Isiah ‘Hurt’ by ‘Joke’ About Bird

Isiah Thomas, having been “crying for days,” was busy Wednesday making peace with Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics and explaining himself to anyone who would listen.

So distressed was Thomas over the reaction to his remarks after Game 7 of the National Basketball Assn.’s Eastern Conference championship series that he said, morosely, “I’m more hurt and disappointed about this than I am about losing the series.”

The six-time all-star guard for the Detroit Pistons added: “I’m hurt, my family is hurt, my mother’s crying, and I can’t believe this is happening.”

Thomas did not deny that he and rookie teammate Dennis Rodman made the comments about Bird that were attributed to them, but said on his own behalf that he was intending to be sarcastic, and that he was laughing after he said it.

Attempting to clarify matters, Thomas made several long-distance phone calls, including one to Bird, who was in Los Angeles awaiting Game 2 of the NBA championship series between the Celtics and the Lakers. He said Bird told him he understood.

At practice Wednesday at the Forum, Bird described himself as satisfied. “I knew what he said wasn’t coming from the heart; it was coming from his mouth. I respect him more now, because I know what he said today was from his heart. Rodman’s mouth is the one that got it going. Isiah just got caught up in it,” Bird said.

Thomas explained that he was not misquoted, but misunderstood.

He acknowledged that in the visiting locker room of Boston Garden, after Detroit’s 117-114 loss to the Celtics last Saturday in the final game of their series, he overheard Rodman, at the locker next to his, telling reporters that Bird was “very overrated” and had won the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award three times because “he’s white--that’s the only reason he gets it.” Rodman has since denied having made the latter statement.

What Thomas recalled Wednesday was this: “I heard Rodman say Bird was not the greatest player in the game today, or the greatest in history. He said Bill Russell was the greatest ever. Then a reporter asked him about the awards Larry has won, and Rodman said the only reason he won MVP three times was because he’s white. When I heard him say that, I said to myself, ‘Oh, (bleep). Now you’ve gone and done it.’

“Then somebody turned to me and asked me what I thought, and I said Larry was a very good basketball player, but if he was black, he’d be just another good guy. I thought the reporter was trying to compare him to Bill Russell and all, and I just said it to be sarcastic. Like a joke. I’m sure that I was laughing after I said it.”

Thomas, who also held a press conference Wednesday afternoon in Michigan and is flying to California today to be interviewed on CBS-TV at halftime of tonight’s Laker-Celtic game, said he already had spoken by phone to Boston Coach K. C. Jones and Kevin McHale, as well as Bird. To a writer from The Times, whom he called at 7 a.m. PDT, from his home in a Detroit suburb, Thomas said: “You know me. I’m not like that. This is crazy.

“I’ve been with Larry ever since I’ve been in the league. He knows how much I think of him.”

As for Rodman, the rookie forward from Southeastern Oklahoma State, who said he did not think much of Bird after playing against him, Thomas said he thought Rodman denied making the reference to Bird’s skin color because he was “very nervous” about how it sounded.

“One thing you’ve got to understand about him is who he grew up with. Dennis Rodman was raised by a white family. He’s got a white girlfriend. That’s all he deals with,” Thomas said. “He’s the farthest thing from a racist.”

The Thomas family, too, is sensitive on that subject. The wife of one of Isiah’s brothers, Ronnie, is white, and his sister, Ruby, has a white fiance.

When Indiana University was recruiting Isiah at St. Joseph’s High School in Westchester, Ill., a suburb to which he commuted daily from the West Side of Chicago, Mary Thomas was reluctant to permit her son to enroll there because the Bloomington campus was not far from Martinsville, Ind., where, she had heard, the Ku Klux Klan had originated. She did not think it funny when Coach Bob Knight joked, “How do you think I keep my players in line?”

Isiah has known for a long time how remarks can backfire. Honored once by the Mad Anthony’s civic group of Fort Wayne, Ind., he offended much of the audience by saying that he had learned many things from Knight over the years, then launching into a list of profanities. Even Knight took umbrage, refusing to speak to Thomas for months thereafter.

The damage done by last Saturday’s off-the-cuff comments has included a barrage of calls to the Pistons, some from customers canceling season tickets. Calling it the worst thing that has happened to him in his career, Thomas said that until Wednesday, he was too distraught even to leave the house.

“I’m telling you, it’s a good thing there wasn’t a gun in the house this morning,” Isiah said, trying to laugh to make sure the listener knew he was kidding.

He had not attempted to contact Bird before this because, “I didn’t feel there was any need, and I didn’t want to bother him on the day of a game.” The Celtics played Game 1 of the NBA finals Tuesday night at the Forum, losing to the Lakers, 126-113.

“I couldn’t even watch,” Thomas said. “This was the closest I’ve ever come to playing for that championship, and I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how much it hurts. I’ve been thinking about, you know, how I’m one pass away from being there.”

A pass by Thomas was intercepted by Bird with five seconds to play, costing the Pistons Game 5 and, conceivably, the best-of-seven series, since their victory in Game 6 would then have been their fourth.

In the final seconds of Game 7, Thomas fouled Celtic guard Danny Ainge violently, and when asked about it later, he said: “Why don’t you ask him about all the hard fouls that Danny made? (Bleep) Danny Ainge.” Of the Celtics, he said, “I’m sick of the way they treat people,” and insinuated that their remarkable success in their home arena was no coincidence. Shortly thereafter, the flap over Bird arose.

“I wasn’t angry at the Celtics so much as I was disappointed that we had lost the game,” Thomas said Wednesday. “What I said about Larry, I didn’t mean it the way it came out. He’s somebody I have been personally praising ever since I’ve been in the league. To say anything else, it would be contradicting everything I’ve ever said or felt.

“I’m sorry that I said it, and I’m sorry that everybody didn’t know the real Isiah, or couldn’t distinguish that I was kidding.”

When he called a writer in Los Angeles, the first thing he said was: “I need some advice.” The advice was simply to tell his side, which he did.

The writer asked if there was anything else he could do.

“Yes,” Isiah said. “Pray for me.”