NBA Insider with Ken Berger

Atlanta – The inevitable showdown between Isiah Thomas and James Dolan is officially on.

After a rare day out of the media spotlight, Thomas met with reporters this morning at Philips Arena before the Knicks’ shootaround and boldly explained why he stated recently that he expects to be around this summer to answer questions about the team’s future.

Asked if he knows what will happen at the end of the regular season and beyond, Thomas said, “Yeah, I’ll be here.” Asked if he has any assurances to that effect, Thomas said, “I have a contract that states that.”

Drumroll please: The staring contest over whether Thomas will quit (thus walking away from the remaining money on his contract) or whether Dolan will fire him (thus having to pay him to go away) has begun.

Earlier in the brief session with four reporters, Thomas deflected similar questions about whether he has been assured that he won’t be fired or asked to take on a diminished role.

“No, actually, all we do is we come to prepare every day and we just try to win every game,” he said. “And that’s our focus, just to try to play as good as we’ve been playing – with the exception of the Philly game – and just keep moving on from here.”

Asked if he understands the intense speculation about his job, Thomas said, “That’s the profession and that comes with the territory.”

After a recent report proposed a farfetched scenario in which Thomas would remain as coach and Nets assistant Kiki Vandeweghe would be brought in to run the basketball operations, Thomas wouldn’t answer a question about whether he would accept such a move.

When it was announced last summer that Jerry West was leaving his post as president of the Memphis Grizzlies, Dolan said in a radio interview that he would never bring in someone to oversee Thomas unless Thomas agreed to it. Dolan hasn’t addressed the reporters who cover the Knicks since Thomas received what is believed to be a four-year contract extension as president and coach last March.

The key question is whether Thomas’ contract – details of which have never been made public – explicitly states whether he must have both jobs or whether he could be moved to one or the other if a replacement were brought in. So I asked Thomas that question, four minutes and 40 seconds into this morning’s media briefing.

“Thank you,” Thomas said as he turned and walked into the locker room with a smile on his face.