I'll have to admit before I write this, I've never liked Isiah Thomas.

Sure, he was an important player in IU history – the fourth championship likely never happens if he doesn't land in Bloomington. And yeah, he provided Indiana with a flagship presence in the NBA to keep critics from playing the "their players never do well in the pros" card, much like the annoying sentiment that often surrounds Duke.

But I don't really care.

To me, he isn't a typical IU player. By that I mean when you hear his name, you don't immediately associate it with Hoosier basketball – he's not a Steve Alford or Calbert Cheaney-type alumnus. He was only in town for two years and he often clashed heavily with Bob Knight, even though the two have reportedly since become close.

Honestly, none of that even really matters to me. With Zeke, it's always been the way he carries himself, as a player and as an executive. One of the earliest basketball-related memories I have is at six or seven years old, watching a Bulls vs. Pistons game sitting about two inches away from the television in our family room. Isiah got caught in a mismatch on the low post guarding Grant, who immediately drop-stepped and extended for what should have been an easy lay-in. But Isiah reached up in a half-hearted attempt to go for the ball and raked Horace straight across the face, ripping his signature Rec Specs off his face. I remember a throng of Bulls running in to restrain big Horace, and Isiah looking like David of David and Goliath fame, puffing his chest out and clenching his fists like he actually believed he was capable of somehow damaging the 6-10 giant in front of him.

Needless to say, that's the kind of thing that scars a kid. But just to legitimize the point a little further, I'll run through Zeke's infamous track record as brief as possible – if that's even possible. As a player, he exemplified sportsmanship to probably the worst possible degree. In 1985, Isiah was jealous of all the attention a young Michael Jordan was getting, so he reportedly told all the other veterans playing in the All-Star game that year to "freeze out" MJ. Then, six years later when the Bulls finally overcame the Pistons in the conference finals, Isiah and his teammates strutted off the court refusing to shake any of the Chicago players' hands.

Now that's a role model.

But detractors – rather, Pistons fans – will point out that it is possible to admire an athlete's ability without praising his personality or off-court behavior. And rightfully so. But that isn't the case with Zeke or really any of the Bad Boys for that matter. I'm perfectly OK with a team scrapping and being tough to compensate for a lack of ability, but there's a certain point where playing hard and physically dominating a game can become downright dirty and unfair. There's priding yourself as a "blue collar team", and then there's frequently coming to blows with your opponents and having the majority of the league despise you.

Unfortunately for Isiah, his career as an executive hasn't done much to admonish his on-court behavior. His run as the owner of the CBA was impressive, but for all the wrong reasons. In a span of 18 months, Zeke managed to run through the basement a 54-year-old league. Fifty four years squandered in just 18 months – you kind of wonder if someone could intentionally pull that off. And your jaw drops even further when you consider the NBA offered to bail him out about seven months into the disaster, offering a little more than what he paid for the organization. But he refused, only to try to re-sell it to the league's previous owners about seven months later.

You might scoff and say to yourself "who cares about some minor league?" But the feeling around the NBA seems to be that the CBA is pretty badly missed, as some memorable players did come from its ranks – Darryl Dawkins, Tim Legler and Mario Elie.

Of course, there's what he's done to the New York Knicks – the supposed pinnacle of basketball that he somehow found himself in charge of. And that in turn brings me to the crux of my point. When everything is said and done, and the Knickerbockers finish this season in dead last and cede their lottery pick to the Bulls, Isiah won't just be out of work. I'm telling you, we're all playing witness to something monumental here, and it's nothing good at all.

Zeke is on the cusp of permanently altering his legacy. Right now, he is still somewhat revered for his playing days – the poster child Bad Boy with a frightening first step, responsible for the banner hanging in Assembly Hall and the two NBA rings. But if the worst-case scenario happens in New York this season, Isiah will go down in absolute infamy. He will cement himself as the worst executive in the history of professional sports, the guy who could have brought professional basketball back to its homeland, but instead distanced it very far away. All of his accomplishments as a player will be drowned in the shadow of his tenure as a general manager.

Right now, it's like a hurricane is hitting the Knicks' organization. We know things are bad, and we're hearing awful reports about the $130 million payroll and the malcontent players. But it's impossible to completely fathom the damage until we can see the aftermath.

The aftermath will be much worse than the storm.

Isiah runs a very legitimate chance of setting back his organization possibly half a decade. Not just with irresponsible spending – we'll get to that shortly – but as the guy who missed out on Greg Oden. When the Knicks finish dead last at 20-62 this year, Chicago will have a very real chance at landing the kid billed as the next David Robinson, who scored a cool 14 points last week shooting with his left hand. And should the Bulls land Oden, the sentiment surrounding Madison Square Garden for decades to come will be: "We could have had that kid."

Though, if the Oden situation pans out like that, you kind of have to chuckle at the karma involved.

All this is, of course, the product of a trade two years ago between the Bulls and Knicks, who received a fringe-star in big man Eddy Curry in exchange for some bench guys and two first round draft picks. Chicago took New York's highest first-rounder this June and will have the opportunity to switch picks at the end of this season, when the Knicks finish in the lottery. You have to wonder what the logic was behind all this – it seems almost like Isiah decided he would make it completely impossible for his team to get any sort of shot at Oden or anyone else in this extremely deep draft class. It's like he said to himself, "Well, we'll give up our draft pick this year, and just in case David Stern decides to prohibit high school kids from making the jump to pros, we'll go ahead and give up next year's as well. That will eliminate any sort of shot at getting Oden or any other top talents, should we have a tough season." It's not like we're just hearing about Oden now – he's been touted since his freshman year of high school.

That's not even the most alarming thing about this trade. Curry has some possibly serious heart problems. He sat out his final games in Chicago because of an irregular heart murmur that hospitalized him at one point. The concern around the league became that Curry could fulfill the cautionary tale of Reggie Lewis. Lewis, the former Boston Celtic who suffered from a heart ailment that caused him to collapse during a playoff game in 1993, died of a heart attack later that year during practice. Chicago spent all summer trying to deal Curry after he refused to submit to cardiac tests, until early October, when Isiah and the Knicks welcomed him with open arms. And somehow no one found this the least bit concerning. Here was a guy, Curry, who had health problems that made every GM wary and the Knicks had no qualms about bringing him in. No one flexed an eyebrow at this? I obviously don't wish Curry any ill will. I'm sure he is a good guy. Heaven forbid, something happens to him when he is on the court some day, you really can't help but point a finger at Isiah and the rest of the Knicks' administration for allowing him to play.

Then there's the flat-out irresponsible spending. This is well-publicized, so I'll give you the cliff notes version. The Knicks are about $75 million over the salary cap and owe the hall-of-fame coach they fired (Larry Brown) $18.5 million from a settlement. Since I can't assume that you follow the NBA, I won't pain you in listing guys who he's overpaid and unwisely traded for. But I'll say this much, the salary cap situation doesn't stand much of a chance of improving too greatly in the near future. It could take the franchise five or six years to recover significantly from his spending – some of these guys will be on the books that long. If Stern doesn't step in and grant some sort of amnesty, it could be a long while before professional basketball returns to its supposed homeland.

Now I know this turned into a bit of a rant, and you'll have to excuse certain portions. But you have to understand two things about me. (A) I know the NBA, and it absolutely kills me to see someone run a franchise like this. I'm one of those people who stays in on Thursday nights just so I can watch Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith clown around during TNT's after-game show. It's like torture watching someone run a team like he's setting up a roster in a video game. And (B) I really want to like Isiah Thomas. Not only did he go to IU, but he is the kind of athlete I should have adored as a youth, not been afraid of. He is from Chicago and played the same position I did. And when he wasn't playing dirty, he could lead a pretty impressive fast break or absolutely leave a defender helpless with his first step.

Like I said, his ability doesn't mirror his off-court behavior.