Quote:
There were three players who’d separated themselves in the draft class of 1981: Thomas, a sophomore at Indiana, and juniors Mark Aguirre of DePaul and Buck Williams of Maryland. Dallas had the No. 1 pick and New Jersey the No. 3 pick with the Pistons in the middle and McCloskey hoping the Mavericks wouldn’t pick Thomas.
Somebody else didn’t want the Mavericks to pick him: Isiah Thomas. When he visited Dallas prior to the draft, he told Mavs coach Dick Motta that he didn’t think he’d fit his system and that Aguirre was the best player in the draft. He then irked Mavs owner Donald Carter, who liked to wear cowboy hats, by refusing to don one of his Stetsons for the cameras.
But Thomas wasn’t trying to steer the Mavericks off of him so he could get to the Pistons. He was hoping to land with his hometown Chicago Bulls, who went into the draft with the No. 4 pick.
“He wanted to play in his hometown,” McCloskey recalled. “He told me, ‘You don’t have any players.’ I said, ‘That’s true. But I’ll get you some players.’ ”
Thomas tried the same tactics that worked in Dallas when he visited Detroit, where he met with McCloskey and his trusted longtime scout Will Robinson, who coached Detroit Pershing and all-time great Spencer Haywood before becoming the first black Division I head coach at Illinois State.
“Jack McCloskey was asking me all these questions and I was intentionally answering every one of ’em wrong and finally he looked at me and said, ‘I know what you’re doing but I’m going to draft you at number two if you’re there and you’re going to love it,’ ” Thomas said on a recent podcast with another Chicago native and NBA alumnus, Quentin Richardson. “So he walks out and Will Robinson walks in and Will goes, ‘Champ, if you’re lucky enough to get here to Detroit, this place will love you like no other.’ … And he was right.”
There wasn’t much Thomas could have done to scare off McCloskey, who said he would have taken Thomas with the No. 1 pick over Aguirre, a childhood friend of Thomas from Chicago’s west side and a player McCloskey would shockingly trade for eight years later with the Pistons on the verge of the franchise’s first NBA title. McCloskey was sold after scouting Thomas during his sophomore season and seeing him play “a perfect game.”
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pittmike wrote:
Technically I was drunk (big surprise) and asked her if she liked a tongue up her ass.
Frank Coztansa wrote:
Again, your comprehension needs work.
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