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djsunyc
Posts: 44929
Alba Posts: 42
Joined: 1/16/2004
Member: #536
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can't really dispute it too much tho:
Nothing to toast at Garden
By FRANK ISOLA
The marriage between Stephon Marbury and Larry Brown is working about as well as most of Isiah Thomas' moves.
James Dolan's resolution for 2006 should be to not believe anything Steve Mills, Isiah Thomas and Larry Brown say or do. At least until the Knicks are a .500 team again.
Sooner or later, Dolan, the Garden chairman, is going to blame someone for the Knicks' disastrous season and he doesn't need to look any further than the three men responsible for this mess.
If Mills, the Garden president, can magically appear for every press conference photo op, he should have to answer for the Knicks' worst start in 20 years. Or does anyone believe that Dave Checketts wouldn't be held accountable for a 7-21 record?
Ernie Grunfeld was fired for putting together a team that reached the 1999 NBA Finals.
Don Nelson was fired with a 34-25 record and Jeff Van Gundy had his head in a noose on one back page following a 7-9 start.
Of course, those were the days when the Knicks actually mattered and excellence wasn't just a buzzword executives used to impress the media. Thomas, the Knicks' president, talks championship all the time and then make moves that undermine the process.
Dolan should begin his next conversation with Thomas by asking: "Remind me again, what were you thinking when you signed Jerome James?"
Thomas was conspicuously missing from the Knicks' recent two-game road trip that resulted in the Brown-Stephon Marbury soap opera reaching new levels of absurdity. The official word is that Thomas was scouting college games. That's nice, considering that Chicago owns the Knicks' 2006 first-round pick as part of the Eddy Curry deal. So now we know what Thomas means by rebuilding: he's restocking the hated Bulls.
Thomas is avoiding the Brown-Marbury feud because it's a no-win situation. He couldn't trade Marbury if wanted to and since he's already canned Don Chaney and Lenny Wilkens, Thomas is not going to get the chance to throw Brown under a bus.
But Thomas realizes that Marbury, his signature trade, is putting him in a compromising position. Marbury once said that the Knicks would never win a championship with Charlie Ward as their point guard, and he was right. But at least they got to the Finals and won plenty of playoff games along the way. Marbury has produced zero postseason wins and plenty of angst.
And for all those Marbury apologists who love to make the excuse that he's never had enough talent around him, what is their excuse now? The Phoenix Suns, who visit the Garden tomorrow, lost three starters from last year's 62-win team. Quentin Richardson and Joe Johnson were traded and Amare Stoudemire, one of the league's top five players, had knee surgery.
Yet Phoenix is 18-10 with a starting lineup of Boris Diaw, Shawn Marion, Kurt Thomas and Raja Bell. That's the impact that a player that is as gifted, as motivated and as well-liked among his teammates as Steve Nash is can make.
The Knicks have played 81 games since Marbury called himself the league's best point guard. They've gone 24-57 since that infamous comment. The way Marbury's going, the Garden may have no other choice but to retire Ward's jersey.
As for Brown, Brooklyn-born and Hamptons-tanned, he hasn't lived up to the advance billing as a savior. He was right to call out Marbury for his defiant behavior in Orlando, but he's wrong to keep fooling with the rotation. He's being paid a lot of money to make tough decisions. Start making them.
But if Thomas, Marbury and Mills all received an extended honeymoon, Brown deserves the benefit of the doubt for now. And despite his maniacal, diabolical ways, Brown has something Mills, Thomas and Marbury don't: a proven track record.
If Dolan is going to break his New Year's resolution for anyone, it should be for his head coach and no one else.
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1/2/2006 12:09 AM