Mr. Thomas, you have redeemed yourself

Our final class of my Coaching of Basketball class at Indiana University took place on Tuesday. The lab portion went by rather uneventfully as we did our teacher evaluation and that was it. We didn't have a clue what our last lecture would entail, but I held out hope for a final visit by coach Tom Crean. Instead, we had speaker that put every member of the coaching staff (including Crean) in the audience. Our professor introduced a man who helped hang that beautiful red 1981 championship banner in Bob Knight Hall, he won two NBA championships with the Detroit Pistons and has had a controversial career since hanging up his shoes. Yep, Isiah Thomas walked into our classroom on Tuesday. Isiah effin Thomas. It was incredible.

Imagine taking a class in college and in walks a hall of fame player. I thought I had been pretty excited with Crean spoke that first time, but this even beat that. Had Bob Knight walked in the IU press room, I would have spontaneously combusted. That's not even a question. So Thomas came in and talked about basketball philosophy before doing a Q&A session with the class for almost an hour. Whatever I've said about Thomas over the years (particularly about his stint as the Pacers coach from 2000-03) went out the window on Tuesday. He wasn't even asked to speak at our class, he volunteered to do it.

He's definitely not the best speaker in the world. He's no Tom Crean. He was just like on TV. Quiet, soft-spoken and he smiles all the time. And his hands belong on a gorilla. Geezus. He's two inches taller than me, but his hands must be five times my size. God blessed him with those hands and you know what they say about guys with big hands...they become all-stars and average 19 points and 9 assists during their NBA careers.

I definitely wanted to share some of his talking points on here. Obviously, he didn't know a former sportswriter was in the room, so there's a few things I'm not putting on here that were controversial and plus I consider that my bonus for paying to take the class. So below is just some of the things he talked about during his time in Bloomington on Tuesday. But first! We're starting with two awards that I'm giving to two of my esteemed and highly-respected classmates.

Dumbest Effin Question of the Day Award -- This award goes to the dumbass who asked what it was like for Thomas to play on the Original Dream Team in 1992. Go ahead, check this link and look for Thomas' name on the roster. You won't find it. A guy who had won two championships and was still one of the top point guards in the league in 1992 did NOT make the team (although he did make the 1994 team after he had retired). Anyways, it took my classmate about 30 seconds to spit out his question, all the while Thomas was just smiling and laughing on stage while the rest of the class cringed like we were witnessing in slow motion a guy trying to hit his brakes before he slams into a donkey on a rural road last week. Thomas just laughed it off though and told him we'd be surprised by how often he gets asked that question. I'd be surprised if that guy graduates.

The Sleeping Through The Most Famous Guest Speaker You'll Ever Have In A Class at IU Award -- This award goes to the guy who slept through the most famous guest speaker he'll ever have in a class at IU. Seriously. It's time to step back, take a long look at your life and think about what path you're heading down. I can see sleeping through a middle english class (hell, I do it every Tuesday and Thursday between 1-2:30), but this wasn't Geoffrey Chaucer doing a spiel on alliteration in class. This was Isiah Effin Thomas! Get with the program. Kudos to Thomas for calling the kid out in the middle of his speech by having the kid behind him wake up Miss Sleeping Beauty. Thomas even asked if he wanted a coffee.

On to the talking points...

- He played for some amazing coaches in his day, but it was interesting to hear how his H.S. coach and coach Knight both never ran any plays. No out-of-bounds plays and no set plays. Ever. They just let Thomas do his thing. Thomas said when he got to the Pistons for training camp, they handed him an epic novel full of plays and he only learned ONE of them for the first months of the season. He said that didn't go well.

- He definitely liked the idea of freedom on the court. He said, "If you have great freedom, then you get great discipline." It was a Knight philosophy that he's taken with him.

- On that same point, he told us future coaches to not make basketball too complicated. He said Knight taught them how to play basketball (not how to play set plays), so they could play in any situation.

- He showed some plays that he ran as a coach in the NBA (didn't seem like he's a big X's and O's guy) and he talked about some other things in philosophy before turning to the Q&A session.

- Asked what he thought about the Knicks and he said he thought Nate Robinson, David Lee and Wilson Chandler could all become all-stars, particularly Robinson this season.

- He was describing a play they used when Eddy Curry was actually a decent player and then he said they had to abandon it once, "Eddy fell off the Earth."

- He said drugs were rampant in the NBA when he and the other "sober" 80's stars came in to the league. He also mentioned how almost all of the 80's stars who left college early went back and got degrees, something that is lost in today's NBA.

- He listed four characteristics that he looked for in players when he was GM: intensity, concentration, energy and character. He said character was the one that required the most work to figure out.

- On coaching: "I don't think I would ever coach again in the NBA."

- On the salary cap: "The salary cap model is a very antiquated model for dealing with today's sports."

- On IU: Crean is apparently really reaching out to these former IU players as Thomas said it was the first time that the team had reached out to him since Knight was fired. Thomas said Crean was doing a great job and he thought IU would be back on track within the year and that he would do anything they asked to help out the program.

- He also talked about how great of teammate Dennis Rodman was to the Pistons. He said Rodman would stand back during lay-up drills and he could count the number of revolutions the ball made on each shot, which helped him determine where the ball would bounce off the basket.

- On his biggest match-up problems in the league. Thomas said he couldn't defend Mark Price for about a three-year period. He said he asked coach Chuck Daley to take him out early in the game so he could come back in and play against the 2nd unit, which he would dominate and then get credit for winning the game. He also mentioned some double-jointed freak that played for the Bulls during that time (not that Jordan character) that had some crippling cross-over that he couldn't guard. Tim Buckley was the only guy in the room who had heard of him.

Like I said before, he talked about some other things, particularly the one-and-done college rule in the NBA, but you got the gist of the convo. Big thanks to Thomas for stopping by and talking to the class. If you ever get the chance to take this class at IU...do it! It's gonna be there every Fall so get prepared now.