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Thomas On Thomas: Isiah Thomas has done many things in his career in basketball. He is a two-time NBA champion; a 12-time NBA All-Star. He was the NBA Finals MVP in 1990. He is a Hall of Famer. Thomas has been the general manager of two NBA teams. He owned the Continental Basketball Association for a time. And was the head coach of two NBA teams and is 187-223 as a NBA coach. Thomas who is currently coaching the Florida International Golden Panthers is currently 18-44 in two seasons as the head coach at FIU.

Isiah Thomas has been a lot of things, but since his playing days he has not been overly successful at any of them and he knows it.

"When you look at my basketball career… from 12 years old to 45, I was pretty damn good," Thomas said to Bill Reiter of Fox Sports. "Now, New York, hey, I wasn’t good. In a lot of ways. But I don’t think it’s as bad as it’s been made out to be. It’s not great, but it’s definitely not as bad as it’s been made out to be. And a lot of it’s been grossly overstated and grossly misrepresented."

"In basketball I’m good," Thomas says. "But in PR, clearly I suck. Clearly, I’m not good at this."

Thomas who still believes in his heart that he can land another NBA job knows the public perception of him is bad.

"I know I’m in a real tough spot media-wise," Thomas says. "Because of all the stuff that happened in New York. But on the street, with the players, I’m not at all. It’s totally different."

Thomas took the Florida International job at first for no compensation, landing the job initially because of his name recognition. Thomas had a reasonable recruiting class in his first year, but has yet to amass any real NBA-level talent.

"I’m down here struggling," Thomas says. "I’m down here fighting to survive. I’m down here fighting."

"I wouldn’t be down here working if I didn’t have fight in me," Thomas says. "I got knocked down. I’m down here, working. I’m fighting."

"Do you know the question you should be asking me?" Thomas asks. "’Why come down here to do this, why do you want to go back, why keep fighting?’"

"Because I love it," Thomas explained. "I truly love the game. It’s sick, but I love it."

Isiah Thomas is said to still be advising Knicks’ owner James Dolan, and reports say he was intimately involved in constructing the multi-player trade that landed the Knicks Carmelo Anthony at the NBA trade deadline.

Thomas last year offered his services to the LA Clippers, who never seriously entertained the offer, but again Thomas was willing to work for free in order to get back into the NBA circle.

Knicks’ president Donnie Walsh still has not had his contract picked up for next season and there is a growing sentiment that Dolan could lean on his friend Isiah again and as Thomas explains it, he is ready for another go at it.

Large Group Workout?: Jonathan Givony of Draft Express is reporting that a proposal for a large group workout in New Jersey has been submitted to the NBA for approval. If granted permission, all 30 NBA teams would be invited to see Draft eligible players compete in a structured workout far earlier than ever before.

Under the proposed workout plan, NBA teams would schedule a group workout the weekend of April 29th in New Jersey, all 30 NBA teams would be able to attend, and draft eligible players would have a chance to work out in front of scouts and executives and gain vital feedback on their draft stock in advance of the NCAA’s self-imposed May 8th withdrawal deadline.

Two seasons ago the NCAA moved their eligibility dates up several weeks in an attempt to close the gaps for its coaches and insure kids that were "testing the NBA waters" were not missing classes and risking eligibility issues by accepting workouts from NBA teams.

Givony is also reporting that the NBA’s Competition Committee voted during the All-Star weekend to allow five-on-five matchups during one group workout. Normally workouts are not allowed to feature more than six-draft eligible players on the court at one time. This change will allow teams to evaluate players in a true five-on-five setting, something that used to be done during the NBA Pre-Draft Combine and was only available at the Portsmouth Invitational scheduled for the first week in April.

Both changes should make for an interesting NBA Draft season.

Time To Rest?: The Orlando Magic lost a nail biter to the Atlanta Hawks 85-82 in Atlanta last night. Hedo Turkoglu had a fairly decent look as regulation wound down, but came up short on the three-pointer that would have tied the game. As a result the Magic lost the regular season series to the Hawks for the first time in years.

"It’ll be a different animal in the playoffs," Magic star Dwight Howard said to Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel.

The Magic are very thin right now with guard Chris Duhon having what is believed to be a torn ligament in his hand. Starting guard Jameer Nelson played 37 minutes, after missing a game due to a knee injury. Backup guard Gilbert Arenas played 20 minutes but was 0-for-2 from the field and virtually ineffective again. Magic reserve JJ Redick is still out with a lower adnominal strain which some have classified as a minor abdominal tear. Magic reserve Quentin Richardson has been having back issues and has not played meaningful minutes in more than a week.

Howard is concerned that his team is being pushed too hard down the stretch and that rest at this point in the season will mean more than three hour practices and two hour shoot arounds.

"We need our rest, you know," Howard said.

"A lot of guys are trying to get healthy, and we keep pounding them away. Gilbert, his knee isn’t right yet. That’s not excuses, but when you have a short roster sometimes rest is what’s going to get everybody back healthy. You can’t force the issue or press your team when you know everybody’s not healthy.

"We’ve got to have our rest," Howard said. "We’ve practiced enough. We’ve had enough shootarounds. It’s about rest right now."

The Magic will have today off, but will face the Charlotte Bobcats at home on Friday.

Magic team president Otis Smith continues to say adding new players is not on the agenda, citing the complexities of the system Stan Van Gundy runs and the fact that Orlando simply cannot plug in a body and hope to be successful.

There has been talk of the team adding a proven veteran like Jerry Stackhouse and some have openly questioned the status and fit of former Magic point guard Rafer Alston who led the Magic to the NBA Finals in 2009.

The Magic used nine players against the Hawks and needed 33 or more minutes from each of their starters. Depth was once a celebrated luxury for the Magic, who know have almost as many injured players as healthy starters.

The Magic will play seven games in a 13 day span starting Friday and will see Charlotte twice, Toronto, Milwaukee, Chicago and Philadelphia before wrapping up the regular season with a home game versus the Indiana Pacers.

The Magic are currently 5 ½ games behind third seeded Miami and 4 games up on Atlanta, so the Magic really have almost no shot at advancing from their current fourth seed in the East, so the magic number is really 4 games – any combination of Magic wins and Atlanta losses that equal four games – insure the Magic the fourth seed and they can ease up, if Magic coach Stan Van Gundy will allow it.

A Labor Update: Ken Berger of CBSSports.com is reporting that the NBA in another proactive step in their pending labor fight with their players has delivered complete audited financial statements for the 2009-10 season for all 30 NBA teams to the Players’ Association.

According to Berger’s report the statements show that the NBA last season saw a decline of more than $100 million in gate receipts league wide. The report also shows a $130 million increase in non-ticket revenues. The Union sources points out that the league also saw negotiated player salaries decrease by $120 million.

The Players will point to the decrease in players’ salaries as proof that the current system is still extremely viable; however that statement does not take into account the mass exodus teams engaged in last year to get themselves in a position to pursue key free agents like LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.

{AUTHOR_BOX} The NBA’s stance has been from the beginning that the issues at play are not just about money, that the league feels compelled to alter the system fairly dramatically to insure competitive balance as well as financial balance.

The Players are diametrically opposed to any deal that cap salaries or restricts player movement via free agency.

The NBA and its Players are watching how the ongoing labor fight in the NFL is playing out, mainly because if the NFL Players can sue their way to a deal that’s more in their favor then that sets the stage for the NBA players, who have the same lead attorney, to do the same.

The largest difference between the two fights is that the NBA has been extremely forthcoming with financial data that supports their claim that it costs more to generate revenue, hence their need to roll back player costs to offset.

During the All-Star weekend in February both sides met for the largest and what some would say was the most productive meeting to date. Sources inside that meeting said the general outcome was a mutual agreement that the offer the owners have been pushing would never be accepted by the players and that the offer presented by the players would never be accepted by the owners.

Both sides have agreed to start fresh taking everything off the table and the NBA’s delivery of its most current financial documents was the precursor to a meeting scheduled in April.

The current NBA labor agreement guarantees the players 57% of revenue and is expected to clock in at $2.1 billion in salaries and benefits this season. The NBA is expected to book in almost $4.3 billion in revenue this season.

The current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on July 1st of 2011.

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