On Tuesday, the WNBA’s New York Liberty announced that former NBA star and ex-New York Knicks head coach Isiah Thomas would take over as the team’s president. As part of the deal, Thomas will also take a partial ownership stake in the team.
Thomas doesn’t have a particularly strong history as a basketball executive, but what made his hiring controversial was the ugliest chapter of his unsuccessful tenure with the Knicks. In 2007, a year before Thomas was fired, he was accused of sexual harassment by Anucha Browne Sanders, a woman who worked for the team and was subsequently fired after she complained. A New York jury later ordered Madison Square Garden, the team’s corporate owner, to pay $11.6 million in damages. That a man with that record is taking over a women’s basketball team obviously and rightfully raised eyebrows.
Thomas, however, attempted to deny the allegations of sexual harassment in a Wednesday morning interview on ESPN’s Mike and Mike radio show. Asked how fans should reconcile his position atop a women’s basketball team with his history of harassment, Thomas deflected, saying that he was not found liable and that the allegations were untrue.
“Let me unpack that question because you said ‘team’ and yes, I was with the team, the New York Knicks. I was president of the New York Knicks,” Thomas said. “I was not the president of Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden is a corporation and you just said Madison Square Garden was the team. So when the jury had an opportunity to fine, they fined Madison Square Garden. I was not liable or personally held for anything.”
“If you’re speaking to false allegations, and I emphasize false allegations, those have been addressed,” Thomas continued. “I’ve always maintained my innocence. If people want to continue to believe in the falsities, I can’t speak to that. I can only speak to the facts.”
Watch it, via SportsGrid:
Thomas’ response to those questions echoed the statement James Dolan, the chairman of Knicks and Liberty owner Madison Square Garden, issued Tuesday amid widespread criticism. That statement also proclaimed Thomas’ innocence, or at least his lack of liability.
Statement from the #Knicks on the Anucha Browne Sanders trial and new Liberty president Isiah Thomas: pic.twitter.com/wqtxusoz5N
— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) May 5, 2015
Despite these claims of innocence, a jury quite clearly implicated Thomas in fostering a “hostile work environment” in which he sexually harassed employees. That led to $6 million of the $11.6 million total award, as the New York Times reported in 2007 (the rest was a result of the Knicks improperly firing Browne Sanders). Browne Sanders testified that Thomas repeatedly referred to her as a “bitch” and a “ho,” that he tried to kiss her, and that he treated her in a “sexually charged” manner. And though the jury could not reach a decision on whether Thomas was liable for paying damages, there was only “one holdout juror on punitive damages against Thomas,” according to Kevin Mintzer, one of the woman’s lawyers.
https://twitter.com/KevinMintzer/status/595682913976492032
Thomas has proclaimed his innocence since the day of the verdict, and he clearly plans to continue that strategy. And though Dolan, Thomas, and the Liberty clearly intend to move forward as planned, WNBA president Laurel Richie hinted Tuesday that Thomas taking over as part owner of the team isn’t yet a done deal.
“The Madison Square Garden organization announced that Isiah Thomas has been named president of the New York Liberty and that he will take an ownership interest in the team, pending WNBA approval,” Richie said in a statement. “New owners are approved by our WNBA Board of Governors, and this process has not yet begun.”
Whether that means Thomas will face scrutiny over the sexual harassment suit during that process is unclear. But there should be major questions for Richie and NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who in his role also helps oversee the WNBA. Silver’s league, as part of broader conversations in sports, has taken strides to address domestic violence and violence against women among its players and employees. And the commissioner last year banned former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life and forced a sale of the team after recordings surfaced of Sterling making racist and sexist comments about fans, current and former players, and women (Sterling has also faced claims of discrimination and sexual harassment).
One of the arguments Silver deployed against Sterling was that his racism had a detrimental impact on a league with so many black players and fans, especially as players and fans reacted so negatively to the recordings. While it is too soon to gauge the league-wide or fan reaction to Thomas’ hiring, it’s hardly beyond the realm of possibility that women players, the WNBA’s sizable women fan base, and its women employees may not exactly welcome his presence.
That’s not to say Silver and Richie should move to ban him for life or hit him with the maximum allowable fine, as Silver did Sterling, and what it can do on this front is unclear. But as ESPN’s Jane McManus noted Tuesday, the NBA has prevented Thomas’ return before: in 2010, its Board of Governors blocked the Knicks’ attempt to hire him as an executive. And in a sports world gaining consciousness that the way it treats women matters, and in a league that has been at the forefront of bringing women into top roles and helping grow the women’s game, the NBA and WNBA ought to at least consider whether a man who refuses to acknowledge his history of sexual harassment fits into its broader efforts to grow the women’s game, and to respect its women fans, players, and employees as equals.