It might have been during my high school years, perhaps a few years later. I can’t recall the exact moment, but at some point I stopped worrying about being "cool" and decided I would stop siding with the masses and would stand on my own, regardless of how unpopular my opinion was.

A decade or so later, I am extremely pleased I made that decision, otherwise I would join the rest of the free world in bashing New York Knicks President, Isiah Thomas, to no end.

Deciding to pass on this bandwagon, which surprisingly still has room, is not easy, but it forces one to look at the big picture and examine the facts that those on said bandwagon are speeding by.

Isiah "Zeke" Thomas is one of the most accomplished players in NBA history, with 12 All-Star appearances, two championships, and a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame on his resume. Since retiring from the game after the 1993-94 season, Thomas has been hired to run two NBA franchises, with both stops looked at as failures by many.

That impressive resume as a player, however, leads me to believe it can’t be as bad as it seems, or at the very least, it makes me want to give him the benefit of the doubt, so let’s look deeper into Thomas’ "after life" if you will.

In 1994, Thomas became the part owner and executive vice president of the then-expansion Toronto Raptors. After failing in his attempt to purchase a controlling interest in the franchise, he resigned at the beginning of the 1997 season. For some strange reason, Thomas’ time in Toronto is referred to as a "failure," an opinion I disagree with.

The Raptors were an expansion team; therefore, anyone that expected great things from them, especially in a mere three-year span was kidding themselves. When grading his performance in Canada, all we can look at is Thomas’ personnel decisions because looking at wins and losses just isn’t logical.

Before the team’s inaugural season, Thomas selected Damon Stoudamire with the seventh overall pick of the draft, a selection that was booed by Raptors fans who wanted UCLA standout Ed O’Bannon. In the second game of Stoudamire’s rookie season, Toronto faced the New Jersey Nets, who selected O’Bannon two selections later with the ninth pick.

The Raptors won that game 94-79. Stoudamire finished with 10 points 10 assists, while O’Bannon’s finished with 4 points. Nearly 11 years later, Stoudamire is still playing, sporting an average of 14.6 points per game for his career, while O’Bannon’s NBA career lasted all of two injury-plagued seasons, leaving him with an average of five points per game. Stoudamire, by the way, was also named Rookie of the Year.

Thomas’ other draft picks in Toronto included Marcus Camby and Tracy McGrady, a steal as the ninth overall selection in the ’97 draft. Each of these guys was eventually dealt out of Toronto after Thomas resigned, which one would suspect would not have happened under his watch since he had the confidence to draft them in the first place.

Why does Thomas still catch flack for "messing up" the Raptors? It seems to me he left them in pretty good shape with a roster that included McGrady, Camby, Stoudamire, and Doug Christie, who Thomas acquired in a great trade with the Knicks for Willie Anderson and Victor Alexander (who?!).

Had Toronto held on to Thomas and allowed him to purchase the controlling interest he was seeking, they might not be the laughing stocks they are now, because it appears he was laying quite a foundation.

After leaving Toronto, Thomas stepped away from the NBA for a few years before accepting the head coaching position with the Indiana Pacers in 2000. While there, he merely took Indiana to three consecutive playoff appearances and played a major role in developing stars Jermaine O’Neal and Jamaal Tinsley.

After being fired after the 2003 season, Thomas quickly landed on his feet, as he was named president of basketball operations for the Knicks shortly thereafter. It is in this position that Thomas has been the subject of constant ridicule and criticism, some of it just, some of it not.

When Thomas stepped into his role with the Knicks, he was walking into salary-cap purgatory. The Knicks boasted the league’s highest payroll and weren’t getting anywhere near their money’s worth. The roster was filled with underachieving players whose contracts made them nearly impossible to trade … or so it was thought. It was as if Knicks chairman James Dolan was saying, "Isiah, we made this mess; now you fix it!"

All Thomas has done is totally revamped the roster, getting rid of all 15 guys he inherited when he took the job. Bad move? Let’s look at it.

On the day Thomas accepted the position, the Knicks starting lineup consisted of Antonio McDyess, Keith Van Horn, Dikembe Mutombo, Howard Eisley, and Alan Houston, coached by Don Chaney. Today the Knicks start Channing Frye, Trevor Ariza, Eddy Curry, Stephon Marbury, and Quentin Richardson, coached by Larry Brown.

Advantage: ’05 Knicks.

With Brown, who recently admitted he would not have taken the Knicks job if it weren’t for his relationship with Thomas, running the show the Knicks will undoubtedly turn it around in due time. Now that Thomas has a quality head coach in place, the word-eating contests around the world should begin by the end of this season.

No one is saying Thomas will turn the Knicks around overnight, but given a fair shake, he will turn the Knicks back into a winner. His predecessor, Scott Layden, was given four years to screw it up, doesn’t Isiah at least deserve that?

In his first off-season with the team, Thomas hired Brown, traded for Eddy Curry and rookie Nate Robinson, and drafted rookie of the year candidate Frye, all seemingly good moves at the time.

Obviously injuries and things of that nature are beyond his control, but as far as those things that are Thomas has done a good job. He walked into a Madison Square Mess and although, it might still appear to be a mess to the naked eye, it is a much smaller one, which can be and should be cleaned up soon.

At his introductory press conference with the Knicks, Thomas said, "I would say that in business I’ve been successful and I’ve had failures. I don’t think I’ve been judged like the average businessman who can have a 20% success rate where I’m expected to win 100% of the time."

I couldn’t agree more. It’s just a shame that the bandwagon filled with Thomas bashers is going to fast to see it that way.