I Hate You, Isiah Thomas

I love the New York Knicks - at least I used to - and I hate the man who has ruined them. I'm not alone. Being disliked is nothing new for Isiah Thomas. Michael Jordan despised him. Karl Malone once tried to kill him. The original Dream Team kept him off its roster. Hell, he was one of the NBA's original Bad Boys. Isiah has always been, in large part, an unlikable star.

Isiah is basically the Keyser Soze of the NBA; he's done a lot of bad stuff, everyone knows he's a bad guy, and yet he never seems to face the music. He is, as Chazz Palmintieri said, "protected up on high by the prince of darkness." Since becoming President of the New York Knicks, Isiah has run the team so far into the ground that fans can barely relate the team on the court to the  jerseys hanging from the Garden's rafters. The Knicks of my childhood had one of the best centers of all time in Patrick Ewing, two merciless enforcers in Oakley and Mason, and a virtual-walk-on-turned-star in John Starks. They were tough and talented. And they were coached by Pat Riley. Today's Knicks don't deserve to play on the same court as those guys and their coach doesn't deserve the same title or courtside seat as Riley, Jeff Van Gundy, or even Spike Lee. Isiah Thomas has murdered New York's favorite team, has turned the Knicks into a national joke, and has robbed fans of the pride we once felt for our team  - and, inexplicably, he still has a job.

A recent piece in New York Magazine paints a brilliant description of the man in charge. It is long, but worth reading. And it contains the single best sentence I have ever seen written about Isiah's Knicks, one that brilliantly sums up everything about the team: "As they perp-walked back to their locker room under a hail of fan disdain, the surrender towels were as close as they’d come to solidarity." I used to love that team. Now I just love the memories.

Comments

[Cassidy]

The thing is that James Dolan is the guy who hired Isiah. So you could probably blame him more.

Think of all these CEO's that run companies into the ground. But couldn't you blame the board chairman who kept the horrible exec around for years and ran the company into the ground?