Isiah Thomas’ career is filled with rough patches and dark moments – but none as dark as the humiliating days of the sexual-harassment case brought against him by Anucha Browne Sanders.
Sanders, the Knicks’ former VP of marketing, scored a slam dunk on the smug and confident Thomas and his stubborn boss, Madison Square Garden chief James Dolan, when a jury decided in 2007 that she was due $11 million because of the arena’s stunningly hostile work environment.
She slammed the team with the lawsuit in 2006, claiming Thomas, a Basketball Hall of Famer, called her “bitch” and “ho” and then later changed his tune and made advances toward her, even exclaiming that he “loved” her.
She said that when she complained to her boss she was canned.
The team insisted Thomas was innocent, and went to court to mount a vigorous defense. It turned into an ugly rout that dragged the team through the mud.
The most embarrassing part of the case for Garden brass came when sexy former Knick intern Kathleen Decker took the stand and admitted she had torrid sex with star player Stephon Marbury in his SUV following a jaunt to a strip club.
She then admitted she was given a sweet full-time job with the team after the encounter.
When the jury awarded Browne $11.6 million in punitive damages, the Garden settled with her for just about that amount to avoid any more losses from ongoing portions of the case.
Thomas became the butt of more jokes and criticism when he tried to claim he was innocent, even after the settlement.
The case was not enough to end Thomas’ disastrous reign as the Knicks’ president and coach. He was allowed back for one more disastrous season in which the team went 23-59 and chants of “Fire Isiah!” rang through the Garden each night.
He was then put out to pasture as a scout and consultant.
It was quite a fall for a once-beloved star player. Thomas led the Detroit Pistons’ Bad Boy teams to consecutive NBA titles in 1989 and 1990s. After 13 years as one of the game’s premier point guards, Thomas was named one of the NBA’s 50 greatest players and was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.
He exuded such an air of class and success that he seemed destined for a career as an NBA executive after he retired in 1994.
Some of his fellow players even started calling him “the GM.”
Instead, he experienced an ugly front-office career in which he wound up leaving the Toronto Raptors under a cloud of controversy and buying the Continental Basketball Association, only to run it into bankruptcy.