#31 - Isiah Thomas is (US Marshal) Edward Mars

#ACAB

Yes, today, we’re talking about a cop and, yes, All Cops Are Bastards. And, this fictional cop is all sorts of bastard and so is this basketballer as well. That’s why they’re so perfect for each other! You know, the basketballer I’m going to write about here and I will introduce him momentarily was always kind of thought of as an asshole in my memory and I never really thought that was a bad thing. I don’t know if I thought he was a bad guy because he was purportedly an asshole. Like the idea that he’s an asshole is one thing, especially, if other guys who also could be considered an asshole think he’s an asshole because he was an asshole to them. But down the line, he turned out to be a bad dude with paternity issues and famously/infamously sexual harassment while he was he head of basketball operations for the Knicks, which was amazingly right before he was the head coach of the Knicks. So, Isiah Thomas sucks and so does fictional United States Marshal Edward Mars. 

Let me just jump back to the asshole bit about Isiah, so three kind of prevailing things about him being an asshole that I remember from my childhood:

• Cocky

• All Detroit Pistons were assholes

• Larry Bird comment

Cocky. It’s been a dogwhistle or coded racist language at least as long as I’ve ever known it. Isiah Thomas was an absolutely incredible basketballer. He’s #31 on this list and, more specifically, he’s one of the greatest without question at his position- point guard. He epitomizes the best archetypes of a great point guard- defense, assists, scoring, durability, longevity (career and game time). Isiah was an equal threat offensively and defensively at a high level, he rarely missed games, and he could easily play 35+ minutes a game. Was he aware of how great he was? Sure! He achieved success at every level as a player both individually and collectively in college and the pros. Isiah was a known smiler, big facial expression guy, kind of has a boyish good-looking face, and, yeah, he’s black, so this target of ‘cocky’ or ‘arrogant’ - I mean I think it’s all whatever. I think you could go down the path of ‘who isn’t cocky?’ with all of this as there are plenty of white guys who talk shit and are never labeled cocky. We’ll get to Larry Bird in a minute, Larry Bird is/was cocky AF and no one said was making that a negative. If he’s ‘cocky’ or ‘arrogant’, legit only problematic if that leaves the court of him fucking with his opponents and moves off the court into his sexually harassing someone. Like I don’t think that has to be this 1 to 1 that a ‘cocky’ basketballer is a red flag. And yeah, the ‘Bad Boys’ era of the Detroit Pistons probably were all assholes. At least, they were then. I mean the Pistons were legit beating up other teams every night on their way to TWO NBA championships, back-to-back. They went to FOUR straight NBA Finals and won the middle two. They were a terror back then and they played a very physical brand of ball with big men beating people up on the inside - Rodman, Laimbeer, Mahorn, Salley - and they had tough guards as well leading the assault up top with IT and Dumars. 

So, 0 for 2 in my opinion, and the final one of Isiah backing up what Rodman had said about Larry Bird basically only being seen as great because he’s white… I mean L O L. Of course, I don’t agree, fully. I do agree that Larry being white certainly helped him in his celebrity and got him more attention, but Rodman’s being hyperbolic at best. I’ll get to Larry whenever he appears on this list and he does deserve all the praise he gets with his play, but we do live in a highly racist world and it’s undeniable that that means he has also benefited from it as a white guy. I think Isiah could’ve handled it better, sure, but yeah I just don’t care. I think if you accept Dennis Rodman as Dennis Rodman- it’s one of the more cogent things he’s said to a degree and I think even poking the bear of racism, maybe specifically so in the subjective world of sports journalism and/or celebrity is completely fine by me. Fuck it. And Larry can have his feelings about it, but Larry is also the first to be all pissy about players being friendly basically since he retired way back when, so there’s some of that unfriendliness he always wanted from his rivals. So, really the only asshole thing I can think of is the Pistons not shaking the Bulls’ hands as talked about in ‘The Last Dance’. Salley and Dumars shook their hands, but the rest are assholes, but Isiah was only problematic bad until he became sexual harasser to me, so whatever. Just saying! THIS IS MY BLOG! I WRITE WHAT I WANT!

Yeah, so the fictional shitty cop who likes to chase and threaten and beat up Kate Austen to every end of the Earth -- he sucks. He’s a bad dude. He dies because of metal from the plane getting lodged into his gut and causing an infection and internal bleeding and all of that and then Sawyer goes to put him out of his misery by shooting him in his chest to kill him and that doesn’t kill him and then Jack has to kill him… GOOD! Fuck that guy! I’ll spit on his fucking grave. *SPIT* *SPIT* Who cares? Dude sucked. He’s a relentless prick who definitely smiled while he beat people up and he’s cocky as all shit and he did catch Kate a few times and then lose her but then he did fly all the fuck to Australia and caught Kate again, which is probably what an NBA championship, Finals MVP is to a stupid fuck cop. You know? Durable as all get out. Longevity too. I mean he gets his nose broke, he gets into a car crash, he takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Dude is the Energizer Bunny of shithead cops. 

Fuck styles? Nah, you don’t want none of that. I feel like for sure they cum and the other person doesn’t, but they’re over the Moon insistent that they did. They’re definitely cocky about how hard they made the other person cum and that person did not cum at all.