulls out of the NBA Finals. He said the sweep happened too quickly for his team to absorb, adding, “We didn't know how to handle Chicago in 1991.”
“Because it was so fast,” Rodman said, pointing to the way Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant and Jordan all had their games on when the Bulls finally broke through. “Scottie got his game on. Horace [Grant] had his game on. And Michael always had his game on,” he said, describing a Pistons team that had run out of answers by the first two or three games. By then, Rodman said, frustration had left Detroit with little besides physical play, and when that failed, the Pistons chose to leave without the customary postgame handshake. “And when that didn't work, we did the old okie doke. We didn't want to shake your hands. Screw you,” he said.
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The no-handshake departure remains one of the league’s most replayed and debated playoff scenes, especially after The Last Dance brought it back into the spotlight years later. Rodman’s comments read less like a fresh reflection than a continued defense of the Pistons’ reaction to losing the series that ended their run of dominance. Isiah Thomas has since taken a different view, saying he would shake Jordan’s hand if he could go back to 1991 and calling the moment poor sportsmanship; he also said it was a decision he would definitely want a mulligan on.
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That split response keeps the episode alive because it still sits at the fault line of two eras: the Pistons’ hard-edged reign and the Bulls' takeover. Rodman is still standing by the old answer, while Thomas has already said he would choose differently.
