Oct
2
Filed Under NBA, Commentary
Isiah Thomas’ Reputation is Further Sullied in Sexual Harassment Case
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.
Thomas was the ringleader of the goony Pistons squads that relied on outright thuggery and street tactics to intimidate teams into submission. The physicality of the Pistons from the late eighties and early nineties paved the way for Pat Riley’s Knicks and the game as it is today, which is way too much like football rather than being the fluid game that is was meant to be.
There’s the story of Thomas freezing out Chicago Bulls rookie Michael Jordan during the 1984 NBA All-Star Game, something that Jordan would never forget during his career.
Don’t forget the ultimate lack of class that Thomas displayed when he refused to congratulate the Chicago Bulls after the team finally dethroned the Pistons in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. The image of Thomas, walking past the Chicago bench with head buried in his warm-ups as Jordan, Scottie Pippen and other Bulls rightfully looked down on him in disdain, was reflective of the type of person that Thomas was then and is still now.
After serving as a General Manager of the Toronto Raptors in the mid-nineties, Thomas nearly ran the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) to the brink of extinction and then walked away as he has always done, wiping his hands clean.
As Head Coach of the Indiana Pacers, Thomas helped further cultivate the monster that became Ron Artest, whom Thomas advocated to play like a Bad Boy, and presided over one of the most underachieving teams in the league.
And as President and Head Coach of the Knicks, Thomas has put together one of the sorriest teams in the history of the game. If there ever was a team that personified all that’s wrong with the league today, it’s the Knicks, a compilation of overpaid malcontents, with Stephon Marbury at the head.
Thomas has spent a lot of money on an embarrassing Knicks roster that has failed to make the playoffs under his helm. From making terrible acquisitions like Marbury, Steve Francis and Jerome James to signing vagabond Larry Brown as Head Coach to a lengthy contract and then getting rid of him after a 2005-2006 season in which Brown was an ego maniac engaged in a power battle with Zeke, Isiah Thomas and the Knicks are a laughingstock on the floor.
And now the organization as a whole is even more of a joke with this recent sexual harassment case painting Thomas and the Knicks internal culture as being more like a frat house than a professional place of business. Thomas has admitted to kissing Sanders, being rebuffed and scolded by the organization, but maintained his innocence to other charges this afternoon.
Thomas was accused of allegedly calling Sanders a ‘bitch’ and ‘ho,’ chastising white season-ticket owners, complaining about having to participate in the team’s marketing efforts, and helping getting the former executive terminated from her $260,000 job. The case also detailed the story of a Knicks function at a strip club in which Marbury had sex with a MSG intern outside of the establishment.
All in all, this case was disturbing on so many levels but not surprising when considering who it centered on: Isiah Thomas and the New York Knicks!
There’s a reason while NBA greats Larry Bird and Michael Jordan can’t stand Thomas, and why even Isiah’s friend Magic Johnson has disassociated himself in recent years. Isiah Thomas is two-faced, charming on the outside, vicious on the inside, a bad seed that should be avoided at all costs.
It’s time for NBA Commissioner David Stern to take harsh action with Thomas, who should be gone from the league but may not even be suspended.
While the league says that it does not address civil issues, it needs to make an example of Thomas in the wake of this sexual harassment case and a gambling scandal in the last couple of months, by levying a long suspension.
Because one thing is certain, the Knicks are not going to fire Thomas. What would give anyone the impression that such an organization, bumbling and fumbling on and off the court in the last five years, would make a right decision? The Knicks hired Isiah Thomas to begin with, despite his disturbing track record, and are apparently fine with him further running the organization into the ground.
by Chris Maynard, chris@hoops4thesoul.com
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