For Wilkens, New York job a rotten apple
By Steve Kelley

From a continent away, Lenny Wilkens watches the unraveling of the New York Knicks with the detachment of someone who has been there, done that and never wants to look back.

Before Larry Brown, coaching the Knicks was Wilkens' job. It was supposed to be his triumphant homecoming.

It was his opportunity to finish a Hall of Fame career with one final hurrah inside Madison Square Garden, the game's greatest hall.

This had the makings of a career coming full circle.

"I thought it would be an ideal situation," Wilkens said Tuesday afternoon, "but it just didn't work out that way. It was a mistake. I should have never gone there."

Wilkens was hired on Jan. 15, 2004, and coaxed a patchwork Knicks team to a 23-19 finish and into the playoffs, where it was swept by the New Jersey Nets.

Even then Wilkens sensed trouble lurking.

"Me and the GM [Isiah Thomas] were never on the same page," Wilkens said.

A month after Wilkens took over, Thomas traded Keith Van Horn to Milwaukee for Tim Thomas. For Wilkens, it was the harbinger of the discord to come.

"I thought I had Keith playing pretty well — I didn't think it was a good trade," Wilkens said, "and that made it difficult for me. The next year I hoped things would be different, but they weren't.

"He had his ideas and was pretty sure they would work and I had mine. I could see we had different ideas about things."

Early into the next season, Thomas fired Wilkens' long-time assistant Dick Helm. It was the beginning of the end. Barely more than a year after he took the job, Wilkens resigned.

"I'm an optimist; I thought I could make it work," Wilkens said. "I knew it would require time. But for me, it didn't take long to figure out that we weren't going to be on the same page. And when he fired Dick Helm, I knew it wasn't going to work."

Now, looking back at his year in New York, Wilkens admits, "If I had it to do over again, it's the one job I've had that I probably wouldn't have taken."

There are dozens of similarities and dozens of differences between Wilkens' New York minute and the fast-fading minute of his eventual successor, Brown.

Both are New York natives. Both are Hall of Fame coaches who have won NBA championships with other teams, Wilkens with the Sonics and Brown with the Pistons. Both fell in love with the romantic notion of rebuilding one of the most storied franchises in sports.

And both underestimated Thomas' inept heavy hand.

Now, one year into a five-year, $50 million deal, Brown is telling his friends he is about to be fired.

He would be the third high-profile coach to leave the Knicks since Thomas became the general manager in December 2003. Thomas fired Don Chaney and forced Wilkens' resignation.

Meanwhile, he has mismanaged the Knicks into a league-high $125 million payroll and Thomas is expected to offer Brown as much as $40 million to get him out of town.

Adding insult to ineptitude, Thomas is facing a sexual-harassment suit.

Wilkens didn't deserve the meddlesome Thomas. He coached his beaten-up, thrown-together roster to a 40-41 record in two seasons. That is truly Red Auerbach-like compared with Brown's cacophonous 23-39 season of 2005-06.

Brown, however, did deserve Thomas.

He is becoming the Terrell Owens of coaches because, with Larry Brown, it always ends poorly. It always ends with the owner of the team thinking, as Detroit's Bill Davidson did, that Brown is "not a good person."

This season, instead of coaching up his team, he talked down to them. Instead of communicating face-to-face with his players, Brown criticized them behind their backs. He feuded with point guard Stephon Marbury, but rarely talked to him.

This past season, his was the worst coaching performance in the NBA. The Knicks were bad. Brown made them worse.

But, like a cat, he will land on his feet.

Fattened by the Knicks' buyout and flattered by another team's advances — maybe Sacramento, maybe Golden State, maybe another homecoming of sorts with Charlotte, in the state where he played college basketball for North Carolina — Brown will seek to repair his damaged legacy.

That will leave Thomas to try to clean up his MSG mess. There won't be enough money left to hire another coach, so Thomas probably will be sentenced to coach his creation.

And, eventually, as sure as midtown's rush-hour gridlock, Isiah Thomas will be the last high-profile Knicks' coach that Isiah Thomas will ever fire.

Don Chaney is a high profile coach?

I am getting the clear feeling that Isiah has 3 big problems: Lack of coherent plan/direction, forethought in decision making, communication problems.

what a shocker... it all comes down to the GM. I understood the TT/Nazr trade when it happened but Lenny was right. That group was playing very well, KVH was playing very well and he and Marbury were having a good second go at it. Also Doleac was thriving with that jumper. That may have been the best team (there's been 1000) under Isiah Thomas here. They had Deke/KT up front, they had some good shooters to feed off of Marbury. It was the closest thing to a team Isiah has created since being here.

Posted by martin:

I am getting the clear feeling that Isiah has 3 big problems: Lack of coherent plan/direction, forethought in decision making, communication problems.

add problems sharing power

wilkens played the nice guy and towed the company line.

lb pretty much said that this was bullsh t and he wasn't gonna have none of it. his methods were f'ed up but it did expose the inherent problem with the team. sometimes, to achieve the end result, you gotta do some crazy ****. that's why, to me, all this lineups, rotations, talking in the press, all that stuff didn't matter to me b/c he was trying to achieve an end result of exposing the entire situation. i'm not saying i agree with the methods but this is how he handled it. it's f'ed up and he's probably the biggest prick on the planet. but he did not forget how to coach and everywhere he's been, he's produced results. you can use the word sabatoge here...but i think it had to be done.

Except the person that created that team was Layden, and Isiah brought in Marbury and Moochie Norris. Just remember, Houston was playing a relatively decent amount at that time, and the Knicks were winning with him too, and he started sinking, and the Knicks actually started losing more, after the Tim Thomas trade. That team, with KVH would have gone nowhere after that season. Either way, Isiah obviously made it worse. MUCH MUCH WORSE.

Posted by rvhoss:



why can't they just coach...lenny definitely coached while he was here...that team was only the best under isiah because lenny got the best out of them.



[Edited by - rvhoss on 05-18-2006 10:28 AM]

Allan Kurt KVH Doleac Deke Frank Williams and even the hated Shandon knowing how to play had alot to do with it.

Posted by Pharzeone:

Its funny the Raptors were killing Lenny when the Knicks hired him, saying they would be sorry. Detroit and Philly did the same with Brown. And the only 2 connecting factors is that Thomas hired both men. Also another connecting factor, both men were fired from the previous jobs. Isiah stop hiring fired coaches.

what coach hasn't been fired? Based on your criteria its hire someone with zero experience or Phil Jackson. Larry coached for 6 years in Phili. That's a pretty good run. He was a great coach in Detroit but the Cle stuff was as slippery as it gets. Its just about the GM finding the right fit. Before Jerry West hired him what positive thing could you have said about Hubie Brown? Yet he really helped turn around that team. Don Nelson was a NY cast off. Didn't last 1 year, and look at what he did for Dallas.

Lenny said everything you want to know. He had the players playing very well together, AND they were winning games. Doleac and KVH were playing at the top of their games, and the Knicks were winning. Isiah traded them (obviously to the chagrin of Lenny) and if you remember we had a lot of problems after that, then backed into the playoffs.

Its like Martin said. Isiah's plan and vision go as far as his next trade. He seems infatuated with making any trade that even slightly upgrades the talent regardless of position, salary, contract or team fit. Sure enough we have a team with no pieces that fit, bad salaries, long contracts and a redundant roster

wasn't marbury on that team?

Posted by McK1:

Posted by rvhoss:



why can't they just coach...lenny definitely coached while he was here...that team was only the best under isiah because lenny got the best out of them.



[Edited by - rvhoss on 05-18-2006 10:28 AM]

Allan Kurt KVH Doleac Deke Frank Williams and even the hated Shandon knowing how to play had alot to do with it.

whatever makes you feel better.
Frye is better than KVH, QRich is better than shandon, curry better than doleac (even out of shape), franchise better than frank williams, the list goes on and on...I'd even take jackie b over zeke.

It's just a matter of getting this crew to work...no more trades...I think we have our role players already...QWoods is my new fave, and he plays defense as well.

I'm still going on record as saying I want this team to stay as is...if LB has a problem with them, then he should walk, otherwise, these are the knicks.

Love 'em or leave 'em.