Isiah Thomas has always been known to speak his truth and not follow the crowd. Those traits made him a leader on and off the floor for the back-to-back NBA-champion “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons and currently make him a compelling broadcaster for Turner Sports.
And yet two of his recent claims made him a popular man during a private NBA viewing party at the immersive Samsung Experience Store in Toronto. His pick for the Raptors to make the NBA Finals probably raised as many eyebrows as his claim that LeBron James is better than Michael Jordan.
I got a chance to catch up with the Toronto Raptors‘ first general manager to get his perspective on how he defines greatness both on and off the court and why he believes this Raptors team can get over the hump like his championship Pistons did.
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Sportsnet – What’s it like for you being back in a city and country that you called home when the Raptors franchise was getting off the ground?
Isiah Thomas – It’s always good to come back. I try and get back here three or four times a year. The greeting that I get when I get back is an over-pouring of love and affection. To see what the Raptors have turned into and to see your generation and even younger generations with Raptors gear on cheering for the team is everything we dreamed of. To see it come to fruition is great.
SN – Early in your tenure you named Nav Bhatia the “Toronto Raptors Super Fan.” How does it make you feel that now the story of a landed immigrant falling in love with Canada’s basketball team isn’t unique, it’s the norm?
IT – It makes me feel wonderful. When I first came to Toronto the first thing John Bitove and I said was we wanted a diverse fan base. We wanted to reach out to every community. We went to the Asian community, the African-American community, the Caribbean community, the Muslims, the Jews, Italians. We wanted everybody in our building. What we knew then is the game crosses all boundaries, so to speak. We just wanted the Raptors to become all of Toronto’s team and then when Vancouver left all of Canada’s team.
SN – There is a prevailing feeling that the Raptors lack respect and aren’t given a fair shake because nobody wants to see them in the Finals. Was that feeling prevalent all the way back when you were part of the franchise?
IT – My attitude was always different. I always thought if you got here you’d get more than a fair shake because of the international exposure you’d get from having Toronto in the Finals. You’d bring an international fan base.
SN – You are one of the few American broadcasters to pick the Raptors to make the NBA Finals. Why?
IT – This is a breakthrough year for them. I think Masai (Ujiri) and Case (Dwane Casey) have done a good job just in terms of staying together. They’ve had some heartache, they’ve had some heartbreak, they’ve had to change their style. You learn from your mistakes. You just don’t walk into this league and win a championship unless you’re a LeBron James type, freak player that we haven’t seen in 20-25 years. They’ve learned how to play under pressure. They know what it’s like to lose the close games. And I think they are primed and ready to overcome those mistakes.
IT – I look at Cleveland right now and I don’t see as tight a unit as Cleveland has been in the past, although LeBron is a significantly better player. It’s scary to say but he’s playing his best basketball this year. From a team aspect, their team has some cracks in it. If you’re Toronto right now this is a good time to get Cleveland.
SN – Much of the fan base is terrified of another playoff series with LeBron James. Should they be?
IT – The fear that you have of LeBron James, it’s a healthy fear. It’s the same fear we had of Larry Bird. At the end of the day it was a great player and a great Boston team we had to get past. Every time we lost to them we chalked it up as a learning experience. I think that’s what happening here with Toronto and LeBron James.
SN – Where does LeBron rank among the greatest players of all time?
IT – In my lifetime, I rank Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the greatest basketball player I’ve ever seen in terms of domination. And the second most dominant player you have to say is LeBron James. What he’s done since high school, walking off the high school floor and going straight to the NBA and making seven straight finals and possibly eight, the only one who has ever done that is Bill Russell with 11. LeBron is going on his 15th year now. Kareem had two decades of domination. He dominated the 70s and his last NBA Finals was against us in 1989. That’s 20 years of being on the big stage.
LeBron James has 15 and he’s still not finished. When you look at his body of work we’re all going to appreciate what he’s done for our league. You have to remember when LeBron James came to our league there were a lot of people tuning away from basketball. The league was going through some very rough times. Then LeBron James became the face of the league at [age] 18-19. The reason why you and I are sitting here with jobs talking about the NBA and the league has partners like Samsung, make no mistake it’s because of what LeBron James has done for this league.
SN – The thing LeBron has most in common with Kareem is activism. How much of his unwillingness to “shut up and dribble” becomes part of his legacy?
IT – I give LeBron a lot of credit for stepping out and taking a stance and being a leader for social justice. When we talk about greatness or the greatest ever, my criteria for greatest ever does have to come with social impact. We say Muhammad Ali is the greatest not because he knocked people out but for what he stood for outside of the ring. We say Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar are the greatest not for what they did inside the sport but outside. Jim Brown, we know Jim Brown for what he stood for outside of the playing field.
History will be much more kind to LeBron James than it is presently. We’ll look back and we’ll say not only was LeBron James a champion on the floor but he was a champion off the floor when it comes to social justice. If you don’t fit that criteria for me than I can’t call you the greatest.
SN – The commonality between your era of players and the modern day players is social activism. Does it manifest itself the same way now as it did back then?
IT – For a while activism had stopped in sports. Our leaders and our champions had become muted. What LeBron James and the players of this era have done is they’ve gone back to the old school model. When you were given the label of a champion you had to be a champion of the people; you had to speak for the voiceless. That was part of what being a champion was. Whether it be the LGBTQ community or African-Americans. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, we’re seeing it in football, they are speaking out for the voiceless.
Our Bad Boy team we spoke about race, class and genre. That’s what made us controversial. When we grabbed the mic, we spoke on those issues because at that time there was no diversity in media in our sport. You are sitting here now as a melanated skinned brother, there wasn’t you. Someone covering me with melanin? It was 99 per cent white males that were covering our sport. There weren’t females, there were very few brothers. So diversity in sport, that was our battle cry. That was the message that we took on.
