Isiah Thomas may know the ins and outs of the NBA better than most people. A two-time world champion with the Detroit Pistons, Thomas, 40, moved easily from the hardwood to the front office as vice president of basketball operations for the Toronto Raptors, going on to become the majority owner of the Continental Basketball Association. Now head coach of the Indiana Pacers, Thomas is happy to see people such as Steve Mills, 42, president of sports team operations for New York's Madison Square Garden, continuing to forge new trails for African Americans in sports management. Recently, Thomas and Mills talked about the benefits of diversity in sports.
Thomas: Sports is, to me, the one place minorities can go where the playing field is level. Coaching is really about understanding people, and with a diversity of people, [being an African American] really gives me the ability to communicate with players. It's not even necessarily about race but about culture, understanding where the players come from, how they were raised. It's dealing with every aspect of society.
Mills: Focusing on diversity is not just the right thing to do. It makes sound business sense. It allows you to deal with the [full range of] customers and players surrounding you.
Thomas: You can track it in the NBA. When diversity came, the business increased.
Mills: I think you're right on that. As an African American, all I want is the opportunity to be a success. I've been given an opportunity to either succeed or fail, and that's reflected in the executives, it's reflected in people like you who have moved up the ranks to be part of the management team.
Thomas: As an athlete, it's important to have someone in the front office like you, who graduated from Princeton and was a player but didn't put all his eggs in one basket. You can see the sport from a different perspective. The perspective I brought from the floor to the front office helped me. I understand the locker room, the politics of a bus ride or plane ride. Those are the places you win games — not on the floor. I understand the business from the ground up. It helps me deal with problems and attack them from an insider's perspective. There are very few people in sports who have been on all sides of the management table, and you are one of them. You've played the game, you understand the game. You have a passion for the game. But you've also been on the other side of the table when a billion-dollar deal is struck.
Mills: [Not long ago,] I got a chance to meet Earl Lloyd, the first black player in the NBA, when he talked to the New York Knicks about his experience. The more I listened to him, the more I realized how difficult it was for him. He's someone I have tremendous respect for.
Thomas: In terms of sports role models, that would be Muhammad Ali, not because of what he did in the ring, but what he did outside the ring [to fight prejudice]. There is a responsibility that comes along with success. I don't buy into "I'll get mine, and you get yours." You have to step outside your surroundings to help, because people can accept change in the sports arena before the social arena. When you go back to the days of segregation, when there was a Negro league, the superstars on those all-black teams were making political news and political change, and they could because people would listen.
Mills: Sports is a window to our culture. It allows people to learn about issues they normally would avoid. I think most people dealt with HIV through Magic Johnson [the basketball superstar who announced in 1991 that he had the virus].
Thomas: As far as players starting out of high school, I think you can't stop peoples' opportunity to live the American dream and make as much money as you can, as soon as you can. Of course, with that success there is responsibility that goes along with it; if your talent and skill are enough that you can play, great, but you must educate and stimulate yourself. There is a responsibility of both the organization and the individual to himself. In all my years in the NBA, I have run across very few dumb athletes. Sure, there may be a few who slip through the cracks, but when you're talking about professional players, I'd say most are pretty educated.
Mills: Yes, the organization has a certain set of responsibilities, I agree. And it's hard to say that someone who is able to come into the NBA and earn a living — when the reason they went to college was to increase their earning skills in the first place — it's hard to turn that down. But you need to be a well-rounded person, and in order for these players to perform in the way they are expected to by the organization, they need the right social skills.
Thomas: In terms of big salaries, everyone's talent is different, and what is it that makes a Picasso worth [more than a] Rembrandt? It's what someone is willing to pay. And when you're talking about a professional athlete, you're talking the rarest of the rare in talent. If you're trying to find the next [Shaquille O'Neal], what do you pay for that? I think with athletes, it's as much as the market will bear.
Mills: What you hope for is that there's change in the NCAA, that they put an emphasis on giving guys the opportunity to understand that education, the classroom portion of it, is important. And they need to give them the opportunity to come back and finish their education after basketball.
Thomas: I left college in my sophomore year in '81 but came back and got my degree in criminal justice and graduated in '86. I went back because I was scared of my mother. I'd like to keep things moving ahead in sports. Every 20 years or so, it seems, there's a window of opportunity where we let everyone participate, [before] the doors close again. Now is one of those times. It's up to people like us to make sure we don't screw it up for the next person.
Mills: What you want is to be in a position where you see people getting opportunities. If people are given opportunities, that's all you can ask for.
Thomas: We've probably both had bad experiences [with racism], but by being in the profession we're in, I think we have the opportunity to step back and say, "Was this racially motivated, or was it just a bad business move?" I think in sports nowadays, it's very difficult to make a racist move, because it's open for all to see. It's in the business arena, where things happen behind closed doors and no one is watching, where we need to see change.
Mills: It's great that blacks are excelling in "white sports," like tennis and golf. When they see a Tiger Woods or the Williams sisters, kids see an opportunity to be successful in sports that African Americans have not traditionally played. They see that, and it's something to aspire to.
Thomas: I think golf and tennis are finding out what basketball already has: Diversity didn't change the game — it made it better.
— Moderated by Ellen Durston, a magazine writer in Chicago.
Thomas, top, champion NBA player, is the head coach of the Indiana Pacers. Steve Mills is president of sports teams operations for Madison Square Garden.
— Thomas by Todd Plitt. Mills by George Kalinsky, Madison Square Garden.