Speaking on his three-year coaching tenure with the Indiana Pacers, Isiah Thomas made a pretty bold claim, going so far as to say the Pacers would have won the title in 2004, had he not been fired the year before.
(via Heavy.com)
“Those three years were great coaching moments for me. I’ll be as bold as to say this: I think if [Larry] Bird hadn’t fired me, I think we would have won the championship that following year. I think we would’ve beat the Pistons.
That was my team and my time to go.”
Thomas was head coach of the Pacers from 2000-2003, leading them to the playoffs for three straight years — which all ended in first-round eliminations.
With a roster that included Reggie Miller, Jermaine O’Neal, Tim Hardaway, and Erick Strickland, the Pacers were certainly talented, but no evidence indicates they could have won the title had Thomas been given another year to coach the squad, especially against that 2004 Pistons team.
Needless to say, we’ll never truly know what would’ve happened had the Pacers kept Thomas around as their sideline leader.
But since his final coaching stint ended in 2007, he has been a regular member of the media, breaking down the game and providing his take to fans all over the globe. It seems many of his views are considered controversial by the NBA community.
