With his arrival just a few weeks ago, Lance Thomas continues the legacy of great Thomases playing basketball in New York City. Of course, I am talking mostly about the immortal and unaging Kurt Thomas, whose body resisted the determined overtures of Death himself to start seventeen games for the Knicks when he was 40 years old.
There’s also Tim Thomas, who counted the Knicks among his many stops around the league. Tim Thomas was okay but I’m really thinking more about Kurt when I talk about the legacy of Thomases in NYC. When I think about Tim Thomas I think about wasted potential. When I think about Kurt Thomas I think about a guy who maybe didn’t have a ton of potential but made up for it by being indestructible.
It’s doubtful that Lance Thomas ever gets as good as either of those guys, but who knows? If he played every game the way he played this game, one could reasonably say that he’s a more valuable on-court presence than 40,000-year-old Kurt Thomas. Did you see those dunks? Kurt would have died just thinking about those dunks.