ILiberty president Isiah Thomas works out with Brittany Boyd.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver might as well have been Forrest Gump with a box of chocolates when asked whether Isiah Thomas in the WNBA is sending the wrong message.

“Life is complicated,” Silver said Thursday at a conference on women and sports, according to a recap from Buzzfeed. “That’s all I can say.”

Thomas resurfaced at the Garden in May in the role of New York Liberty president, a controversial hiring considering the former Knicks president was part of a $ 11.6 million sexual harassment suit filed by a former female colleague, Anucha Browne Sanders.

Silver said he spoke with Thomas – who “clearly made a mistake at Madison Square Garden,” the commissioner said – and came away convinced the former Pistons star was motivated to grow the WNBA. Thomas also applied to become part owner of the Liberty, but the consideration was suspended by the WNBA because of his history.

“The most important questions to me were: Why is this being done, and does Isiah truly have a commitment not just to the game, but to women’s basketball? I believe he does, based on conversations I’ve had with him,” Silver said.

The Liberty have taken off since Thomas’ arrival, sitting atop the Eastern Conference at 23-11 and clinching homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. It is the team’s best record ever.

Silver also spoke Thursday about the slow growth of the WNBA from an attendance and ratings perspective, acknowledging it has fallen below expectations.

“We thought we would have broken through by now,” Silver said. “We thought ratings and attendance would be higher.”

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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was dealt a big defeat in his Deflategate fight vs. Tom Brady.

The nullification of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s four-game suspension has led to yet another banner to be flown over NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s Maine home.

A banner was spotted Saturday flying over Scarborough which read “Roger G. Feelin A Little Deflated?”

According to the Portland Press Herald, the man who paid for the banner is Richard Pate, the same man who paid to have two separate banners flown over Goodell’s house earlier this summer.

The first banner Pate paid for read “Comm. Goodell Jet home to N.Y.” Then on Brady’s birthday, he paid for a banner which said “Happy B-day T Brady from Maine and Roger G.”

The ruling Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman to vacate the suspension Goodell gave Brady and upheld on appeal has prompted discussion about Goodell’s role as chief disciplinarian.

“This deflate-gate thing, which isn’t about deflate-gate any longer — it’s about what has been collectively negotiated for decades in terms of the commissioner’s responsibility in terms of disciplining players,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “If we have to look at that differently in today’s light, in today’s environment, as an ownership group we should be prepared to do that. The commissioner should be prepared to do that.”

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Tom Brady’s father calls in to a radio station to defend his son.

After a San Francisco radio host said Tom Brady was a Deflategate liar, the Patriot quarterback’s father angrily called in to defend his son, while firing back that the real liar is NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

KGO talk show host Chip Franklin was trashing the four-time Super Bowl winner on air Friday afternoon, when Tom Brady Sr. went off.

Franklin had asserted that the two Patriots employees – Jim McNally and John Jastremski – definitely deflated footballs to benefit the team.

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“You have no evidence of that, and if you read any of the articles and discussions that have gone on on this thing for six months, you would know that you are full of crap,” Brady Sr. growled. “When you say Brady is a liar, you better be careful, because you don’t know what the heck you’re talking about.”

Franklin thought it was unusual that Brady threw his phone away, saying he’s “never” done that himself. Brady Sr. didn’t seem to buy it.

“You got rid of a cellphone, and you went from an Android to an iPhone 6 – have you ever done that? I know I’ve done it.”

Brady’s father also said no one could tell the balls were underinflated, adding that the original information regarding how deflated the footballs were was wrong.

“That’s all lies,” he said. “It’s all ESPN. It’s all NFL propaganda; don’t you get it?”

Brady Sr. then tore into Goodell, who issued the four-game suspension against Brady that Judge Richard Berman tossed out Thursday morning.

“He lied in the Ray Rice case. He liked in this case … How many times do you need to know that this guy is a flaming liar?” Brady Sr. asked.

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It might not be in NFL owners’ best interests for Roger Goodell and future commissioners to remain the league’s judge, jury and executioner.

NFL owners, battered after their stunning Deflategate legal defeat, will begin the 2015 season by taking a long, hard look at how the league will discipline players in the future.

The NFL’s collective-bargaining agreement with the Players Association, which expires in 2020, gives commissioner Roger Goodell broad authority to discipline players accused of criminal or unethical behavior. But after a string of defeats that includes U.S. District Judge Richard Berman’s decision to toss Tom Brady’s four-game suspension, some owners are questioning if it is still in their interests for Goodell — as well as future commissioners — to remain the league’s judge, jury and executioner.

It may be time for the NFL to appoint an independent arbitrator to oversee discipline instead of the commissioner, some owners are openly suggesting.

“It’s not healthy for the NFL to be in the kind of litigious position that it’s been for last several years,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday. “I think that the commissioner is working hard to hold up the respect and integrity of the game, the competitive balance of the game and the shield. Having said that, I think we have to find ways to get to a better place sooner with the NFLPA than the process that we’ve gone through.”

Patriots president Jonathan Kraft also said last month during an interview with a Boston radio station that the league should re-evaluate the disciplinary process: “There probably needs to be a rethinking so that the league office and the commissioner aren’t put in a spotlight that detracts from the league’s image and the game.”

Kraft, the son of New England owner Robert Kraft, had good reason to question the NFL disciplinary process — if Berman had not overturn Brady’s ban, the Patriots could have started the first four games of the season without their star quarterback. But when 49ers chief executive officer Jed York retweeted a Kraft’s statement a few days later, NFL observers saw it as yet another call for change.

Pittsburgh sports law attorney Jay Reisinger, who has represented numerous NFL players in arbitration cases, said mounting legal bills and a steady stream of bad press have driven the owners to consider a new approach to discipline.

An independent arbitrator familiar with the CBA, case law and previous cases — like those already employed by Major League Baseball, the NBA and the NHL — would apply consistent discipline. That means the fewer court challenges and fewer legal bills, Reisinger said. It would also spare the league the kind of public outrage embarrassment it suffered last year when Goodell suspended Ray Rice just two games for slugging his now-wife.

“Two things the owners respond to are money and publicity,” Reisinger said. “The 32 owners, they are the guys footing the legal bills and they are reacting to the public reaction.”

The Players Association agreed to Article 46 — the portion of the collective-bargaining agreement that grants the commissioner the authority to oversee discipline — in 2011, but union officials have indicated that they won’t be so amenable when the contract expires five years from now. Bengals lineman Eric Winston, the NFLPA’s president, said earlier this summer that he can’t see the players agreeing to another deal in the future that does not rein in the commissioner’s authority.

“This whole ordeal has highlighted the need for players and owners to work together to make all policies fair and transparent for everyone in our game,” Winston said Thursday. “I welcome an opportunity to have open and constructive dialogue with the league in the near future for how we can best accomplish that.”

Reisinger said it is unlikely that the NFL owners would agree to open the collective-bargaining agreement before 2020 to renegotiate Article 46. Even in good times, they would want concessions from the Players Association in exchange for an independent arbitrator. But after stinging defeats in the Brady, Rice, Adrian Peterson, Greg Hardy and Bountygate cases, the NFL would not have much negotiating leverage.

Reisinger said Goodell and the NFL could take steps to fix their broken discipline process independent of the union; Goodell could remove himself from the process by appointing a permanent arbitrator, for example, to hear future cases.

But NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told the Daily News the union has to be involved in any changes that affect the discipline of its members.

“Anything that is opened or implemented unilaterally at this point is not going to fly with the players,” he said.

Blank and other owners believe the NFL’s current disciplinary system is unsustainable; the only question now appears to how change will come. Union chief DeMaurice Smith hopes the changes come through dialogue rather than court challenges.

“This court’s decision to overturn the NFL Commissioner again should signal to every NFL owner that collective bargaining is better than legal losses,” Smith said “Collective bargaining is a much better process that will lead to far better results.”

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Tom Brady gets a victory after Judge Richard Berman makes his four-game Deflategate suspension disappear Thursday morning.

FOXBOROUGH − It was just a few minutes after Tom Brady got the news that he had scored a one-sided victory over Roger Goodell in U.S. District Court that he never had in winning four Super Bowls by a combined 13 points.

He was on the phone with his father, Tom Brady Sr. They are best friends and as close as father and son can be. Tom Sr. was so broken up when Tom chose to attend Michigan in 1995 rather than hometown Cal-Berkeley that he underwent eight weeks of counseling with a psychologist to help him get through the separation.

When Brady was implicated in the Deflategate fiasco and then later accused by investigator Ted Wells that it was more probable than not that he was at least generally aware − now there are some damning, definitive words − that a couple of Patriots support staff knuckleheads conspired to deflate the footballs before the AFC title game on Jan. 18, he swore to his father he knew nothing about it or whether anything ever happened. He did the same with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who considers Brady a son.

DEFLATEGATE: A COMPLETE TIMELINE OF THE PATRIOTS SCANDAL

So, it was an upbeat conversation Tom and Tom Sr. had Thursday morning after Judge Richard Berman tossed Brady’s four-game suspension further than the Patriots quarterback can throw a football.

“We’re very relieved and thankful that Tommy will be able to play football,” Brady Sr. told the Daily News. “It’s all he ever wanted to do. Now he’s getting on to the season and it’s the first time in nine months that he has the burden lifted from his shoulders. He’s glad it’s over and he’s really happy now.”

Brady was miserable sitting in Berman’s courtroom on Aug. 12 and this past Monday. But as he returned late Thursday afternoon to the Patriots’ locker room after working out with the first-team offense on the practice field outside Gillette Stadium before the preseason game against the Giants, he had a big smile on his face. He was not in uniform for the game, and left before the game started.

Brady beat Goodell in court because the judge ruled the NFL was unfair in the process to Brady on so many levels. Interestingly, Berman came down on the league for not making Wells’ files available to Brady’s legal team. Of course, the league hammered Brady for destroying his cell phone and initially refusing to turn over electronic communication.

RELATED: ROB GRONKOWSKI, ADAM JONES CHIME IN ON DEFLATEGATE RULING

Berman didn’t clear Brady of any behind-the-scenes scheme of football tampering. That was not his responsibility in this case. But he was incredulous that the NFL admitted it had no direct evidence linking Brady to football deflation − it was all based on circumstantial evidence gathered by Wells − and that the NFL rationalized giving him a four-game suspension because that’s what goes to first-time steroid cheats.

What does this mean for Brady’s legacy? The Brady haters will insist Berman didn’t exonerate him and his accomplishments are tainted. The reality is the NFL turned a misdemeanor with no solid evidence into a federal case. Brady is the best quarterback in NFL history, and it has nothing to do with deflated footballs.

“Tommy never worried about his legacy,” Tom Sr. said. “He’s only worried about playing football.”

BRADY BEATS GOODELL: THE BEST DEFLATEGATE MEMES

Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has his four-game ban issued to Tom Brady overturned.

NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler, who has been kryptonite to the NFL’s Superman, beat the league in court again. The league gave him too many areas to attack and he was a bulldog in court. Berman peppered league attorney Daniel Nash with tough questions that seemed to indicate he thought Goodell abused his power. His ruling Thursday confirmed that Berman was not using his questions as a scare tactic to force the NFL to settle, he was sincerely blown away by how sloppily the NFL handled Brady.

Berman was either going to confirm Brady’s four-game suspension or throw it out. That’s why he was imploring Brady and Goodell to settle. He knew one side was going to be a big loser. It turned out to be the NFL, which is nothing new lately. Goodell’s rulings have now been shot down in Bountygate and in the Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy domestic violence cases.

“My impression is Tom is very happy with the ruling,” Kessler told the Daily News. “He is very happy we got a fair hearing and he’s delighted to be able to focus on football.”

In his ruling, Berman called Wells an “independent” investigator, which was his way of mocking how an investigation could be independent when Wells was hired by the NFL and eventually paid $ 2.5 million-$ 3 million.

Brady will now be on the field for the Patriots season opener next Thursday night against the Steelers at Gillette Stadium. Goodell is a good man who made a misguided decision and now needs to explain why he felt compelled to drag the face of the league through the mud for more than seven months with only connect-the-dots evidence.

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Goodell usually attends the Thursday night kickoff game, but instead will be watching the game on television. A league spokesman said the commissioner “believes that the focus should be on the game on the field and the festivities celebrating the Patriots’ Super Bowl championship.”

Goodell is not well-liked in New England, so this was easily the best decision he’s made since Deflategate became a part of NFL history.

Greg M. Cooper/USA Today Sports

Patriots QB Tom Brady can now start Week 1 against the Steelers.

“It’s been an enjoyable offseason,” Brady said with a laugh at an event Tuesday night at Gillette Stadium, two days before Berman ruled.

He was joking, even though the rest of his offseason was better than Ferris Bueller’s day off: He jumped off a 40-foot cliff in Costa Rica, played golf and basketball with Michael Jordan, played golf with Rory McIlroy and took batting practice off Pedro Martinez.

Add one more to the list: He beat the commissioner in court seven months after Goodell handed him his Super Bowl MVP trophy.

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The NFL commissioner, who handed the Patriots quarterback a four-game suspension for his alleged role in DeflateGate and upheld the suspension after an appeal, defended his decision in an interview with The Repository in Canton.

“The integrity of the game is the most important thing,” Goodell told the paper at the Hall of Fame, his first public comments since upholding the suspension.“The integrity of the game is something we will always protect. The rules apply to everybody. That is my job in particular, to make sure everyone from our players to our coach, to our fans and our partners, that they all recognize we’re going to play by these sets of rules, and that’s part of our values and standards.”

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Brady was under oath during his 10-hour appeal at the NFL offices on June 23 when he denied having any knowledge of deflated footballs in the AFC Championship game.

“In the history of my career, I never thought about the inflation level of a ball,” Brady said during the appeal, according to the transcript of his arbitration hearing, which was made public Tuesday.

Brady and Goodell are set to meet face to face on Wednesday for an official settlement conference ordered by Judge Berman.

“Listen, he’s a great player and he’s a great young man,” Goodell said of Brady. “We issued the decision just last week. We’re in the midst of litigation to … ensure that that’s enforced the way we ruled on that, after a long process that is established in our collective bargaining agreement. That’s something we’ll play through.”

On Thursday, former Packers general manager Ron Wolf told Goodell in a comment picked up on television “Way to go on that Brady thing,” which drew laughter from Goodell.

The context of the comment was uncertain, but Wolf clarified to ESPN that he wasn’t being sarcastic.

“I wasn’t trying to be a wise guy,” Wolf said. ”I realize he has a real tough job. It was just a passing moment, and obviously, it was picked up on a microphone. I basically meant, ‘Congrats on making a decision.’ That’s why the owners are paying him all that money.

“But it’s still a tough job, and I congratulated him on making that decision, although I don’t think it was anything profound. It happened so quickly. It’s not me saying I’m for or against his decision. That’s not for me to say.”

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While John Mara says he respects Robert Kraft (l.), he stands with Roger Goodell on Tom Brady ban.

John Mara has Roger Goodell’s back.

Days after Goodell held firm on his four-game suspension of Tom Brady for his role in Deflategate, the Giants owner backed the commissioner’s decision, though, like most of the league, he wishes the scandal would just go away.

“I’m saddened that it’s come to this. Two weeks before the Super Bowl, that’s all we talked about was Deflategate and now coming into training camp that’s all we’re talking about,” Mara said. “Listen, the commissioner had a very difficult job to do here, but at the end of the day, I think he made a decision on the evidence and the facts that were before him without regard for the profile of the player or his personal relationship with the owner. You know what? That’s what he’s paid to do. He did his job. We could argue about whether it was fair or unfair, but he had to make a very tough decision under very difficult circumstances and he did it.

“I’ve been around (Goodell) enough to know that his intention is always to do the right thing,” Mara continued. “I don’t always agree with the decisions he makes, but I know that he tries to do the right thing. And I know that this was an unpleasant situation for him here, to be dealing with the best player in the league and dealing with an owner who has been as good as any owner in the league and somebody he has a close personal relationship with. He had to make a tough decision here.”

Brady has been adamant about his innocence since the beginning. On Wednesday, the NFLPA filed suit in Minnesota alleging that the four-game suspension was unfair. The lawsuit has since been transferred to New York, closer to the league offices.

Said Mara: “(The lawsuit) is just going to drag this thing out into the fall and that’s not good for anybody.”

Patriots owner Robert Kraft publicly berated Goodell and his decision on Wednesday, saying: “I was wrong to put my faith in the league.” Mara understands Kraft’s passion.

“I have nothing but the utmost respect for Robert Kraft and I understand he’s very emotional about this and feels very strongly about it,” Mara said. “He’s trying to protect his player and I get that.”

Public relations have been a nightmare for Goodell and the league over the past year or so and will not improve when yet another disciplinary case – this one from Brady, one of the faces of the league – yet again winds up in federal court. Mara admitted that such a precedent is distressing.

“I don’t recall it ever being that way,” Mara said. “I don’t recall it ever being that way in prior years, but it seems like we’ve come to that now. So be it.”

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Roger Goodell says a decision ‘is coming soon’ but also says there’s no timeline.

After the football world waited with bated breath last week to see if Roger Goodell would announce a decision on Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s appeal of his four-game suspension, there’s no anticipated time for a ruling to come down, according to the NFL commissioner.

“There is no timeline,” Goodell said Tuesday, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “We want to make sure we have a fair and open process.”

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Goodell told CNBC on July 9 that a decision “is coming soon” and indicated it could come as early as last week. Now there’s no telling when Goodell may announce his decision.

“We are focused on it,” Goodell said before he was the guest of honor at a fundraising luncheon at the Hilton Garden Inn in Canonsburg, Pa. “We are obviously being very thorough and want to make sure we consider all aspects of his appeal. We will make a decision as quickly as possible.”

MYERS: BRADY AND GOODELL SHOULD MEET HALFWAY

Brady was handed a four-game suspension on May 11 for his role in DeflateGate and met with Goodell, who appointed himself the appeals arbitrator, for 10 hours on June 23.

ABC News reported last week that the NFL Players Association will challenge any suspension of Brady in federal court, even if Goodell reduces the ban to one game.

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