What can Brown do for you? If you’re the Knicks, not much more, it appears. As the playoffs continue apace, owner Jim Dolan appears to be on the verge of firing Larry Brown (and thus eating his $40 million contract.) True, Larry hasn’t worked out at all…but don’t get too excited, fellow Knicks fans: Dolan is apparently thinking of replacing Brown with the fearsome vortex of egregious decision-making that is GM Isaiah Thomas.
Tag: Isiah Thomas
Escape from New York.
And, in related news, the Knicks end their thoroughly depressing 23-59 season with a meaningless win over the playoff-bound New Jersey Nets. (Of course, the nightmare won’t fully be over until Chicago uses our possible #1 pick, which it scored in the Curry trade after Isiah Thomas, not the best GM out there, neglected to lottery-protect it.) And now, the post-mortem begins: Larry Brown sounds like he’ll be back for now, which means many of the more recalcitrant Knicks this year (I’m looking at you, “Starbury”) are likely as good as gone. Still, one small bit of consolation for Garden fans this season, courtesy of swingman Jalen Rose: “I put together our roster on ‘NBA Live,’ and we’re pretty good.”
Garden Quagmire.
“And so the Knicks press on into a future roughly as promising as the fate of Iraq. In the near-term, it’s hard to foresee anything but a slide further into anarchy. And no one — not Brown, not Thomas, and not Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan, who marched into the team’s locker room on Tuesday night and demanded that they start winning (now, there’s a strategy!) — seems to have a plausible exit strategy.” Slate‘s Michael Crowley laments the demise of the New York Knickerbockers under GM Isiah Thomas. Update: Dolan: “Stay the course.” Sound familiar?
St. Francis of Assisti?
As expected, the Knicks have pushed the panic button, acquiring Steve Francis for Trevor Ariza and Penny Hardaway’s contract. Well, we’re not giving up much other than cap flexibility (I like Ariza — he’s a hustle player — but he also makes bad decisions, and hasn’t been gelling under Larry Brown.) Still, how is a backcourt of Marbury and Francis (backed up by Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson) going to work? They’re like five iterations of the same offensively talented, defensively deficient player (5.5 if you count Quentin Richardson), and every one of them needs the ball in their hands to be productive. At any rate, there’s a good bet that the Knicks haven’t finished yet, with Crawford for Theo Ratliff or Darius Miles a distinct possibility. “Crawford even polled the team’s beat writers after Wednesday morning’s shootaround to ask them where they believed he would be headed.“
Stop Me Before I Trade Again.
Steve Francis? Kenyon Martin? Lamar Odom? Reggie Evans and Danny Fortson? With the season a wash, the Knicks seem hell-bent on making at least one more panic trade. I get the sense this will all end very badly.
Airball.
Oof. Having lost 9 games in a row and 15 of the last 16, the 14-36 Knickerbockers are now the worst team in franchise history after 50 games. Was it really only a month ago, after that six-game winning streak, that I was trying to climb aboard the Larry Brown bandwagon? I think I may have broken it.
A Rose in the Garden.
The Knicks make a panic trade in procuring Jalen Rose and a draft pick (Denver’s) for the expiring contract of Antonio Davis. Hmmm. Rose is a talented player on the offensive end, but he brings little to the table that we don’t already have in Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford. And that contract…ugh. Somebody should tell Isiah the first rule in getting out of a hole: Stop digging.
Original Sin?
“‘I think the majority of Knick fans have said that this trade was the start of the downfall of the franchise, that this was the first step toward the morass that everybody has been entrenched in since,’ Checketts said. ‘I just think that’s silliness. It was only the first in a series of very bad moves.‘” Although Dave Checketts demures, the NYT retraces the sorry state of the Knicks — 5 years and counting — to the Ewing trade. I can see their point, although that in no way absolves Scott Layden or Isiah Thomas for some seriously lousy decision-making over the past couple of seasons.
Nixed.
“Before the season, the Knicks were going to take New York back again. They were so sure of it…Now, [Isiah] Thomas simply stands in the tunnel between the locker room and the court, arms folded, watching this mess unfold night after night.” As another dismal season wheezes to a close, Adrian Wojnarowski sees no respite ahead for the Knickerbockers.
Wait ‘Til Next Year.
So, despite my earlier wishful thinking, the Knicks stunk up the joint, getting swept in the playoffs and being completely exposed as the one-dimensional squad they are by the high-flying New Jersey Nets. Sigh. Well, hopefully Isiah Thomas will be able to somehow coax a quality free agent to the Garden this summer, as I’m not feeling too good about rooting for Allan Houston’s banged-up knees and Tim Thomas’s incredible disappearing game for the next few years. But, in happier sports news, at least the Yankees are terrible…