Isiah Thomas’s NBA legacy includes two championships and being named one of the top-50 players ever. But according to Stephen A. Smith, it should also include diversifying the media.
Friday morning on First Take, Stephen A. Smith, Kendrick Perkins and Brian Windhorst discussed whether the narrative on Kyrie Irving has changed upon helping lead the Dallas Mavericks to the NBA Finals. Perkins believed we need to revisit Irving being left of the NBA’s top-75 list, and claimed Grant Hill needs to be checked for keeping the point guard off Team USA’s Olympic roster. Smith was quick to stop Perkins at the Olympics, claiming Irving’s snub pales in comparison to Thomas’s in 1992.
“We all know that’s not about basketball,” Smith said of the Olympic roster. “We all know that’s about imagery, that’s about Team USA, that’s about who you want representing the red, white and blue and stuff like that. We all know that. We know that ain’t about basketball all the time…I don’t give a damn about Kyrie or anybody else missing a team when you left Isiah Thomas off the original Dream Team in 1992.”
“By the way,” Smith continued. “Mike Wilbon and others will confirm it, do you know that when he was the president of the Players Association, Isiah Thomas was one of the strongest instigators to diversifying the media covering the NBA because there wasn’t enough Black reporters, both male and female covering the sport. Isiah Thomas was the person, in the ‘80s, fighting that fight. So a lot of us doing what we do today, we got him in large part to thank for it.”
While older generations of basketball fans long for the days where the 1980s “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons patrolled the court, Thomas has alleged racial bias in the media is responsible for his team’s negative reputation at the time.
“I grew up in the West Side of Chicago,” Thomas told Shannon Sharpe on Club Shay Shay a few years ago. “And the first time I was called a ‘thug’ was when I was in the NBA playing for the Detroit Pistons by a white Caucasian male who described me and my play as a thug and thuggish.”
Smith didn’t detail how Thomas went about opening doors for Black journalists. But as Thomas watched white journalists tarnish his image, he recognized the importance of pushing for diversity in the media. Interestingly, the acknowledgement from Smith comes just one week after Thomas ripped the First Take host for attempting to tarnish Jaylen Brown’s image.
About Brandon Contes
Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com