This is in IMHO instead of The Game Room, because it’s not really sports related–for the non-sporting types, in sum: Thomas, the former superstar player and super-suck General Manager, his life in (mostly self-inflicted) ruins, has taken (seemingly) a deliberate overdose of pharmaceuticals in what appears to be a suicide attempt (all the "seemingly"s are because this story is still breaking).
I’m conflicted: as a recovering chronic-depressive with suicidal ideations (none, thankfully in the last few decades) I understand better than most how little reality has to do with despair. But this is an extreme case, in that Thomas was paid millions upon millions of fuck-you money, which was fortunate for him because he’s one of the most reviled figures in sports now, certainly in the NYC area, where he would hear “fuck you” on every street he walks down, having made disastrous arrogant literally-criminal decisions that the Knicks’ long term, multi-million dollar commitment encouraged him to make. He’s the definition of “unemployable,” but he’s sitting on millions, set for a very comfortable life surrounded by trophies of his former stardom as a player-- and he feels terminally sorry for himself.
My attitude as a former Knicks fan (I turned on them during the Thomas era, not that I wasn’t pretty disgusted before that) is “Cry me a fucking river, asshole,” but as I say, I do understand that despair isn’t fully rational and that suicidal thoughts are best understood as a health problem and not a moral issue.
For non-hoops fans (which is what I’ve become, thanks to Thomas), think of the worst person you know: if she/he tried to kill her/himself, would you apply the same standards of judgment and compassion you apply to anyone else in that situation?