Friday, October 26, 2007

Isiah Thomas :(

I really don't know what to make of the absolute obsession that New York's beat writers have with Isiah Thomas' mood right now. Is it just wishful thinking that he's about to be fired? The guy just lost a sexual harassment lawsuit that will follow him the rest of his life, you expect him to be doing jumping jacks?

A Post article today on Eddy Curry predicting playoffs contained this "look at me!" detail in the middle, seemingly out of nowhere:

Isiah Thomas stared at the ground as he glumly answered questions.
And Marc Berman the other day threw this into one of his posts, again completely off the topic of the story at hand:
Isiah Thomas wouldn’t answer the question but he rarely answers questions nowadays – in as dark a mood with the media as I’ve ever seen
These are but two of many examples the last week or so. Personally, I could care less what Isiah's mood is so long as the Knicks are playing sufficient defense to win games, and they are for the week at least.

Still, there is a weird insiderness to the beat writers' constant harping on Isiah being a Gloomy Gus. They seem to be begging us, the reader, to catch onto some big old subtext that they won't come out and say but are surely talking about with each other. Isiah's going to be fired? David Stern's going to kick the Knicks' ass? Curry and Randolph are already a failure? Whatever it is, I know they have it in their head and wish they would just toss it out there rather than lead us along with this less-than-subtle trail of breadcrumbs.

The Daily News at least tries to give it some context:
The stress from the trial and its aftermath is starting to show on Thomas, whose mood in recent days has ranged anywhere from distracted to miserable.
But now that the point is made, they really can stop talking about it until there's something relevant that comes out of the discussion.

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