Published: October 23, 2009
Isiah Thomas is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He surely ranks among the best point guards in history, and anyone who ever watched him play can attest that few players have ever played with more fire and spirit than the former Detroit Pistons legend.
Based on his career on the basketball court, we should collectively think about Thomas as an iconic figure and one of the true luminaries of his sport.
But we don’t. When we contemplate all that is Isiah Thomas, more often then not the former star comes up miserably short.
With Thomas in the news this week as his once-friendly relationship with Magic Johnson has taken a dismal turn for the worse, we are again presented with the prospect of how we should try to understand him.
In the fifteen years since he stepped away from the Pistons, the public perception of Thomas has steadily morphed – he is no longer thought of as the basketball virtuoso he once was and instead is perceived as nothing more than punchline to a poorly written comedic farce.
As a result of his many public failings over the last decade, we now perceive Thomas as a little more than a half-witted executive. Fair or not, that perception is now Thomas’ reality and is indelibly how we will remember his legacy from now on.
It wasn’t always this way.
Once, Thomas was his generation’s Allen Iverson: a fiery competitor whose lack of physical size was countered by his unrelenting motor and belief in himself. Thomas was one of the toughest, meanest player of all time; he would end his career as Detroit’s all-time leader in points, steals, assists, and games played.
For the better part of the 1980’s Thomas showed the basketball world what the ideal point guard looked like, serving as the precursor to the likes of Chris Paul in the way he masterfully controlled all aspects of the court and demanded attention, from opponents and fans alike.
He was the unquestioned leader of a “Bad Boy” Pistons team that won back-to-back titles and won Finals MVP in 1990 by averaging over 27 points and 7 assists a game.
Though it is often forgotten today, Thomas is the same man responsible for one of the defining basketball moments of the decade. Late in Game 6 of the 1987 Finals, he severely sprained his ankle, to the degree that he likely should not have continued to play, such was his limited mobility. But play on he did and hobbled and winced his way to 25 points in the fourth quarter in what was one of the most inspiring performances in NBA history.
Great though it was, that performance that is rarely mention today, which stands to corroborate how his managerial ineptitude and controversial personal conduct has destroyed his memory in the public’s eye.
First came his failings as part owner and Vice President of the Toronto Raptors. Thomas was chased out of Toronto within four years of the franchise’s inception after feuding with management over his place in the organization, but not before he passed on drafting the likes of Ray Allen and Kobe Bryant.
After leaving the Raptors, Thomas joined NBC as a lead game analyst, an experiment that failed miserably: Thomas often seemed vengeful and bitter when discussing former opponents, most notably when discussing Michael Jordan.
Bitterness between the rivals dates back to 1985 and the well-documented “freeze-out” Thomas reported orchestrated against Jordan in the All-Star Game supposedly out of jealousy. The case for Thomasis not helped by the incident where he lead the Pistons in walking off the court after being swept by Jordan’s Bulls before time even expired, refusing to shake hands.
Thomas was ultimately removed as analyst and became part of the studio team before leaving broadcasting entirely, which lead to his next great public fiasco. Thomas bought the Continental Basketball Association and proceeded to drive it into the ground so rapidly that one almost had to applaud the sheer egregiousness of his mismanagement.
Within eighteen months of his purchase, the 51-year-old league was forced into bankruptcy and folded in no small part due to Thomas’ reported micromanaging and crazed spending.
After the washout that was the CBA, and the misadventure that was Thomas’ coaching tenure with the Indiana Pacers, he took the reigns of the New York Knicks, and proceeded to give sports commentators a run for the ages where blundering management was concerned.
Isiah resume with the Knicks included: signing of Vin Baker when he was an admitted alcoholic; signing of Jerome James to a Megatron-sized contract; trading unprotected lottery picks for Eddy Curry, who had a known weight problem and an unknown heart condition; trading for Stephon Marbury; trading Kurt Thomas; firing Larry Brown; trading for Steve Francis; and on, and on, and on.
By the end of the 2006 season, Thomas had brought the Knicks the highest payroll in the league and its second worst record. He had become a walking punch-line in the media and the memory of his playing genius came as only an afterthought to his reputation as a managerial failure.
And this is to make no mention of his questionable personal behavior, specifically the fact that Thomas was found guilty of sexually harassing and verbally abusing a fellow employee whom the team was forced to pay a staggering $11.6 million.
If the previous decade had not shifted public perception of Thomas enough, last October he was reportedly hospitalized after overdosing on sleep medication and being found unconscious only to apparently try to deflect negative publicity by claiming the person treated that day was his 17-year old daughter. Those allegations, if true, paint the portrait of a very low and desperate man indeed.
And now comes the revelation from Johnson’s book that Thomas spread rumors questioning Johnson’s sexuality after he was diagnosed with HIV. Whether that claim proves to be true or not, it is but another sad chapter in Isiah’s post-Piston life.
Johnson himself writes in his new book: “I’m sad for Isiah. He has alienated so many people in his life, and he still doesn’t get it.”
One has to believe there is a reason he has consistently been cast in the negative light in stories about feuding stars all these years. Whether it is simply a case of Thomas not being able to successfully manipulate his image in his favor the way Jordan and Johnson did so well, or whether his ego truly is as big as it appears, the consequence is that a player who scored over 18,000 points and ranks fifth all-time in assists is perceived as not only a villain, but often as a joke.
It would seem that Isiah Thomas the player will not be fairly judged by history…but perhaps only as a result of Isiah Thomas the man.
One Comment on "Perception Is Reality With Isiah Thomas"
Hoops Addict Article – Perception is Reality with Isiah Thomas | The On Deck Circle on Fri, 23rd Oct 2009 12:14 pm
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