Isaiah Thomas clarifies recent comments
Nov 9, 2010, 5:49 PM | Updated: Apr 4, 2011, 7:54 pm
MyNorthwest.com staff
Washington junior guard Isaiah Thomas joined the Kevin Calabro show on Tuesday and clarified some controversial comments he made in ESPN the Magazine.
In the November issue, Thomas was asked to to say the first thing that came to mind about each school in the Pac-10. In the article, Thomas said of Arizona State: “I don’t even know who’s on that team anymore. They’re slow. They play so slow it’s draining to play against them.”
But according to Thomas, he didn’t mean any disrespect.
“I said that but I didn’t say it in that intent to where I was disrespecting (them),” he told Kevin Calabro and Jim Moore. “I really don’t know who’s on the team anymore after they got a lot of players (who) left last year or the year before. It is draining to play them because they play so slow.”
As for his own team, Thomas is well versed. He raved about the rebounding ability of 7-foot junior college transfer Aziz N’Diaye (left).
“He doesn’t care who’s around the basket. He doesn’t care how he’s going to get the rebound, but somehow he gets it,” Thomas said of N’Diaye, who came off the bench in Washington’s exhibition win against Saint Martin’s on Saturday and grabbed four boards before fouling out. “He’s a warrior underneath the hoop. And we need that. He helps our other bigs, too, especially Matthew Bryan-Amaning and Darnell Gant .
“We’ve got some good rebounders, we just got to put our minds to it to be a good rebounding team.”
The Huskies figure to rely this season on the perimeter shooting of Scott Suggs, C.J. Wilcox and Terrence Ross, among others. That’s something Thomas doesn’t seem to mind.
“The shooters, I love them because they open the game up for me, open the lanes up for me,” he said. “If you dont guard them then they’re going to knock it down. But if you don’t guard me I’m going to the hole fearlessly. So I love my shooters and we have a lot more shooters than we’ve had in the previous years here.”
Thomas averaged 16.9 points per game last season, which ranked him fifth in the Pac-10 and second on the Huskies. But he said his role as a scorer can change depending on need. He didn’t attempt a shot in the first half against Saint Martin’s and took just two all game, finishing with eight points and a game-high 11 assists.
“I just feel like I’ve matured a lot,” Thomas said. “I feel like anything (head coach Lorenzo Romar) asks or anything my team needs, I can do. If they don’t need me to score and (instead) go out there and get 10 assists a game, I feel like with the weapons we have, I can do that any given night.
“Or if he needs me to score 30, that’s something I can do, too.”
Thomas also talked about his love of Skittles and Cocoa Puffs and his desire to meet Kim Kardashian. You can listen to the full interview here. Photos by Jane Gershovich/MyNorthwest.com.
