When a big news story breaks, there's usually mass confusion at first followed by clarity as more details emerge. In the case of Isiah Thomas and this afternoon's reports that he's been hospitalized for overdosing on Lunesta, a sleeping pill, the opposite is true -- there are so many conflicting reports right now that we don't know what to believe. But here's what we (think) we know ...
First and foremost, he hasn't died, no matter what some fringe outlets are reporting. That's either a serious mistake or a blatant attempt to capitalize on search engine traffic, I'm not sure which. How do we know he hasn't died? Because he's already giving interviews about his condition. From the New York Post:
When reached on his cell phone today, Thomas, 47, denied those claims and inexplicably insisted that it was his 17-year-old daughter Lauren who was the one having an issue but it "wasn't an overdose."
"My daughter is very down right now. None of us are OK," he told The Post.
Thomas said there was an "incident" that occurred Thursday at Rye Country Day school - where the 6-foot tall senior also plays hoops." He oddly wouldn't be more specific and told a reporter to call the school to see if they would give details.
What kind of incident might have happened? Isiah's son Joshua told the New York Daily News that his sister, Lauren, is hypoglycema and wasn't feeling well, apparently to the point that the family called for medical help. It was only after police responded to that call that Isiah began to feel faint.
"He's fine," Thomas' son, Joshua, 20, told the Daily News, when asked about Isiah. [...] "Reports of sleeping pills are false," Joshua Thomas added. "He doesn't take sleeping pills. He's doesn't really take anything that's not organic.
"He looked faint from stressing over her. They sat him down, let him drink some water. He's fine," the son said.
Joshua confirmed that both his father and his sister were taken to a hospital. This sounds like a reasonable explanation: daughter falls ills, parents call for help, father becomes so stressed with worry that he requires attention himself.
Except ... that version of events directly contradicts the story told by the police chief, who confirmed to multiple outlets that "a 46-year-old man" was found unconscious after consuming roughly 10 sleeping pills. Until everyone gets on the same page there's no way to know who we should believe. Conspiracy theorists might suggest that Isiah's family concocted the story to help him save face, but if that's the case, how did his daughter end up hospitalized, as well?
In time the truth will come out. In the meantime, be wary of accepting anybody's version of events at face value. All we know for sure is that there was some sort of emergency in the Thomas family, but fortunately, everyone seems to have emerged in good shape. Everything else is still rumor and speculation.
