The light at the end of the tunnel? Rumor has it that longtime Pacers official Donnie Walsh is set to sign a three-year deal to become Knicks prez, meaning the dreadful Isiah Era is at long last ending here in New York. (Of course, we’re still still stuck with terrible Knick owner Jim Dolan, but baby steps, I guess.) To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Walsh or the current state of the Pacers franchise (for which Larry Bird and the Artest melee also share part of the blame), but at this point it’s safe to say Walsh will be greeted as a liberator around these parts. Update: Wrong answer, Dolan.
Tag: James Dolan
Marburied Hopes.
“‘Isiah has to start me,’ Marbury fumed, according to the source. ‘I’ve got so much (stuff) on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can (get) me. But I’ll (get) him first. You have no idea what I know.‘” (Some choice suggestions on what Starbury knows in the comment thread here: I like “It was Isiah’s call to cancel Arrested Development” and “Isiah does not care about black people.“) Yep, the once-promising 2007-2008 Knickerbockers imploded early this year, with our overpaid, underachieving, untradeable “star” point guard Stephon Marbury leaving the team in a huff over coming off the bench — at the start of a tough four game road trip — and now threatening to expose Isiah Thomas’s dirty laundry (as if we didn’t get enough of that with this past summer’s sexual harrassment case.) How will the saga of the Traveling Marbury pan out? Will Stephon be handled with care or sent to the end of the line? Either way, I expect the Knicks to stay moribund so long as this PG, this GM, and this owner are running the show at the Garden. (NY Daily News and Deadspin links sent to me via Ben of The Oak, who also birddogged a great find last week with these graphical representations of hip-hop.) Update: The prodigal Knick returns to a loss in LA, but something’s still rotten at MSG.
Isiah 11.6.
“‘What I did here, I did for every working woman in America,’ said Browne Sanders, who came out of the courtroom beaming. ‘And that includes everyone who gets up and goes to work in the morning..” The NBA’s nightmare off-season continues with (just as during the regular season) a loss for the Knicks: A jury finds MSG, owner James Dolan, and Knicks coach Isiah Thomas guilty of sexual harassment and liable for $11.6 million in damages. The occasional Post headline screaming at me from the local deli notwithstanding, I haven’t been following all the twists and turns of this ugly case, other than that I heard Stephon Marbury somehow got caught up in it too for having consensual sex with a Garden employee. Regardless, this is a total embarrassment for the NBA and for New York basketball, and one hopes Commissioner Stern will crack down hard on Dolan & co. if MSG doesn’t clean house, and soon.
As for the Knickerbockers…
Well, it was another lousy season…as has been the case since, oh, about 2000 now. In the end, this year’s 33-49 Knicks only garnered ten more wins than last year’s dismal Larry Brown experiment. And, worse, they never lived up to the glimmers of promise at the midterm, going 4-15 after Dolan’s woeful decision to extend Isiah’s contract for two years. True, much of that freefall can be attributed to injuries — Stephon Marbury, Jamal Crawford, Quentin Richardson, and David Lee all went down for a stretch there. And, I will concede, this team does play hard for Isiah, as they never did for Larry Brown. But, even before the IR filled up, the Knicks were terrible on the defensive end. I can’t tell you how many games I watched this year where New York would be down by double digits in the first half thanks to lackadaisical D, make a gritty run in the fourth, and lose by a bucket. (And, for all of Eddy Curry’s improvement this year, the big fella still hasn’t learned to box out.) As opposed to last year’s obvious failure, I guess you could say these Knicks were comfortably mediocre. But, frankly, that’s not good enough. If we’re ever going to be a playoff contender again, we need to play both ends of the floor. And I’m not sure I see that happening with these players…or this coach.
But, this being sports, hope springs eternal. So…any of y’all other teams want to give up a solid defender for Steve Francis’s contract? Anyone? Anyone? We’ll throw in Jerome James while we’re at it…
Dolan’s Land.
“He has one year, one season to do that. At this time next year Isiah will be with us if we can all sit here and say that this team has made significant progress towards its goal of eventually becoming an NBA champion. If we can’t say that, Isiah will not be here.” More post-Larry fallout: The Knicks’ freakshow owner, James Dolan, badmouths Brown and lays down the law with Isiah for next year.
Brownout.
At long last, it’s official: After a nightmare 23-59 season and several weeks of “dead man walking,” Hall of Famer Larry Brown has finally been fired from the Knicks. (In fact, the team isn’t even planning to pay out his contract, although Brown may be able to pay the bills in Charlotte in short order.) Worse still, in his place the team’s woefully inept owner, James Dolan, has — Oh No! — put the even more woefully inept GM, Isiah Thomas, in charge of the bench. Ok, Larry clearly wasn’t meshing with the ghastly hydra-headed line-up of shoot-first, one-dimensional, no-d-playing guards Thomas has constructed…still, I have to think we were probably a better team with him at the Garden. And with Isaiah in charge now, hoo boy. It’s gonna get ugly at MSG next year.
Leisure Suits Larry.
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.
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?
Six Feet Over.
Little Man Nate? Not hardly. All of 5’9″ going on 5’7″, Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks won the Slam Dunk competition last night, with an impressive repertoire that included dunking over 1986 champion Spud Webb. (Yes, Sports Fans, I just managed to use the words “Knicks” and “won” in the same sentence.) Update: “Both Dolan and Bush are sons of powerful men, more products of name than actual qualifications. Both were pretty much appointed to their present jobs in the first place, Dolan by Dad, President Bush by Justice Scalia. Dolan has the Madison Square Garden network, Bush has Fox News.” Veteran sports columnist Mike Lupica compares the Dubya and (Knicks owner) Dolan regimes.
A Done Deal?
With MSG head James Dolan paying his respects last night, it’s looking increasingly likely that Larry Brown will coach the Knicks next season. I’m not on the Brown bandwagon as of now, but I might just become a believer if he can shape a quality basketball team out of our lousy and unbalanced roster. Speaking of which, in other Knickerbocker-related news, ESPN’s Marc Stein evaluates the potential impact of the new “Allan Houston rule.”