A feud between Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas escalated yesterday when the former Knicks president lashed out at the Lakers legend for destroying him in a new book.
That Johnson stated his longtime mistrust of Thomas smacks of irony. In 2004, Johnson strongly lobbied to then Garden president Steve Mills to hire Thomas to run the Knicks. Johnson was initially offered the Knicks presidency but turned it down.
Mills left the Garden more than a year ago to work for Johnson.
In the book, “When the Game was Ours,” Johnson admitted he led the charge to have Thomas blackballed from the Olympic Dream Team in 1992 and, shockingly, accused Thomas of spreading rumors he was gay/bisexual after Johnson tested positive for HIV in 1991.
Thomas, now the head coach at Florida International University, ripped Johnson in an interview with SI.com.
“I’m really hurt, and I really feel taken advantage of for all these years,” said Thomas, the Hall of Fame point guard who left the Knicks in shambles after being reassigned following the 2007-2008 season.
“I’m totally blindsided by this. Every time that I’ve seen Magic, he has been friendly with me. Whenever he came to a Knick game, he was standing in the tunnel [to the locker room] with me. He and [Knicks assistant] Herb [Williams] and I, we would all go out to dinner in New York. I didn’t know he felt this way.”
In the book, Johnson accused Thomas of questioning his sexuality after he tested for HIV.
“Isiah kept questioning people about it,” Johnson said. “I couldn’t believe that. The one guy I could count on had all these doubts. It was like he kicked me in the stomach.”
Thomas said his brother, Gregory, died of AIDS five years ago. “What most people don’t know is before Magic had HIV, my brother had HIV. So I know more about the disease because I was living with it in my house.”
Johnson, who runs businesses in Harlem, also admitted he joined with Michael Jordan and other players in keeping Thomas off the Dream Team.
In the book, Johnson wrote, “Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him . . . Michael didn’t want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. [Larry] Bird wasn’t pushing for him. Karl Malone didn’t want him. Who was saying, ‘We need this guy’? Nobody.”
Thomas said yesterday, “I’m glad that he’s finally had the nerve and the courage to stand up and say it was him, as opposed to letting Michael Jordan take the blame for it all these years. I wish he would have had the courage to say this stuff to me face to face, as opposed to writing it in some damn book to sell and he can make money off it.”