The flames flicking out in every direction and the dense, suffocating smoke made it impossible for rescuers to reach 6-year-old Larry France right away. Trapped inside his burning home in Pontiac, Mich., the child was eventually carried out and miraculously survived after his brain went without oxygen for 20 minutes. Convalescing in a nearby hospital, France silently crawls around on the floor. Brain damage has forced him to learn how to walk and talk all over again.
Isiah Thomas found out about Larry France and sent him a get-well card. When Thomas discovered that France`s biggest fantasy was to meet the Detroit Pistons` superstar, Thomas went straight to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Pontiac the moment he returned from a western trip late last month during which the Pistons played five games in seven nights.
The visit was a memorable one, and it was difficult to tell which face beamed with the bigger smile. As Thomas said goodbye, France struggled to his feet and wobbled six steps toward the wide-eyed Piston. Those were the first steps France had taken since the fire.
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It might surprise some folks and players around the National Basketball Association to see such compassion coming from the feisty Thomas. Anyone familiar with life on Chicago`s West Side realizes that surviving an atmosphere permeated by drug dealers, pimps and winos can harden the soul of the most innocent child. For 19 years, this was home to Isiah Thomas, the cornerstone on which he would form his perspective on life.
Rival players aren`t conned by Isiah`s big eyes, bright smile and cherubic countenance. The happy-go-lucky point guard who can charm the socks off corporate executives and big-city mayors can just as easily fire a basketball at Boston center Robert Parish or jump on the back of former Bulls` center Jawann Oldham. There is a street toughness about him that seems to say, ”If you want to play dirty, I`ll play dirty.”
It is not unusual for Thomas to brighten up the lives of kids such as Larry France. For an inner-city kid from the ghetto to have a certain sensitivity off the court is not surprising once you find out what Isiah Thomas is all about. Just as Luke Skywalker professed his faith in The Force, Thomas believes life on and off the basketball court is governed by a series of rhythms. He sees most people falling in step to the same rhythm with the few and far between seeking a different beat.
That might explain why Thomas` closest friend on the Pistons is not another player who escaped the ghetto, but a big, white center named Bill Laimbeer. While Isiah`s mother, Mary, was cooking in a monastery for $75 a week to feed him, Laimbeer`s father was a vice president of a conglomerate that`s 90th in the latest Fortune 500 listing of megabuck corporations. It`s been said Laimbeer is the only NBA player who doesn`t make more money than his father, and Laimbeer is pulling down $650,000 this season.
That also might explain why Thomas, whose family grew up on ”choke sandwiches,” made with bread so dry it could choke you, has been known to shock forlorn-looking panhandlers on the street with a $100 bill.
”Street ball gave me a sense of freedom, imagination, creativity,” said Thomas, who Sunday will be performing in the ultimate street game, the NBA`s 37th All-Star game. ”All the players around the league play to the same rhythm, same flow, movement. If you change your rhythm, a half-step slower or faster, it throws them off. More than anything, that`s what I`ve been so successful with.”
The best example of Thomas-in-sync is a 1984 playoff game against the New York Knicks. He scored 16 points in 94 seconds to single-handedly send the game into overtime. In his first five seasons, Thomas averaged 20.8 points a game, 24 a game in the playoffs and set the NBA record for assists in a season with 1,123 (13.9 a game) in 1985. He has been named the Most Valuable Player in two of the last three All-Star games, including last year when he led the East to victory with 30 points and 10 assists. His leadership this season has the Pistons contending for the Central Division title and has elevated Detroit to a notch just below the Celtics in the Eastern Conference.
He is the only player to be voted an All-Star game starter by the fans in each of his first five seasons. That string will be broken Sunday when Julius Erving starts in the backcourt with the Bulls` Michael Jordan. This is Erving`s final season, and the sentimental vote pushed him ahead of Thomas, who was prepared to sit down in deference to Dr. J.
After Erving beat him out, Thomas sent him a telegram that read:
”Congratulations on being selected for the starting team on the Eastern Conference All-Star team. You have been an inspiration, a leader and a perfect role model for me and all the other NBA players. You made the path much smoother for us younger players to follow. Through your efforts, the NBA enjoys the success it does today.”
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Isiah Thomas first felt the rhythm as a freshman at St. Joseph High School in Westchester. Good enough to play on the sophomore team, Thomas said he remembers feeling as if ”you`ve got puppets and you`re pulling the strings. Not only your own team`s strings, but the other team`s, too.”
He rode public transportation for 1 1/2 hours every day to attend a Catholic high school in the western suburbs. He stuck his nose in textbooks just enough to qualify for the basketball scholarship Indiana coach Bobby Knight offered him, when friends and family wanted him to stay home and play for Ray Meyer at De Paul.
Thomas is the youngest of nine kids, and his six older brothers made certain the baby of the family made good. They kept him off the streets and, to reinforce their preachings, would subject him to the seamy side of life at a fleabag hotel on Jackson Boulevard. Observing the street people and their desperate existence made a profound impression on young Isiah.
One ugly incident etched in his memory from his teen years was a shootout after a neighborhood basketball game.
”When the first game was over, there were two guys standing there fighting about who`s playing next,” Thomas said. ”One goes home and gets his gun and starts shooting, and everybody`s running everywhere. I`m hiding under a car and a guy runs by and is shot and falls. He`s bleeding, just bleeding. The look on his face . . . over basketball. We had just got done playing, and he`s laying there in front of me bleeding to death for no reason at all.”
Thomas` escape from such a brutal world continued in Bloomington, Ind., where he led the Hoosiers to the NCAA title as a sophomore in 1981. Then he made his escape from the volatile, unpredictable Knight, entering the NBA draft and being selected second, behind Dallas` Mark Aguirre, by the Pistons. Thomas and Knight were never the best of friends, and Thomas has confided to close friends that he sensed a major confrontation had he remained for his junior year. The two have grown steadily apart, and although Thomas refuses to talk about their differences, he also refuses to recruit for Knight. The Indiana coach has sent emissaries, former Hoosier players and assistant coaches that Thomas liked and respected, to solicit his support. Thomas has sidestepped every approach.
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Boyish as ever, Thomas will be 26 years old in April. He is entering his prime by NBA standards and has no financial worries with a contract that pays him $1 million a year through the 1994-95 season. But artistically, for his own satisfaction and peace of mind, Thomas wants to be known one day as the best.
”When people talk about great guards today, they compare them to Bob Cousy and Nate Archibald,” Thomas said. ”But when I`m retired, I`d like for people to be comparing them to Isiah.”
