Dedrick Etan Thomas (born April 1, 1978) is an American former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player who played for the

Washington Wizards The Washington Wizards are an American professional basketball team based in Washington, D.C. The Wizards compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays ...

Oklahoma City Thunder The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team based in Oklahoma City. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team plays i ...

, and

Atlanta Hawks The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta. The Hawks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The team plays its home games at ...

of the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...

(NBA). He is also a published poet, freelance writer, activist, and motivational speaker, as well as a co-host of ''Centers of Attention'', a sports talk show on ESPN Radio Syracuse in Syracuse, New York, alongside former professional basketball player Danny Schayes.

Early life

His name is derived from the 18th dynasty "heretic pharaoh"

Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth D ...

, an ancient Egyptian king.

Career

College

Thomas played his

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

at Syracuse University from 1996 to 2000, where he averaged 11 points per game and almost seven rebounds per game and graduated with a degree in business management. In his sophomore season, he was named the Big East Most Improved Player; in his junior and senior years he was named

Big East Defensive Player of the Year The Big East Conference gave five football awards at the conclusion of every season. The awards were first given in 1991 following the conference's first football season, and last given in 2012 before the conference was restructured as the American ...

. At the end of his Syracuse career, Thomas was drafted 12th overall in the 2000 NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks. He also played basketball at Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, OK, where he was a teammate of De'mond Parker, R. W. McQuarters and

Ryan Humphrey Ryan Ashley Humphrey (born July 24, 1979) is a former American professional basketball player, at the power forward position. Humphrey is currently an assistant basketball coach at The University of Oklahoma. Previously he was a coach at Notre ...

Professional career

Without ever playing a game for the Mavericks, he was traded to the

in 2001. He would play for Washington for the next 8 years (technically 7, as he sat out the entire 07 - 08 season due to injury), with his best season being in 2003 - 2004 when he averaged 8.9 points and 6.7 rebounds. Although Thomas never averaged 1.0 assists in a season, that 03 - 04 season was the closest he came to it, recording 68 assists in 79 games, for a season average of 0.9. During the Wizards' training camp for the 2007–08 NBA season, a routine physical examination discovered that he had a leaking

aortic valve The aortic valve is a valve in the heart of humans and most other animals, located between the left ventricle and the aorta. It is one of the four valves of the heart and one of the two semilunar valves, the other being the pulmonary valve. Th ...

. On October 11, 2007, Thomas successfully underwent open heart surgery. He returned to play for the Wizards on October 29, 2008, a full year after his surgery. In his first game back, he had 10 points and eight rebounds. On June 23, 2009, he was traded along with

Oleksiy Pecherov Oleksiy Ivanovych Pecherov ( uk, Олексій Іванович Печеров; born December 8, 1985) is a Ukrainian former professional basketball player. He was also a member of the Ukraine national basketball team. Professional career The Wa ...

Darius Songaila Darius Songaila (born February 14, 1978) is a Lithuanian professional basketball coach and former player. He serves as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has represented the Lithuania na ...

, and a first-round draft pick to the

Minnesota Timberwolves The Minnesota Timberwolves are an American professional basketball team based in Minneapolis. The Timberwolves compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. Founded in 19 ...

for

Randy Foye Randy Foye (born September 24, 1983) is an American former professional basketball player. He played collegiately at Villanova University. He was selected seventh overall in the 2006 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, but was immediately traded to ...

and Mike Miller. A month later on July 27, 2009, he was traded to the

along with a 2010 second-round draft pick and a conditional 2010 second-round draft pick in exchange for guards

Chucky Atkins Kenneth Lavon "Chucky" Atkins (born August 14, 1974) is an American former professional basketball player who played for nine different NBA teams throughout his career. Basketball career Atkins played college basketball at the University of Sout ...

and Damien Wilkins. On September 2, 2010, it was announced that the

had signed Thomas. His tenure with the Hawks (2010 - 2011) would be his final season in the NBA. That season, he played 13 games for Atlanta while averaging 2.5 points and 1.8 rebounds. His final NBA game was played on April 16, 2011 in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round against the Orlando Magic. Thomas played for 6 and half minutes and the only stat he recorded was 1 rebound in a 103 - 93 victory over Orlando. He would sit out for the remainder of the playoffs and the Atlanta Hawks were eventually eliminated in the Semi-Finals in 6 games by the Chicago Bulls.

Other work

In 2005, Thomas released a book of poetry titled ''More Than an Athlete: Poems by Etan Thomas'' which included works critical of former Wizards head coach Doug Collins.Boren, Cindy (May 22, 2016)
"Ex-NBA center shames woman he says wouldn’t let him sit by her due to race"
''The Washington Post''. In 2012, Thomas co-authored the autobiography ''Fatherhood: Rising to the Ultimate Challenge'', which he discusses his fatherless childhood and the importance of fatherhood. Since 2020, Thomas has been a writer and podcaster for Basketballnews.com. In 2022 he published: Police Brutality and White Supremacy: The Fight Against American Traditions.

Personal life

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

, Thomas is a member of the

First Baptist Church of Glenarden First Baptist Church of Glenarden International or FBCG is a Baptist Evangelical megachurch located in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. It is affiliated with Converge. Weekly church attendance was 12,000 people in 2022. The senior pastor is John K. Jenk ...

and is involved in facilitating youth forums.

Political activism and social causes

Thomas says that he became an oralist when, after he was detained and humiliated by police officers in high school, his speech teacher had him sort and verbalize his feelings into a speech. The Tulsa World Newspaper published a story on his experience. His mother spoke with him about activists who used their positions as athletes to amplify their reach, such as

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Kareem (alternatively spelled Karim or Kerim) ( ar, کریم) is a common given name and surname of Arabic origin that means "generous", "noble", "honorable". It is also one of the Names of God in Islam in the Quran. Given name Karim * Karim A ...

, Muhammad Ali,

Bill Russell William Felton Russell (February 12, 1934 – July 31, 2022) was an American professional basketball player who played as a center for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1956 to 1969. A five-time NBA Most Va ...

, and Jim Brown. In his book, ''More Than an Athlete'', Thomas discusses how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) runs as a business, and not to the service of the student athletes. After his wife was injured in college, the NCAA fought to take away her scholarship, and therefore, her ability to pay for and attend college. He points out the hypocrisy in an organization who makes billions a year and claims that there is not enough funding available for their main sources of profit, the athletes. In September 2005, Thomas was one of several celebrities to speak at an anti-war rally in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

He also spoke out at the September 15, 2007 anti-war protest in Washington D.C. He blogs for ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

''. Thomas said he was inclined to be against the Iraq War, as he felt there was no clear reason to invade the country and the fact that some of his brother's friends who were deployed to Iraq, and upon learning about how terrified they were, decided to begin speaking out. Thomas actively supported

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

's 2008 campaign for U.S. president. On August 16, 2008, he appeared with Democratic National Committee chair

Howard Dean Howard Brush Dean III (born November 17, 1948) is an American physician, author, lobbyist, and retired politician who served as the 79th governor of Vermont from 1991 to 2003 and chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 2005 to 2009 ...

at stops in northern Virginia as part of the Democratic National Committee's "Register for Change" bus tour to encourage local voter registration drives. Thomas gave speeches at two stops in

Fairfax County Fairfax County, officially the County of Fairfax, is a County (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. It is part of Northern Virginia and borders both the city of Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria and ...

and the City of Alexandria. In January 2010, Thomas donated $30,000 to the Haiti relief efforts after the

2010 Haiti earthquake A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The epicenter was near the town of Léogâne, Ouest department, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's c ...

. Thomas is an advocate against police brutality.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

, - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

, 47 , , 0 , , 13.1 , , .536 , , , , .554 , , 3.9 , , .1 , , .4 , , .7 , , 4.3 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 38 , , 0 , , 13.5 , , .492 , , , , .638 , , 4.3 , , .1 , , .2 , , .6 , , 4.8 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 79 , , 15 , , 24.1 , , .489 , , , , .647 , , 6.7 , , .9 , , .5 , , 1.6 , , 8.9 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 47 , , 10 , , 20.8 , , .502 , , , , .528 , , 5.2 , , .4 , , .4 , , 1.1 , , 7.1 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 71 , , 9 , , 15.8 , , .533 , , , , .600 , , 3.9 , , .2 , , .3 , , 1.0 , , 4.7 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 65 , , 32 , , 19.2 , , .574 , , , , .558 , , 5.8 , , .4 , , .3 , , 1.4 , , 6.1 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 26 , , 7 , , 11.8 , , .485 , , , , .696 , , 2.5 , , .2 , , .1 , , .7 , , 3.1 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

, 23 , , 1 , , 14.0 , , .456 , , , , .591 , , 2.8 , , .0 , , .2 , , .7 , , 3.3 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, 13 , , 0 , , 6.3 , , .476 , , , , .800 , , 1.8 , , .2 , , .1 , , .3 , , 2.5 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 409 , , 74 , , 17.3 , , .513 , , , , .603 , , 4.8 , , .4 , , .3 , , 1.0 , , 5.7

Playoffs

, - , style="text-align:left;", 2005 , style="text-align:left;",

, 8 , , 0 , , 15.8 , , .655 , , , , .455 , , 4.5 , , .3 , , .0 , , .9 , , 6.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2006 , style="text-align:left;",

, 3 , , 0 , , 6.0 , , .400 , , , , .500 , , 2.0 , , .0 , , .7 , , .7 , , 2.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2007 , style="text-align:left;",

, 4 , , 4 , , 21.0 , , .412 , , , , .667 , , 5.5 , , .3 , , .5 , , .8 , , 5.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2010 , style="text-align:left;",

, 2 , , 0 , , 8.5 , , .833 , , , , 1.000 , , 2.0 , , .0 , , .0 , , .0 , , 6.0 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2011 , style="text-align:left;",

, 1 , , 0 , , 7.0 , , .000 , , , , , , 1.0 , , .0 , , .0 , , .0 , , .0 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 18 , , 4 , , 14.0 , , .559 , , .000 , , .541 , , 3.8 , , .2 , , .2 , , .7 , , 4.8

References

External links

*
Etan Thomas on Huffington Post
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Etan 1978 births Living people African-American basketball players All-American college men's basketball players American men's basketball players Basketball players from New York City American people of Grenadian descent American people of Sierra Leonean descent Sportspeople of Sierra Leonean descent Atlanta Hawks players Booker T. Washington High School (Tulsa, Oklahoma) alumni Centers (basketball) Dallas Mavericks draft picks Oklahoma City Thunder players Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball) People from Harlem Sportspeople from Manhattan Syracuse Orange men's basketball players Washington Wizards players 21st-century African-American sportspeople 20th-century African-American sportspeople