James Dolan says ex-Knicks exec lied in successful sexual harrassment suit
Never one to gauge public opinion with much accuracy, New York Knicks owner James Dolan courted controversy in May when he named Isiah Thomas as president of basketball operations for the WNBA’s New York Liberty. Knicks fans can be forgiven for wondering why anyone would name Thomas to make personnel decisions for a basketball team, but the move was especially startling given that in October 2007 a jury found Thomas guilty of sexually harassing former Knicks vice president of marketing and business operations Anucha Browne Sanders and that Dolan and his Madison Square Garden Corporation had improperly fired her for complaining about it.
MSG was ordered to pay Sanders $11.6 million as restitution in a very dark moment for the franchise and anyone associated with it. (The sum was later settled down to $11.5 million.) Dolan supported Thomas throughout the understandably shocked response to his decision to appoint him to his position with the Liberty, refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing on the part of his employee or the organization.
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Now, more than five months after the initial blowback, Dolan has gone much farther in his support for Thomas. In an interview with Bryant Gumbel for HBO’s Real Sports set to air Tuesday, Dolan claims that Browne Sanders made up her allegations against Thomas and the Knicks. Here’s a clip of the interview:
And here are the money quotes via Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated:
“I think a bunch of it she did [make up], yes,” Dolan said, in response to allegations that Thomas used sexist and demeaning names during conversations with Browne Sanders. “I was running a business. She didn’t do very well in it. She was real unhappy with that and she decided to go get a lawyer. I fired her because while she was working for me, she was coercing her own direct reports, to come down to her lawyers office, to build her case against the company.” […]
“Yep, my fault,” [Dolan] said. “[I didn’t settle] because I actually believed in the truth. The fighter in me came out. I’m not going to settle because that’s an admission of guilt, and we’re not guilty.” […]
While Dolan and Thomas both conceded that they expected some resistance to the idea that Thomas would run a women’s team in light of the scandal, Dolan took the curious step of defending the hire by noting it would generate publicity for an unprofitable franchise.
“[The Liberty is] a never-ending pit of money that just keeps going out the door,” he told HBO. “I was just going to give the keys back [to the WNBA]. Say, ‘I’m not going to field a team any more. You can have it back.’ I didn’t think I’d get a better person to do that job than [Thomas]. He would draw attention to the team.” […]
“I felt like there was a drive-by and someone just took a razor and sliced me,” Thomas said. “I just couldn’t stop bleeding. I still bleed. I still feel sick to my stomach that I have to sit here. They say time heals all wounds. I hope it’s true. I think there’s a healing process right now.”
Only a handful of people know the full extent of what happened between Browne Sanders, Thomas, and the Knicks. Regardless of those details, the actions of Dolan and Thomas could not be more disrespectful given the jury’s findings and the outcome of the case. For one thing, Thomas admitted himself that a black man calling a black woman a “bitch” is “not as offensive” as if a white man had done the same, displaying a certain attitude towards women while simultaneously disavowing the seriousness of his alleged actions. That fact alone would seem to make Thomas unfit for his current job. If nothing else, it would be nice to hear Dolan or Thomas suggest that they may have some learning to do when it comes to understanding how women could be made uncomfortable in the workplace.
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Sadly, their attitudes towards this situation looks even more irresponsible given other factors. Both men claim respect for the criticism levied towards them after Thomas’s appointment, but their blatant disregard for any opinions other than their own. Dolan even laughs at the headlines of articles criticizing the decision and says that he could not have imagined such a negative response. Perhaps he was the only one who could have, because no one else would think to make Thomas an executive of a women’s basketball team.
These absurd claims would be marginally more acceptable if Dolan and Thomas waved away any criticism by stating that its within their rights as businessmen to make any decisions they please. Yet they also paint themselves as the victims of this whole ordeal, mere truth-seekers forced to bear the shame of this verdict. If they haven’t done anything wrong, then they have an odd way of trying to prove it.
What becomes clear from these quotes is that neither Thomas nor Dolan feels it necessary to address the substance of the criticism directed towards them. These responses smack of a belief not only that they have done nothing wrong, but that claims otherwise cannot possibly be worthy of sustained thought. It’s disrespectful, irresponsible, and not shocking only because Dolan and Thomas have proven themselves to address controversial situations in this way many times before.
Nevertheless, there is positive news for the Knicks. The coaching staff’s comparisons for Kristaps Porzingis don’t seem quite so bad now.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
