Oct
2
A New York jury found Isiah Thomas liable for sexual harassment today in an ugly case involving former Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders, and ruled that team owner James Dolan and his Madison Square Garden empire must shell out $11.6 million in damages.
The question remains how Thomas still has a job in the NBA? While he may have been one of the top 50 players in NBA history, Thomas is also one of the most despicable human beings to ever be involved in the game.
While a two-time NBA Champion with the Detroit Pistons, Isiah Thomas played a cut-throat game straight out of the playgrounds of Chicago’s South Side. Thomas unfortunately carried this playground attitude of anything goes to his post-playing days.
The signs of the true Isiah Thomas were always there during his playing career. While able to cast a smile from ear-to-ear and appear to be happy, go-lucky, Thomas was a monster inside, one of the most manipulative players in the game.
by Chris Maynard, chris@hoops4thesoul.com
Oct
2
Current New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets big man Tyson Chandler was born 25 years ago today. Amazingly, Chandler is preparing to enter his seventh year in the NBA this season as a strong defender and rebounder with no offensive game to speak of.
Chandler is far from the player who was described as “Baby Garnett” when he was selected by the Clippers with the second overall pick in the 2001 NBA Draft and later traded that night to the Bulls for superstar Elton Brand, the first overall pick of the 1999 NBA Draft.
Combined with Chicago’s first-round selection that night, fourth-overall pick and local high school star Eddy Curry, Krause believed that he was changing the course of the Bulls franchise with these two seven-footers out of high school. Chicago had become an embarrassing joke of castoffs, wannabes and overmatched college stars after Krause gutted the organization following Michael Jordan’s second retirement announcement in January of 1999.
In simple terms, the Chandler and Curry experiment would turn out to be a big failure that Krause wouldn’t even witness to its end. The controversial Bulls General Manager would resign from his position in 2003.
