“I remain confident in the man that I am and what I stand for.” – Isiah Thomas
CHARLESTON, S.C. – Like hundreds of others who’ve worked for, played with or for, and partied alongside Isiah Thomas, when I heard his closing “not-guilty-as-found” statement on the courthouse steps I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
Classic crock on any frequency!
Snickering has yet to subside between the moon and New York City.
How many times can a man deny wrongdoing before his credibility is irretrievably impounded?
How often can blame be shifted before even the blindest loyalist converts to a Doubting Thomas?
How many times can truthfulness be dodged during decades of incidents and accidents, hints and allegations?
How come someone’s always lying about Thomas? Distorting what he said or did? Fabricating things he claims he didn’t say or do? Why is everybody so hostile toward him? So quick to think the worst? Taking such pleasure in persecuting, er, prosecuting him?
Remember when word got out that Julius Erving had been supporting an illegitimate child for about 18 years? “If I had done something like that I’d be getting killed every day. The media would never let me live that down,” Thomas bitterly complained to me.
Years later, it came to light he’d fathered a boy while engaged to Lynn, his wife for the past 20-some-odd years.
Has Thomas ever accepted responsibility for anything that blew up or went askew?
Bill Davidson and Thomas were the only ones at a meeting when the Pistons owner pledged to give his treasured guard a piece of the team and control of it. Somehow the story of the momentous guarantee got into the Detroit Free Press. Commitment canceled! Mr. D. was doubly furious when Thomas came to his home and swore on his father’s grave he wasn’t responsible for the leak. Beat writer Corky Meinecke, 42, died some six months later from cancer. His story never wavered. He told confidants Thomas indeed was the source and that he had confirmed it with someone else Thomas had entrusted – otherwise he probably wouldn’t have written it.
Still, Thomas always portrays himself as the injured party.
Purportedly the Bulls’ vulgar talk about Dennis Rodman’s wife, Annie, prompted to organize numerous Pistons walking to the locker room minutes before Chicago officially ended the Bad Boys’ reign.
The Raptors’ majority owner supposedly had it in for him, stirring him to sell his slice of Toronto – though he had exclusivity for eight months to buy control and never made a bid.
David Stern forced him to surrender the CBA before he could become Pacers coach, at the loss of his $9M investment; oh, yeah, Thomas rejected that amount as payment from the NBA, mistakenly thinking he could squeeze it for more, thus bankrupting a minor league that had been in existence for more than 50 years.
In Thomas’ mind he’s a victim of this, a victim of that: His alleged All-Star freeze out of Michael Jordan (3-9) is total garbage; Surly Jimmy Carter had it in for him when he directed a boycott of the Moscow Olympics; There was a conspiracy led by Jordan (more likely agent David Falk) to bar him from the 1992 Dream Team; The Indianapolis police who stopped him for riding on the shoulder of the road around an accident and refusing to show license and registration in a timely manner were racists; Larry Bird’s reason for firing him was due to his vocal support of Rodman’s nonsensical assessment: “If he were black he’d be just another player.”
He never screamed at his Knicks to break Bruce Bowen’s leg, never ordered his players to take out the next Nugget who drove the lane; never owned up that any of his hires, signings or trades were nuclear wastes.
It’s always the teacher’s fault.
The problem is, how often can innocence be proclaimed – no matter how brazenly and loud – before a stunt actor is required to handle sworn testimony?
Thomas can declare his incorruptibility with every outraged breath; intimates know better. The Anucha Browne Sanders sexual harassment jury served to confirm that.
Only James Dolan remains blissfully oblivious to Thomas’ long-running con game. Only a supreme sucker like the Cablevision chairman can do business in such substandard fashion and still be in business.
Only Dolan would be so arrogantly unmoved by the initial judgment. He’s probably thrilled at the prospects of writing an $11.6 million check to an ex-employee for which the Knicks don’t have to pay the luxury tax.
Only a little rich kid who earned his money exactly the way Leona Helmsley’s dog earned his would be so insensitive to keep his coach/president. Co-culpability tends to make bosses aggressively averse to decontaminate the premises and antagonistically prompt to show continued support.
You’d think a guy like Thomas, who went to all the trouble of making himself so presentable and believable in court and at his deposition would know clothes and a manure-eating smile don’t make the man or what he stands for.
In the end another suit wound up fitting him perfectly. Only this time he doesn’t look so good in it. If the suit fits, you must split.