The best quote of the morning came from Thomas, who was asked to compare his initial expectations upon taking a job here almost four years ago to reality. Stick with it. There’s some rambling before the best lines.

"My anticipation, when I take my mind back, was how do we get activity back in our building,” he said. “How do we get fans? How do we get the franchise moving again, which successfully, we’ve done that. Now the second phase is how do you get the players in and how do you go about winning games and doing it in a meaningful way? I guess you really don’t understand New York until you live in New York. You can talk about the passion from the outside, but until you really feel the passion on the inside, people want it here and they want it in a major way. That’s a good thing, because as competitors in this business, you want the challenge and you need the challenge. It’s a sick kind of thing that you need the adrenaline. If I wasn’t in this business, I’d probably be one of them guys jumping out of planes, trying to find some adrenaline to get you going, and this definitely gets you going.”