Peter Vecsey Weighs in on Isiah Thomas [J. Mark English]

Isiah Thomas was found liable for sexual harassment earlier this week, and the MSG organization as a whole looks worse then ever. Peter Vecsey of the New York Post breaks down the quagmire surrounding Thomas:

Like hundreds of others who've worked for, played with or for, and partied alongside Isiah Thomas, when I heard his closing "not-guilty-as-found" statement on the courthouse steps I shook my head and rolled my eyes....

...How many times can a man deny wrongdoing before his credibility is irretrievably impounded?

How often can blame be shifted before even the blindest loyalist converts to a Doubting Thomas?

How many times can truthfulness be dodged during decades of incidents and accidents, hints and allegations?

How come someone's always lying about Thomas? Distorting what he said or did? Fabricating things he claims he didn't say or do? Why is everybody so hostile toward him? So quick to think the worst? Taking such pleasure in persecuting, er, prosecuting him?

Remember when word got out that Julius Erving had been supporting an illegitimate child for about 18 years? "If I had done something like that I'd be getting killed every day. The media would never let me live that down," Thomas bitterly complained to me.

Years later, it came to light he'd fathered a boy while engaged to Lynn, his wife for the past 20-some-odd years.

Has Thomas ever accepted responsibility for anything that blew up or went askew?

Bill Davidson and Thomas were the only ones at a meeting when the Pistons owner pledged to give his treasured guard a piece of the team and control of it. Somehow the story of the momentous guarantee got into the Detroit Free Press. Commitment canceled! Mr. D. was doubly furious when Thomas came to his home and swore on his father's grave he wasn't responsible for the leak. Beat writer Corky Meinecke, 42, died some six months later from cancer. His story never wavered. He told confidants Thomas indeed was the source and that he had confirmed it with someone else Thomas had entrusted - otherwise he probably wouldn't have written it....

...In Thomas' mind he's a victim of this, a victim of that: His alleged All-Star freeze out of Michael Jordan (3-9) is total garbage; Surly Jimmy Carter had it in for him when he directed a boycott of the Moscow Olympics; There was a conspiracy led by Jordan (more likely agent David Falk) to bar him from the 1992 Dream Team; The Indianapolis police who stopped him for riding on the shoulder of the road around an accident and refusing to show license and registration in a timely manner were racists; Larry Bird's reason for firing him was due to his vocal support of Rodman's nonsensical assessment: "If he were black he'd be just another player."...

...Only James Dolan remains blissfully oblivious to Thomas' long-running con game. Only a supreme sucker like the Cablevision chairman can do business in such substandard fashion and still be in business.

Only Dolan would be so arrogantly unmoved by the initial judgment. He's probably thrilled at the prospects of writing an $11.6 million check to an ex-employee for which the Knicks don't have to pay the luxury tax.

Only a little rich kid who earned his money exactly the way Leona Helmsley's dog earned his would be so insensitive to keep his coach/president. Co-culpability tends to make bosses aggressively averse to decontaminate the premises and antagonistically prompt to show continued support...