Tuesday’s installment of the “Keyshawn, JWill & Max” show took an interesting turn when guest Isiah Thomas expressed displeasure over an image selected for his segment.
When speaking about the NBA playoffs on ESPN Radio, Thomas — a Hall of Famer and two-time Finals champion with the Detroit Pistons — veered the discussion to his photo that featured an intense expression.
“By the way, I’m looking at my picture. Come on, Keyshawn [Johnson], y’all doing that to me?” Thomas said, according to Awful Announcing.
Thomas, 61, then explained how other images featured individuals smiling, whereas his photo didn’t convey that.
“I saw Max Kellerman’s picture up there. I saw your picture up there. Y’all smiling. Y’all just had my man up there who was doing the football, he was smiling. This is the picture y’all put up there of me? What are y’all doing at ESPN to me?”
As the exchange continued, Thomas suggested the show take the photograph down, noting, “Pictures say a lot.”
“The way y’all got me cast in this picture, you know that ain’t me,” he said.
Thomas, who had a disastrous run as a Knicks executive, said he would then hang up and call back as the show sorted out the photo issue.
Although the image was swapped, the new photo from Thomas’ playing days featured a similar expression.
As the show continued, Johnson and Kellerman discussed the topic of race in the greater conversation of photo selection.
“The picture of him looking disgruntled and mean and mad or whatever you want to call it, I don’t blame him, though. You know how many pictures, Max, in my career, both on the field and in television, radio, that people use, it’s a frown… I’m a happy kid. You catch a moment of maybe I’m trying to figure something out, and you use that shot, that is not, no, don’t identify me like that, and that’s what Zeke is saying,” Johnson said.
“Show me happy, show me smiling, show me winning a championship, show me doing something at a great moment in time, not this whole, grrr, so now people are like, ‘Why is he looking so mean?'”
The former NFL receiver said while he “wasn’t really looking at it like that” as Tuesday’s show began, once Thomas got his point across, Johnson recognized where he was coming from.
Johnson then made it clear he and Kellerman were not picking on their staff, with the three-time Super Bowl champion suggesting “they just grabbed a picture” in lieu of taking time to locate an image of Thomas smiling.
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