Isiah: Trouble of Biblical Proportions

Zeke is in a little bit of trouble. Well, he's being sued, and maybe he won't be found liable so then he wouldn't be in trouble. But the fact that he's being sued in the first place is trouble in my book, and the fact that this case made it past all the legal mumbo jumbo to trial means there's some evidence that he's been a "badboy." HA. Ok, I won't crack anymore jokes because he's being sued for $10 million and there's nothing funny about that.

Perhaps I should explain the lawsuit. First, let me remind you that the trial is taking place in New York. That means that all the gossip rags will have outrageous headlines like this one:

Plaintiff: Isiah Thomas cursed white fans

followed by even more wild stories about the proceedings, but providing us with plenty of fodder to sling around the blog. Anyway, here's what's going on:

Zeke, aka Isiah Lord Thomas, III, Indiana University standout, one of the Top 50 NBA players of all time, winner of two back-t0-back NBA Championships, and Hall of Famer, cheeky friend of Magic Johnson, is the head coach (former President) of the long-suffering, talent-bloated New York Knicks.

Anucha Browne Sanders, a married mother of three, was a basketball star in her own right, having played for Northwestern University and earned the distinction of the all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Big Ten Conference history. After working as a marketing executive for the Knicks, she was promoted to the position of senior vice president of marketing and business operations by the franchise. According to reports, she was apparently fired by the team in January of 2006, four years into her stint as SVP.

Just a few days after she was terminated, Ms. Browne Sanders filed a lawsuit against Zeke and Madison Square Garden (which owns the Knicks, among other franchises). In her suit she claims that Zeke sexually harassed from the moment she started until the day she was fired, and she claims that she was fired because she complained about the harassment. Since the suit was filed, Browne Sanders has added Knicks owner James Dolan as a defendant. The NY press has a penchant for tearing into Dolan, who famously made the decision to give Allan Houston $100 million ($25 million more than the next closest offer), making him the highest paid player in the league even though he was retired. Yeah, he probably still wakes up sweating about that one. Expect to see some Arthur Blank-like reporting on him here.

Yesterday, jury selection began in this suit that promises to be a doozy. This article says that they had no trouble finding unbiased jurors because nobody in the jury pool is a Knicks fan. So Zeke can get a "fair" trial because his team sucks. See, I told you every story has a positive side. But then people like this make the jury, despite Zeke's attorneys' (all females, I might add) objections:

“I can speak freely?” Tommy Vasquez, 37, a Bronx maintenance man, said when asked about Thomas. “He’s a pretty good talent evaluator, but he’s not so good a G.M.”

And people like this are in the jury pool:

Other[ jurors] said they might have a hard time complying with [Judge Gerard] Lynch's request that they ignore the sports pages, at least until the trial is over.

"I'm a Yankee fan," said Dr. Philip Lief, 67, a vice chairman of the department of medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. "I would do what I had to do."

It is nice to know that people are taking their civic duties seriously, but not more seriously than they take their Yankees.

All I can say is that he's in for an interesting few weeks. Luckily, this is a civil suit so he (and/or MSG) only stands to lose dollars, not freedom.

Today, Browne Sanders testified first on her own behalf. She stated that Zeke sweet talked her by frequently starting conversations by calling her "B*tch" and/or "Ho." She alleged that after a rousing game of HORSE during the Christmas party, Zeke professed his love for her and requested to go "off-site" with her, and that he continued to do so despite her requests for him to work with her in a professional manner. She claimed that she reported his behavior to a MSG executive, who told her that she didn't have to go off-site with him. I find this testimony the most interesting though:

Thomas said it was just like ``Love & Basketball,'' a movie in which two players argue before realizing they're in love with each other, Browne Sanders testified.

Hmm. Doesn't sound like the Zeke I know, but perhaps a man in love is prone to corniness every now and then.

On the other side, the defense had this to say in their opening statements, prior to Browne Sanders' testimony:

Ronald Green, who is a lawyer for Dolan and the Garden, described [Browne Sanders] as an incompetent executive who resented Thomas for limiting her access to the Knicks’ basketball side. He said she concocted her harassment allegations because she feared for her job starting early in Thomas’s regime.

He said she compromised her job by not adapting to Thomas’s management style, and by alienating Stephon Marbury, the Knicks’ star guard, shortly after he joined the team.

Most importantly, Green said, she never complained to Mills about abusive treatment by Thomas and also angered Dolan during budget meetings.

“ ‘You don’t know the difference between an expense and a capital expenditure,’ ” Green said Dolan told Browne Sanders at a July 2005 meeting. He said that Dolan was advised to fire her but instead “saved her,” albeit temporarily, by suggesting that she receive extra training .

Green also said that Browne Sanders had a financial motivation to lie; that if she quit, she would not get severance, that she had a $650,000 mortgage on her New Jersey house and a husband with a modest income.

One of Zeke's female attorney team members also added her two cents during opening arguments:

Kathleen Bogas, Thomas’s lawyer, referred frequently to Browne Sanders as a powerful woman, a former ball player and executive; a tall and imposing figure who “with heels on, is taller than Isiah Thomas.”

She said that Browne Sanders resented Thomas, calling him a “thug.” Bogas denied that Thomas had ever been abusive to Browne Sanders and that witnesses will testify “ad nauseum” about Thomas hugging and kissing people — “men, women, black, white, adults, children, in front of his wife and children.”

I knew I was on to something.

I will offer the disclaimer that sexual harassment lawsuits have some of the craziest facts you've ever heard. You won't meet a man who stick bananas in his pants and wave it through his fly at his co-workers until you've been a part of a sexual harassment case. And this one is no different. He said-she said is hard to prove. She better have more than just her words, because if the defense finds any reason whatsoever why this woman has a reason to lie, it's coming out. I hope she never did anything she's ashamed of ever in life . . . because that's coming out, too. Either in court or in the court of public opinion. That's a guarantee.

I'm sure David Stern is wishing that the NBA could rest in peace following the referee nightmare, but unfortunately he's going to have to sweat a little bit more before the season starts. I'm just glad this trial won't interfere with the NBA season, because the Knicks need all the help they can get.