In the Daily Dime today Greg Anthony has an article on the Knicks. He takes the high road in evaulating Isiah. Pretty classy move.

Am I alone in thinking Zeke needs to shut up already about his childhood? Whenever he’s even approached with anything difficult, that’s the first thing he always reverts to. Things like “I had it hard” and “growing up where I grew up” just drive me crazy. Having a tough upbringing doesn’t make you impervious to mistakes, and he certainly has proven that he knows how to run an operation into the ground.

Isiah’s moves are that of a desperate man, because attacking the press isn’t usually a smart move (unless your name rhymes with Phil Barcels). Other than your record, there isn’t a bigger way to loose your job (than maybe dating the boss’ daughter – although that seems to have worked for Phil Jackson). The press can rally the people, and the people can hurt the owner’s wallet. However since Isiah is already vilified in the press, in his eyes it doesn’t matter.

This shouldn’t be surprising since this was what worked for Isiah when he was in Detroit. The “Bad Boys” (and yes, that nickname does seem quaint 15+ years later) played pissed off. They weere better than the sum of their parts mainly because they wanted to hurt other teams/played with a chip on their shoulders/were out to prove they belonged. The standard bearer for this attitude was not Mahorn or Laimbeer, but Isiah Thomas. Recall the race-infused feeding frenzy that went down when Rodman commented that if Larry Bird was black he’d be “just another player” and the hubub when Isiah refused to refute the Worm. It’s the attitude that you’ve got your teammates’ back, even if what he said was just plain wrong and probably born out of the frustration of getting whupped by a lily-white team in a historically/supposedly ‘racist’ town like Boston.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that I think we’ll see more tirades like this from Thomas in the future, where he seems to be irrationally flying off the handle (like his not-so-subtle threat of Bill Simmons last year [of course I assume that most people secretly want to throttle 'The Sports Guy', but that's just me..]). I just don’t think ANYTHING Thomas says in public isn’t calculated. He’s not talking to Anthony. He’s talking to Marbury, Francis, Curry et al. Whether it works is another matter entirely.

The former, I feel, should still be mostly avoided, but the latter should definitely be avoided.