As great of a player as Isiah Thomas was, his track record as an NBA coach and executive leaves a lot to be desired. Isiah's stints as part-owner of the Toronto Raptors and as president (and later head coach) of the New York Knicks were riddled with the teams' underperformance and internal turmoil.
The Detroit Pistons' legend didn't appear to have stellar relationships with his players. For instance, Antonio McDyess once expressed frustration about his short-lived tenure with the Knicks.
The organization traded him in the middle of the 2003-04 season, and the retired power forward disliked how Thomas never really talked to him personally while publicly declaring they would never trade him. Zeke did call him up, but only to break the news of the trade.
"Instead, he wakes me up with a phone call at 8 a.m.," McDyess said of his former boss . "He's sneaky."
Dice's 18 games with the Knicks
There was a time when McDyess was on his way to becoming one of the NBA's premier forwards. After the Los Angeles Clippers drafted him second overall and immediately traded him to the Denver Nuggets in 1995, he eventually became a 20-10 guy. The University of Alabama product then secured an All-NBA selection, an invite to Team USA for the 2000 Olympics, and an All-Star berth in three consecutive years.
Unfortunately, a partially dislocated left kneecap late in the 2000-01 campaign stopped his development in its tracks. "Dice" suffered nagging injuries the next two years, and the Nuggets shipped him to New York in the 2002 offseason.
He sat out the entire 2002-03 season and the early part of the 2003-04 campaign before appearing in 18 contests in a Knicks uniform. However, rumors swirled that the front office was looking to trade McDyess, which Thomas tried to address by telling the media that he was "a big part of what we're trying to do."
That turned out to be false because the 6-foot-9 forward was sent to the Phoenix Suns in an eight-player deal that brought Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway to the Big Apple.
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Reinventing his game
While McDyess initially appeared furious about how Thomas handled his status with the Knicks, he probably was thankful to be out of New York once the benefit of hindsight hit him.
The Knickerbockers remained true to form as a dysfunctional organization, highlighted by Zeke's supposed indiscretion with a female employee, something which the Hall of Famer has blamed on Marbury's alleged affair with an intern .
As for Dice, he never fully returned to form. On a positive note, he played several more years as a key reserve for contending squads. He spent five seasons with the Pistons before playing for the San Antonio Spurs for two years.
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