Posted by BlueSeats:

Isiah is working all the angles to keep his job. He's already working Dolan with his talk about how Joe Torre has a great boss. Now he's working the fans because he knows if boos start raining down from the rafters it's ova'.

Posted by izybx:

Posted by djsunyc:

As an Ariza fan I knew that the kid didnt deserve that

how do you know that? from what lb said, "ariza knows why". so it sounds like something was going on in practice that we were not privy to.

Its an assumption. None of us "know" anything if held to that standard. I know you dont treat people like that. You have to admit, it didnt work out. No point lamenting about it. After this year the negative effect of LB will be measured in wins and losses.

Posted by nixluva:

Look no matter what he says, this team should be expected to win far more games than it did last year. I don't think that has changed. If he wants to soften the blow from fans, by lowering their expectations, that's a SMART thing to do. Why not try to effect the fans reaction to what could easily be a losing start to the season?

Starting the year with more road games than home games is tough for ANY team. I don't see why he can't do some pre-damage control. If you guys didn't have such a heavy Anti-Isiah bias, you'd at least recognize that it's a smart thing for him to do. He knows NY fans are not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a team that has lost so much in recent years. He doesn't want things to get so ugly that they get out of hand before the team really gets a chance to fully grasp the new system, adjust to the competition level and get used to the rotation.

Posted by efw:

Posted by Panos:

Posted by efw:

just keeping expectations low. saying anything else would be stupid.

Missing Jeffries will be big though becase even though this is the same team, IT obviously felt that not having a premier defender of the three spot was a big hole. Yeah Q did ok, but there's a lot of 3s in the league that killed us last year. And with the rest of our guards being undersized, that 6'11 is hard to replace.

Again, why wasn't that a valid excuse for LB? What about the other 4 positions at which we play no defense? Having a defensive SF is going to cover all that? What a load of crap.

if you remember, it was a valid excuse for Larry. He, IT, Dolan, everybody here said it would take a while to figure out the team. He told us at least through December. And lo and behold, come January things started to click.

Having a defensive SF is a huge step in the right direction. Why do you think Artest or Kirelenko are so valuable? A SF is like a mid-fielder - suppossed to do a little of everything. A defensive SF is much more valuable then an offensive one. Especially if said SF can guard multiple positions.

It's not a load of crap to say that we'll suffer with Jeffries sitting out.

Which is why LB was gone by May?

Posted by efw:

Posted by Panos:

Posted by efw:

just keeping expectations low. saying anything else would be stupid.

Missing Jeffries will be big though becase even though this is the same team, IT obviously felt that not having a premier defender of the three spot was a big hole. Yeah Q did ok, but there's a lot of 3s in the league that killed us last year. And with the rest of our guards being undersized, that 6'11 is hard to replace.

Again, why wasn't that a valid excuse for LB? What about the other 4 positions at which we play no defense? Having a defensive SF is going to cover all that? What a load of crap.

if you remember, it was a valid excuse for Larry. He, IT, Dolan, everybody here said it would take a while to figure out the team. He told us at least through December. And lo and behold, come January things started to click.

Having a defensive SF is a huge step in the right direction. Why do you think Artest or Kirelenko are so valuable? A SF is like a mid-fielder - suppossed to do a little of everything. A defensive SF is much more valuable then an offensive one. Especially if said SF can guard multiple positions.

It's not a load of crap to say that we'll suffer with Jeffries sitting out.

It is a load of crap to use it as an excuse after saying the roster was
fine last year without him, and then firing the coach because he lost with
that roster -- the same roster that Isiah is no saying he'll probably lose with.

same team as last year. isiah doesn't have to integrate a new quentin, jerome, eddy, frye, lee, nate. they were here last year. and their "unified" now.

lb's wasn't an excuse. it's how all his teams (well at least all of them except us) perform his first year.

now isiah has all the same pieces back and a supposedly healthy and in shape quentin and eddy. enough with this nonsense. just say we're going to play hard and try hard to win every game. but no, he's already saying we're going to lose...at least that's what he's telling the fans.

Posted by SeatsBlue:

I'm not suprised he was laying the groundwork on this pathetic team just 11days ago and here's what he said from this article......

http://www.newsday.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-spknix1013,0,764884.story?coll=ny-sports-headlines

"Teams that we're going to face, they have some experience and some years on us in terms of togetherness," Thomas said. "We're not going to catch up in a week or two. But by the end of the year, my goal is to have our team ready that they can go around and compete with anybody they're playing in the league . . . But that's an end-of-the-year thought, not tomorrow's."
______________________________________________________________________________

IMO this is even worse than what he said today. Digest what he's saying here folks. Basically he's begging for Dolan not to fire him if they win around 30-35gms. It's like he's saying.... "Hey we came out of the season and played like trash for 3-4mos but we came around in March, so there's a bright future ahead of us."


But on the same day 11 days ago he was talking about winning a title


http://www.ultimateknicks.com/forum/topic.asp?t=17501


How can anyone not see how F'D up the whole situation is?

[Edited by - SeatsBlue on 10-24-2006 11:15 AM]