"He ruled with intimidation. It was just like, 'If I swear enough or if I act like I'm tough enough you're going to back down."

"Just the rudest person that I have ever run into in my entire life. He's a very poor business person. He doesn't listen to people. He's always right. He makes poor decisions, and I'm talking about the CBA in particular."

"Who he listens to are people who tell him what he wants to hear. The fact that he's still in basketball and running the Knicks just astounds me."

"I shook my head when I saw (that the Knicks had hired Thomas as their president). I thought, 'Geez. Maybe he can coach. We certainly know he can play - he's got a good basketball mind. But why would somebody not check into his business references?'"

"We went from the very well-spoken Isiah to the Chicago Isiah that kind of got the lingo going and every other word was a swear word, and 'This is how it's going to be.' I thought, 'Oh my god...' I don't think we have as many f-words and swear words here."

"A few of us said, 'Hey, this isn't going to work.' To which his answer was, 'It is going to work and if you don't like it, quit. Or 'I'll fire you.'"

"He tends to do business just like he played basketball. He's very clever and cunning and friendly until the rubber hits the road. And then he can really bow his back up and get pretty ornery and hard to get along with when he doesn't get his way. It would go from us being best friends to him calling me a little bit ethnic-related names."