Allanfan20:

Dolan never said Isiah will DEFINITELY have a year. He said he's got a year, but if we get off to a terrible start, hasn't that proven to us that we'll pretty much be bad, regardless? We've gotton off to terrible starts every season since being bad, and we also ended off poorly. I am pretty sure Dolan is tired of all of that and is quite aware that he's losing ticket purchasers (Like myself) by the minute.

See - I'm not sure about that. Firstly, I think that whole "ultimatum" was BS. I think Dolan was just doing it to posture and give off the mirage that he's tough. IMO, he does not want to fire Isiah at all and the so-called hot seat is lukewarm at best. Note that he never once mentioned what "significant progress" is? Is it 24 wins? A winning season? The playoffs? No one knows. I wouldn't be surprised if Dolan himself didn't know. There's lots about basketball he doesn't know.

That said, the way I see it, as Knickerbocker fans, it's win-win for us. If Zeke succeeds (and I sincerely hope he does despite my not liking him), we're going to finally have some progress that we have been sorely lacking for the last 6 years and build from there. Whether you like the man or not, if he brings the results, he brings the results. If Zeke fails however, he's (probably) history, the team probably gets blown up and we move on to a different philosophy b/c this squad he assembled ultimately was not a winner.

We'll see. I don't like Isiah but where he goes, the Knicks go. So I hope he (and this squad) brings the W's and finally shows "significant progress".

[Edited by - K22 on 10-20-2006 2:02 PM]

Posted by crzymdups:

I was busy with work this week, so I missed most of this controversy, but...

Wow. Isiah went overboard. I guess the only bright side is that we know Zeke can understand Steph. It's funny, no one ever liked Isiah and I doubt anyone would respect him as a player if he hadn't willed the Pistons to constant playoff success and two championships - otherwise I think his career would be looked at very similar to Marbury's.

Eh, it doesn't bother me too much when either Isiah or Steph open their mouth like this. I don't watch ESPN and they're the only ones who make a big out of this like it matters. Who really cares? It's trash-talking, no worse than what we do to each other. I'm sure ESPN will do an outside the lines report about "Did Isiah cross the line when he attacked a reporter who was just doing his job, sniff" - BUT, Anthony is an ESPN employee who they are obviously going to protect. I hate ESPN. FAR too often, they become the story with their arrogant, blowhard crappy "analysts."

For what it's worth, I've ALWAYS felt Anthony has had an axe to grind with the Knicks. He always talks trash about them, warranted or unwarranted. Maybe he doesn't want to be seen as a Knicks lover, or maybe he's bitter that he was a backup here or maybe he's bitter that he was traded to Portland. Whatever. Greg clearly has some issues with how to handle his professional relationship with the Knicks and he's come out and said far worse than the Balkman comments and not in a humorous Bill Simmons way, so I don't have any problem calling him on it. There's supposed to be no bias in reporting and Anthony clearly has one with the Knicks.

A lot of ESPN analysts do. Does it bother anyone else that Steve Kerr always goes soft on the Bulls? He's friends with Paxson and he came out on an ESPN outside the lines report about the Curry trade and started spewing this unresearched bullsh!t about how Curry had the same thing Reggie Lewis had and it was irresponsible to let Curry play. It was clearly done to protect Paxson. ESPN really sucks. I can't watch sports center anymore, their baseball announcers make me want to pull my ears off, their "commentators" and "analysts" are jokes. Joe Thiesman? ugh. They have a few good people, but mostly it's crap. Not to mention their HD broadcasts are RARELY actually in HD.

I think most people are with you to a point. I have no problem having Isiah respond with an I told you so. That's harmless. But just keep it classy and above the high school level. I don't think that's too much for us to ask from our "President of Operations"

As for ESPN and the media it really doesn't matter what they think. They respond to what they see. They analyze. If we win 60 games most of the reports and commentary and analysis will be positive. If we win 23 most of it will be negative. I don't have a problem with that. If we want the critiques to change we have to start winning games.

Sadly, I think the person with the lowest self esteem and the largest self conscience is Isiah Thomas himself. It couldn't be clearer.

People get so excited about the Knicks, yet they don't even pay attention to what's happened. Has anybody watched the defense this pre season? We had some good moments, but overall, it's been alarmingly bad, again. THAT'S why ESPN trashes us, and unfortunately, it isn't doing jack squad.