Isiah Thomas's Rough Year Takes A Bizarre Turn
posted 2008-10-27

Did he or didn't he?

Strangely, even 72 hours after the alleged incident occurred, there are still conflicting reports as to whether former NBA great Isiah Thomas did, indeed, take an overdose of sleeping pills.

The New York police say he did. Thomas says he didn't -- and not only THAT, but it was his 17-year-old daughter Lauren who was rushed to the hospital.

Police say a 47-year-old male -- Thomas is 47 -- was rushed by ambulance to a local hospital from Thomas's suburban New York home on Friday, October 24. The reports said that the male in question was unconscious but breathing as he was delivered to the emergency room. The reports also said that the drug in question was Lunesta, and that the person had ingested up to possibly 10 of the pills.

To add to the conflicting versions, Thomas not only said that the person was his daughter, but that it wasn't even an overdose situation.

But reached on his cell phone Friday, the 47-year-old NBA great told the New York Post he had not been treated for a sleeping pill overdose, and that it was 17-year-old daughter Lauren who had a medical issue.

It "wasn't an overdose," Thomas told the New York Post. "My daughter is very down right now. None of us are OK."

But Harrison police chief David Hall vehemently refuted Thomas's version of what happened in the Westchester County home.

"My cops ... know the difference between a 47-year-old black male and a young black female," Hall said.

"These people should learn something from Richard Nixon -- it's not the crime, it's the cover-up," he added. Hall also wondered "why they're throwing (Lauren) under the bus."

Thomas, a Hall of Fame guard, was fired by the New York Knicks on April 18, and also was the center of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former Madison Square Garden employee, Anucha Browne-Sanders, who claimed she was fired after resisting Thomas's advances. Thomas lost the suit, in which Browne-Sanders was awarded $11.5 million.