NEW YORK.  Stunned by an $11.6 million sexual harassment verdict for crude remarks and unwanted advances by head coach Isiah Thomas, the New York Knicks today selected Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to lead a team that hasn't won a playoff game in four years out of its current doldrums.

Clarence Thomas: "I'm here to clean house.  Now somebody get me a Diet Coke."

"I'm pumped and I'm jacked," the normally sedate jurist said at a press conference.  "I want to bring the intelligent basketball of the Knicks' glory days back to the Garden," he said, referring to the franchise's roots as the Knickerbockers, an all-Dutch aggregation that invented the back-door play.

"The 2 man cuts to the basket and the high post hits him with a bounce pass."

Clarence Thomas knows a few things about sexual harrassment, having been pilloried in a 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for allegedly making suggestive remarks to Anita Hill, a co-worker at the federal Department of Education and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  Thomas has steadfastly denied the accusations, claiming that Hill was a "scorned woman" who turned on him after he refused to sell her NCAA Final Four bracket sheets during the late 80's.  "She kept picking teams because their mascots were cute," said a former EEOC staff member.  "That wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't won all the time."

"I can't spell 'Isaiah', so call me Zeke."

Isiah Thomas has presided over a steady decline in the Knicks' fortune, marked by expensive free agent busts that have cost the franchise millions.  "The reason they're going with Clarence Thomas is they'll save money on name tags and letterhead," said NBA Insider columnist Charlie Rosen.  "Staples shut off their charge account."  

"Offensive foul on 33 white--charging."

The jury verdict was assessed against Madison Square Garden and its chairman James Dolan but not Thomas, recalling the days when the Hall of Fame guard was an instigator on the Pistons' championship teams of the 80's while teammate Bill Laimbeer would be ejected.  "Ain't that just like Zeke," Laimbeer said.  "He's always stiffing somebody."

"Your feet must remain on the ground at all times."

Clarence Thomas attended Holy Cross, which was NCAA men's basketball champion in 1947 when the two-handed set shot was still legal.  As an undergraduate he played intramural basketball on the "Miss Worcester Night Owls", a team named after a local diner in Worcester, Mass., that went 23-3 his senior year.

Landis:  "Go ahead--pull my finger."

Other sports have turned to former judges to clean house after scandals, most notably Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who became the first commissioner of major league baseball following the Chicago "Black Sox" scandal of 1919.  Landis is credited with the invention of the "pull my finger" gag, which Laimbeer used successfully on Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaugnessy in the 1980's before it was banned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman