Isiah’s Race Problem

Just when it seemed all the talk about pro sports "bad boys" had become the exclusive domain of the NFL, pro basketball took bad behavior to a whole new level: the executive office of one of the most prominent franchises in the NBA. A federal jury Tuesday ruled that New York Knicks coach and president Isiah Thomas had sexually harassed a former team executive, subjecting her to verbal abuses and unwanted advances before the Knicks fired her from her $260,000-a-year position as vice president of marketing and business operations. Anucha Browne Sanders sued Madison Square Garden and Thomas, claiming she was fired in retaliation for her complaints. While the jury ruled that Thomas would not have to pay punitive damages himself, MSG, which was also found guilty of harassment, must pay $11.6 million in damages.

It is hard to imagine a bigger fiasco than the Knicks have been on the court during Thomas's tenure as president. He assembled one of the league's highest-paid teams (with Larry Brown getting $10 million a year as head coach), filled with mismatched players whose reputations far exceeded their talents. When Brown was forced out of what he had called his "dream job" after just one season (and with $40 million left on his contract), MSG chairman James Dolan demanded that Thomas himself take over as coach last season on a make-or-break basis. Even more remarkably, Dolan apparently considered that season a "make," keeping Thomas at the helm despite a 33-49 record and another year sitting out the playoffs.

But the Knicks played even worse in court. The jury heard Browne Sanders, 44, a former college basketball star and a married mother of three, describe Thomas as a foul-mouthed boor who berated her as a "bitch" and a "ho" while at the same time making unwanted advances, urging her to hook up with him away from the office. But Thomas was only part of the problem on display during the three-week trial, which detailed star guard Stephon Marbury's sex romp outside a strip club with one of Browne Sanders's interns, as well as the antics of Marbury's cousin, who apparently had free rein to make raunchy propositions to female employees at the Garden.

Thomas, whose megawatt smile and charming veneer have long been seen by league observers as a clever mask for a bit of a nasty streak, admitted to kissing Browne Sanders once, but he denied verbally abusing her or propositioning her. But Thomas's protestations of innocence were likely sabotaged in the jury's eyes by a remarkable videotaped deposition in which Thomas explained that while it was "highly offensive" for a white male to call a black female "a bitch," it wasn't quite as bad when a black male did it. Thomas on race, at least according to Browne Sanders's testimony, was a revelation and not one that can do the Knicks or the league any good. She testified that Thomas rebuffed a request to add his signature to a letter seeking renewals from season-ticket holders. According to Browne Sanders, Thomas told her, "Bitch, I don't give a f--- about these white people." Nor, according to Browne Sanders, did the team president "give a f---" about sponsors, community events or ticket sales.

After one clumsy attempt to hug Browne Sanders after a Knicks game in 2005, Thomas apparently joked, "What, no love today?" That may now prove to be Thomas's epitaph with the Knicks and, in fact, all pro basketball. Even forgetting his abysmal behavior and the racist claptrap coming from his mouth, it is rather remarkable that Thomas continues to work in the league despite years of mediocre performance. He had little success with the Toronto Raptors as the team's general manager, he bought and soon buried in bankruptcy the Continental Basketball Association, and he has been a .500 coach in four seasons with Indiana and New York. And as president of Knicks, he has built a squad that only his rivals could love, one that has excelled in only one category: payroll.

It is hard to imagine what MSG was thinking when it let this lawsuit proceed to trial. Frankly, it's almost impossible to tell what MSG has been thinking in any phase of the Knicks operation. But in this case, even with a favorable verdict, the inevitable result was wholesale embarrassment, if not mortification, and equal-opportunity offense to all genders and races. Moreover, it's a disaster for the whole league to have one of its bedrock franchises laid bare in this fashion. The NBA has struggled to maintain its standing and relevance in the post-Jordan era. And many believe a racial divide has been at the heart of the problem: that older, white suburbanites, the ones who can afford the steep price of an NBA ticket, can't relate to the bounce and beat of the hip-hop basketball generation.