NBA legends Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas are no longer BFFs, apparently. This little tiff became public after news of the release of When The Game Was Ours, a Jackie MacMullan tome about the careers of Johnson and Larry Bird. Johnson alleged that Thomas, whose own brother was HIV-positive, told everyone that he was homosexual after Johnson announced that he was HIV-positive in 1991, but the fun didn’t stop there.
Johnson also tells the Web site that he helped play a role in keeping Thomas off the 1992 U.S. Olympic team.
“Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics,” Johnson said, according to SI.com. “Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. … Michael didn’t want to play with him. Scottie (Pippen) wanted no part of him. Bird wasn’t pushing for him. Karl Malone didn’t want him. Who was saying, ‘We need this guy?’ Nobody.’” –WaPo.
Whatever. Nobody’s really impressed with either of these guys anymore. Isiah’s coaching hoop at Florida Whatchamacallit now and Magic is making terrible commercials for tax shops when he’s not pretending to analyze basketball for TNT ESPN. But it goes to show that controversy and alleged gay-bashing can still make news. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to hit Quentin Tarintino over the head with Elton John.
Even as the newly-anointed basketball coach for Florida International, Isiah Thomas is still running the same playbook as before; he wants to pull his team out of the “Coaches vs. Cancer” tournament. That tournament has him slated to play against defending national champion North Carolina, and not Ohio State as Thomas and FIU expected:
“We knew nothing about this until the press release from North Carolina today,” [FIU athletic director Pete] Garcia said. “We told them last week we would not change the game and had never agreed to this.”
The group running the tournament respectfully disagrees.
Gazelle Group president Rick Giles said that he has a contract, signed by Garcia, which stipulates that FIU would play either Ohio State or North Carolina, leaving the choice at the discretion of the Gazelle Group. He said that is the way his company has written contracts for 15 years and fully expects the school to honor its agreement. via.
I’m inclined to agree with the group that didn’t hire the same guy that maligned the Toronto Raptors, the Indiana Pacers, the New York Knicks and murdered the Continental Basketball Association while it slept all alone in the pale moonlight. It’s like my dad always said: “Fool me four times, shame on you. Fool me five times, I’m a dumbass.” That explains why he only went to jail four times. You’ve gotta wake up pretty early in the afternoon to fool that guy. first seen.
It’s an Isiah Thomas-Fatso mashup, and that’s really all you need to know. Unless you didn’t know that Fatso was the name of the late Keyboard Cat, who is probably rubbing cat hair all over the freshly creased pants of Billy Mays as he walks through the pearly gates. I know that some of you don’t believe in Heaven, but if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think it exists in the way it’s constantly been portrayed. It’s probably just five Swedish girls huddled around a Playstation 3. That’s it. And hell is just being stuck in one of those changing rooms at a department store, trying on pants for all eternity.
The World Of Isaac reminds me that it’s not every day that anyone can make me feel sorry for Isiah Thomas. When Thomas appeared on SportsCenter last night, it was presumed that it would be your stock fluff job, announcing Isiah to the world as a guy that could still find a job coaching basketball. And if that’s not newsworthy, then what the hell is?
But McKendry takes it a step further, and I don’t know if this was over the line or not, but it’s not an “interview” I necessarily wanted to see. But it’s reasonable to assume that (a) Thomas had no idea that he’d be asked to re-hash a sexual harassment suit and an alleged suicide attempt, and (b) McKendry had no intention of giving him the white-glove treatment that ESPN hands out to athletes and coaches of its choosing. This wouldn’t have happened if Isiah was coaching at Duke…although I would love to see that happen at some point.
An excerpt of Thomas’ appearance is waiting for you after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: ESPN is reporting that Thomas will work next season for free. Florida International still overpaid.
Florida International University’s AD Pete Garcia must have allowed himself to be photographed having gay sex in a children’s library with Satan, because that’s the only reason I can muster for his hiring of Isiah Thomas. To coach their basketball team. Not like make copies or fetch coffee or anything, because even that seems out of the man’s skill range.
“Coming back to the college game has always been a dream of mine, and I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to go somewhere where we can build a basketball legacy together,” Thomas said in a statement.
A beautiful basketball legacy of failure, to be specific. Pete Garcia, I thank you, sir. You’ve just made my job a lot easier come this winter. As for now, I’m at a total loss. Probably because my brain just exploded.
|GameOn| Orig. run 4/14/09
Police reports from last week’s overdose case that happened at Isiah Thomas’s home confirm that the man who received emergency care had stopped breathing. The name of the patient is redacted from the report, but let’s be adults here: it was Isiah Thomas. That may get me sued, but whatever, I’m just saying what’s completely obvious.
In the report, a police officer says he went to the former Knicks coach’s home… in response to a report of “[blank] not breathing.” “Upon my arrival I assisted [another officer] who was administering O2 to [blank] lying on the kitchen floor,” the report said…
Authorities have not publicly identified Thomas as the accidental overdose victim, but a person familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because the police report had not been released, confirmed to the AP that it was Thomas.
Would a little transparency here kill us? What’s the big deal? So he had an overdose. Join the club. Hell, I tried to drink myself to death last night, but you don’t see me lying to reporters and being all coy with police reports. Man up. Take a little pride in your suicide attempts.
