Dolan’s move simply defies explanation

Isiah Thomas is an awful fit for the WNBA

James Dolan, the owner of the New York Knicks, New York Rangers and various other properties, hired Isiah Thomas to run the WNBA’s New York Liberty on Wednesday. It was met with deserved incredulity.

A review: In 2008, a jury awarded former Knicks vicepresident Anucha Browne $11.6 million US in a sexual harassment lawsuit. The jury was convinced that Thomas and Dolan created a toxic workplace, with Thomas calling Browne several derogatory names. The jury ruled that Dolan fired Browne because she complained about Thomas’s words and behaviour. Ultimately, Dolan’s The Madison Square Garden Company was found liable, but not Thomas (there was one holdout in the jury regarding Thomas, allowing him to keep his money). Dolan said that he would appeal, but the defendants and Browne eventually reached a settlement, shaving a mere $100,000 US off of the initial sum.

During the case, it was revealed that Thomas called Browne both “a b----” and a “h-.” He also drew a moral distinction between a black man calling a black woman the former term and a white man doing the same, saying the first scenario was more acceptable. And now Dolan hired Thomas to run a women’s professional basketball team. It would be hilarious if it were not so offensive and repugnant.

“I am stunned that Isiah Thomas would again tie his destiny to James Dolan, which is the equivalent of thinking that nothing adds to the fun of air travel like sitting in a back-row middle seat and flying into a mountain,” Dave Zirin wrote for The Nation. “I am also stunned that I even considered that James Dolan might have planned this move with a modicum of forethought and grace. And I suppose I am stunned that James Dolan can dress himself in the morning, although I am without firm confirmation that this is something he can in fact accomplish.”

“The Liberty (are) stocked with female Garden employees who, the first time around, enjoyed a ‘hostile work environment’ on Thomas’s watch,” Mike Vaccaro added in the New York Post. “For eight years, Dolan and Thomas have spit on the rulings of the Federal District Court. Now they turn their salivary aim to the Liberty — and to their fans. If you expect them to start caring if you’re outraged, here’s something to ask yourself: Why would either of them possibly start now?”

Again: Yes. Yes, yes, yes. This is an example of a very wealthy man thinking (probably correctly) that he can get away with hiring his old pal with nobody stopping him, with no care for the victim of this particular case, the Liberty’s employees or basic human decency. Dolan deserves every last bit of criticism coming his way and Thomas deserves nearly as much vitriol for taking part in this never-ending dance with Dolan.

The NBA is complicit in all of this, however. Eight months after Florida International University fired him as the head coach of its men’s basketball program, the NBA welcomed him back. Thomas was a legendary player and a serviceable broadcaster with a megawatt smile, so why not? Forget about that whole sexual harassment thing! The league hired Thomas to be a part of NBA TV’s studio panel in December 2012, kick-starting the process of re-integrating Thomas back into this realm.

This past year, Thomas took part in NBA Canada’s festivities in Vancouver for an exhibition game between the Sacramento Kings and Toronto Raptors. Near the end of the regular season, the Raptors honoured Thomas as one of the founders of the franchise, placing him alongside the other initial owners of the team. In both instances, fans applauded Thomas vociferously. It was as if the league was going out of its way to help scrub the case from Thomas’s resume.

Thomas’s role in the sexual harassment suit should not erase his accomplishments as a player in the league. (Nor should it eliminate what he did as an executive with the Raptors and Knicks, although any praise on that front is overstated.) A jury ruled on Thomas’s liability, and he should be free to pursue any job he sees fit. The need for the NBA, and Dolan in particular, to tie itself to Thomas just happens to be mystifying.

It would take several well trained psychologists to determine why Dolan is hell-bent on employing Thomas. It seems that the NBA is getting away with laying the foundation for Thomas’s re-hiring in the understandable rush to lambaste Dolan. No sports organization that truly prized and respected its fans — particularly its female fans — would have put a man known to have sexually harassed a woman in the workplace in place of prominence. That it happened so casually, without much opposition from anybody, says a lot about modern professional sports.

Dolan’s biggest mistake, then, was a lack of subtlety when doing something so noxious.

ERIC KOREEN