Hey Basaglia I guess Isiah and Larry are alike

Isiah's 19-year-old love child takes shot at dad he's never met

I should get to say two words to my father: 'Hello. Goodbye.'

By DARREN EVERSON in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.,
and DAVE GOLDINER in New York
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS


Isiah Thomas

Isiah Thomas' teenage love child said yesterday he's long ached to meet his famous father - but the embattled Knick boss has denied him a shot.
Speaking out for the first time, Marc Dones, 19, an aspiring writer whose mom had a brief affair with a then-engaged Thomas two decades ago, said he still pines for an opportunity to get to know the father he's only seen on TV.

"People should be parents. That's it," Dones said. "By the time I turn 20, I should get to say two words to my father: 'Hello. Goodbye.' If that's it, then I should get those two."

Dones said he's called Thomas twice, but never got a response.

"I'd like to speak to him. I'd like to know him," said the dreadlocked young poet. "But that's not the situation I'm in."

Dones broke his silence just days after Thomas, a married father of two, was accused in a federal lawsuit of sexually harassing Anucha Browne Sanders, a Knicks executive.

Thomas, 44, has denied the allegations.

"I don't know anything about any of this. It has nothing to do with me," Dones said. "I don't have an opinion about what kind of person he is. I don't know him."

But the well-spoken teenager, who wore jeans and a T-shirt and held a cigarette as he stood outside his family's townhouse in suburban Detroit, had plenty else to say - and revealed planning to write a memoir about his unique family life.

Dones is 5-foot-10 and has an athletic build, but said he's not interested in being a star athlete like his Hall of Fame dad.

"It's just chasing a ball," he said of basketball, the sport that made his father rich and famous. "I don't know why you'd do that."

A talented poet and writer, Marc Dones went to the Roeper School, an elite private academy outside Detroit. He plans to attend the New School University in New York this fall.

His mother, Jenni Dones, got pregnant during a 1985 affair with Thomas, just two months before the then-NBA superstar player married his current wife, Lynn.

Jenni Dones has claimed she had a three- or four-month relationship with the Detroit Pistons All-Star, but her lawyer agreed with Thomas' version that it was a one-night stand.

After Marc Dones was born in 1986, Thomas admitted being the father and agreed to pay $52,000, plus $2,764.78 per month until Marc turned 18 - and then a lump sum of $100,000 to the youth.

Jenni Dones later sued for more support, claiming that her lawyer had failed to get a good enough deal from Thomas.

Again, the NBA star agreed to fork over more dough to support his child.

"He acted honorably, as far as I'm concerned," said Elbert Hatchett, the lawyer who represented Jenni Dones and was later sued by her.

Jenni Dones, who was at a family funeral yesterday, was not reachable for comment.

Kevin Mintzer, a spokesman for Sanders, declined to comment yesterday as did Raynor Grossman, a spokeswoman for Thomas.

No one answered the door at the Westchester mansion where Thomas lives with his wife and their two teenage children.

Jenni Dones' mother, Edwynna Anderson, was a prominent lawyer, a trailblazing black journalist in Michigan and a Detroit prosecutor.

Jenni Dones, a single mom, went on to have another child, now 13. She once ran a program in the urban studies center at Wayne State University in Detroit but apparently no longer works there.

She filed twice for bankruptcy protection, most recently in December, legal records show.

But Marc Dones called his mom a "very strong woman" who had long since moved on from the affair with Thomas.

"My mom doesn't believe in regret, which is shaping a lot of my dealing with it," he said. "There's no point. It happened. It's over."

"She's more than capable of dealing with my father, for one, and dealing with the world, for two," he added.

Even without a father, the teenager says he's had a good life and is resigned that he might never get to know his dad, who is running the struggling Knicks.

"We've never had a relationship," Dones said of Thomas. "I don't think we will. ... My life is completely separate."

He's already had work published on TheDetroiter.com, an artsy Web site in the Motor City.

"What amazes me, for his age, is his grasp of poetry," said Eric Novack, the site's literary editor. "He is an incredible young man."

Despite Thomas' refusal to have any contact with him, Dones said he won't allow himself to be eaten up with bitterness.

"That's my life - there's nothing I can do about it," he said. "It doesn't upset me. When I was younger, yes. Having known it no other way, there's no reason to be bitter about it.

"I don't hold him any malice. I don't have any ill will," he added as he hustled the family's dog, Charlie, a black Labrador retriever and Shih Tzu mix, into the backyard.

"It's hard to have any ill will toward someone who you don't have a relationship with."

Originally published on January 30, 2006