Sports of Boston » Isiah Thomas

Isiah Thomas Has Found a New Home to Wreck

Adam — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:52:59 +0000

Don’t you hate it when pests return? Well that’s what happened this week when it was announced that Florida International University hired Isiah Thomas to coach their team. It’s a sad attempt to grab attention. This is after all, the same Isiah Thomas who has failed at almost every post-playing-career job that he has been hired for.

Isiah’s been a failure on an executive level in a variety of ways. He bought the CBA for $5 million in 1998 and within two years caused the league’s bankruptcy, despite having received an offer of $11 million for it to be bought and become the minor leagues of the NBA (of course Isiah rejected it). For normal people, 11 is greater than 0, but in Isiah World, 0 beats all.

Then as President of Basketball Operations of the New York Knicks, allow me to list his accomplishments:

He managed to keep their payroll way beyond the cap limit
He acquired Eddy Curry for way too much
He did not protect certain lottery draft picks
He signed Vin Baker, who put up numbers that any SoB authors could have put up
He traded Baker for Maurice Taylor which hurt the Knicks’ cap
He signed Jared Jeffries before deciding to draft a player with a similar skill set
He signed Jerome James to an outlandish contract
He traded Trevor Ariza for Steve Francis despite having Stephon Marbury on the roster
He hired Larry Brown despite not having a team built for his style of play
He fired Larry Brown after one season
He acquired Stephon Marbury early on in his tenure for way too much

Gee.. does anyone see anything resembling positive results here? If Isiah Thomas ran any investment bank during the past 10 years, they would’ve been so badly in the hole, the US would have to double it’s national deficit just to bail them out.

But, let’s not forget that as a coach Isiah has been an underperformer as well. Under Thomas, the Pacers never performed very well and the Knicks were even worse. Thomas showed a consistent ability to get his teams to perform below expectations. Furthermore, with the Knicks he managed to even create negative controversy with the brawl in Denver. Isiah finished his time in New York by “coaching” the team to a .280 winning percentage.

Finally, Isiah has shown an inability to even be a positive human being. Isiah Thomas was found guilty of sexual harassment of a Madison Square Garden and New York Knicks employee. After the jury rendered its verdict, Isiah spoke as if he was living in a different reality than everyone else, saying “I’m innocent, I’m very innocent, and I did not do the things she has accused me in this courtroom of doing, I’m extremely disappointed that the jury did not see the facts in this case.”

I suppose that’s how Isiah justified that it was the right move to let the CBA go bankrupt as well. There is also the sad incident of Isiah overdosing on sleeping pills and attempting to claim that it was his daughter that the ambulance rushed to the hospital, not him. Despite the facts stating otherwise, yet again Isiah claimed his story was right.

So FIU has managed to hire someone who sees the world through very filtered lenses and why? I guess they need the attention that badly in a state where they are far from the top attraction, in a sport where they rarely win their conference and have only had one NCAA tournament appearance. FIU, however, is opening up a can of worms they won’t be able to contain.

Knicks Fire Isiah, Keep Him for ‘Advice’

KC Downey — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:10:47 +0000

The New York Knicks made their first smart move since Patrick Ewing left, firing one of the worst coaches and especially one of the worst GM’s of all time in Isiah Thomas.

New Knicks president Donnie Walsh seems excited about replacing Isiah:

“If I could get the coach I wanted right away, then that would be great, but if it’s going to take time, then I have to give it that time. I know this: That by getting to this by today, Friday, we still have a good selection of people that are available out there. I will get calls. This is a coveted job, and people will want to coach here. So I’m going to get calls.”

My thoughts: What took so long? How could Isiah keep the job for so long while the Knicks continued to rot into the doldrums of the NBA’s cellar. He was a terrible GM and arguably a worse coach. He also cost the Knicks and Madison Square Garden more than 50 million dollars in the Anucha Brown-Sanders sexual harassment case. I think he must be the nicest guy behind closed doors, or he has a lot of money to be allowed to stick around for “advice” after his disastrous tenure. What else could be the appeal of having Isiah Thomas around?

Take That Isiah!

KC Downey — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:00:25 +0000

Isiah Thomas, above, deserves to be fired after a 45-point loss, but he probably won’t be.(Courtesy of NBA.com)

Allow me first to address Quentin Richardson’s pre-game comments that the Celtics’ Big Three weren’t a big deal.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

That game was the perfect slap in the face to the Knicks (well, more like knockout blow). Not only did I see the Celtics annihilate the Knicks by over 40 points in a 104-59 win (NBA.com Box Score), I got to do it sitting in Club Section 137 on nice padded seats with food service. Sure the seats were 150 bucks, but it’s worth it, trust me. The worst part of the win though was that I got to see just 22 minutes from Kevin Garnett. As a result, it was the Glen “Big Baby” Davis show. To be honest, Davis showed me a lot of promise as a scorer in this league.

If I’m talking about Glen “Big Baby” Davis in the first full paragraph of this post, you know that the game was a blowout. I mean, the Celtics were up by 50 late in the game! The Knicks probably wouldn’t have fared much better if it was 5-on-4. Here are some stats: the Knicks shot 30.3% from the field (23-76), had 14 turnovers and just 12 assists.

The biggest shot of the game was the final shot, a 35-foot desperation 3-pointer by Nate Robinson. With the Robinson’s 3, the Knicks avoided their lowest scoring output of all time. Instead, they finished with 59 points en route to their second-worst offensive performance in team history.

The Knicks proved to be the biggest joke of a franchise in the NBA. Isiah Thomas deserves to and probably will get fired. Isiah’s got it all: horrible trades, terrible coaching, a sexual harassment lawsuit, and the most senseless roster in the NBA. I mean, it’s a mess. Anyway, the best solution is to fire Isiah, and stop trading for contracts. Let them all expire and START OVER. There won’t be any happy Knicks fans when there’s no hope any season.

Will Isiah get fired? No. In fact, he’ll probably get a promotion for all the good he’s done to the Knicks franchise…