I think he is a good assistant coach that befriends the players and keeps their moral up, otherwise how can you call him a good coach, are you guys ****ing nuts....

Starts the wrong players, has destroyed crawford, doesn't really penalize curry for never trying on defense, sits balkman for no reason, uses his timeouts poorly

I agree with you. I dont' think Chaney was a good coach. He was an alright coach. But he did a solid job with us considering the crap he had on his roster. They played hard every night and like you said were a .500 team after Spree returned.

Lenny had this team gelling and improving and then saw his team traded away, his assistants canned and his star player given veto rights over all his moves. His boss stood staring over his shoulder at every move. That man got the worst treatment I have seen a coach get in a long time for doing his job.

I could care less about Isiah as coach. It's his team and he knows what's best for it, but unfortunately, his team sucks and he has to be held accountable for that, as a GM. A hall of fame coach couldn't coach them, and now he can't coach them. Isiah the coach is getting a taste of what other coaches before him have had to digest and he knows it. I still don't know why he's still here.

Posted by Bippity10:

Solace: I'm telling you. The weird rotations, substitutions we've had over the years is a direct result of an inconsistent roster and players that you don't know what they are going to give you on a night in night out basis.

There is a reason that in the years you've known me you never hear me question rotaions. There is too much going on besides scoring, rebounding and one on one defense that as a fan we cannot see. I have had guys who are scoring and rebounding fantastic but still had to take them out of a game because they are blowing assignments on the defensive end that is killing my team. As a fan you think I'm crazy. I hate the player. Or just can't see how good he is. It's obvious "he's keeping us in the game". But the reality is that if he would do what I need him to do, we wouldn't be in the game, we would be winning the game. So unfortunately no matter how well he is playing I have to take him out for the good of the team. Not to mention what it does to the team moral and my respect level if I don't take him out after he's let down his teammates over and over again. A lot of this stuff goes on in games. A lot of times a guy is taken out. We have no clue. But the player knows exactly why.

No, you're right on those fronts. Thinking back, a while ago, I probably realized I was too hard in my criticisms of Chaney back then. Our coaches always had to deal with unbalanced rosters. Under Isiah, there was the added challenge of dealing with egos and Isiah's agenda. That's one of the reasons I did admire the job Lenny did. Unfortunately for him, he hit one (REALLY BAD) losing streak and that's it... he was fired. The problem is and always has been our management. I just never was a fan of Chaney; I thought Chaney was better as an assistant coach.

Posted by Bippity10:

Posted by Solace:

Posted by newyorknewyork:

Me personally I think Don Chaney & Lenny Wilkens did a good job when they were here.

Don Chaney had a lineup of Ward-Houston-Sprewell-Weatherspoon/Harrington-KT
When Sprewell came back from his hand injury they played 500. basketball for the rest of the season. Then because of personal problems. Layden traded our best PG in Sprewell for KVH which was not an upgrade im sorry. Especially given the current unit.

Lenny Wilkens I think did a good job as well. I think he needed more athletism in the frontcourt though. And TT was an enigma, Tim Thomas makes me feel sorry for Wilkens. I wouldn't have mind if we kept Wilkens, dumped Tim Thomas, added some athletism and size to mix with Sweetney & KT. Ariza probably would be looking good under Wilkens right now.

I thought Chaney did a subpar job after JVG left. I think he did a better job with the team that won 37 games. During his final part season with the Knicks I grew to HATE his rotations, so I was kind of happy that Isiah fired him. His interviews really annoyed me. His rotations were awful. He was too easy on guys in practice and seemed to not push the defensive agenda enough. I liked the job Lenny did. I thought he did a good job with the team and the players respected him, for the most part. So far, I think Lenny Wilkins has done the best coaching job in NY since JVG left. Anyway, as for Van Horn, in the context of the team we had, it was an upgrade. KVH was 5 years younger than Spree and gave us some much needed size. We were the smallest team in the league at the time of the trade, had a PF starting at center and had a SG starting at SF, which was brutal. We were getting absolutely owned on the boards. Overall, I agree with the rest of your post.

Solace: I'm telling you. The weird rotations, substitutions we've had over the years is a direct result of an inconsistent roster and players that you don't know what they are going to give you on a night in night out basis.

There is a reason that in the years you've known me you never hear me question rotaions. There is too much going on besides scoring, rebounding and one on one defense that as a fan we cannot see. I have had guys who are scoring and rebounding fantastic but still had to take them out of a game because they are blowing assignments on the defensive end that is killing my team. As a fan you think I'm crazy. I hate the player. Or just can't see how good he is. It's obvious "he's keeping us in the game". But the reality is that if he would do what I need him to do, we wouldn't be in the game, we would be winning the game. So unfortunately no matter how well he is playing I have to take him out for the good of the team. Not to mention what it does to the team moral and my respect level if I don't take him out after he's let down his teammates over and over again. A lot of this stuff goes on in games. A lot of times a guy is taken out. We have no clue. But the player knows exactly why.

I hated his interviews to. We are in agreement about the 37win team. I feel he still did a good job the following yr. KVH did provide more size for a small team though we added Mutombo. And was a better rebounder than Sprewell. But Sprewell was a point-forward. He made up for a lot of what Ward & Eisley lacked. With Sprewell that 37win team had the fewest TOs per game in the league, the most 3ptrs made, and the highest 3pt%. KVH only exploited our PGs as he and Houston weren't good play makers and neither was Ward or Eisley. We turned the ball over about 20 times a game at the time. Our best playmaker was Frank Williams. Marbury fit in real well with all the shooters we had in Houston-KVH-KT-Doleac add that with Marbury's ability to collaspe the paint and thats why they were having success. Marbury was having like 20 assist games. Marbury was making Doleac look real good and he was confident in his teammates. But I thought the TT & Muhammad deals were solid because I felt they provided way more value for upgrades to the team later. TT & KVh value wise were even. While Muhammad got you a way better player than Doleac in a future trade. I was under the impression we were make moves to make us a championship contender in a few yrs. Looking back we were better off keeping that team together. Under Chaney-Layden we needed upgrades at every position other than SG. And even then we needed an upgrage at backup SG.

The exfactor was the fact that Sprewell brought a swagger to the team. He just made everyone play better. KVH was younger but I never thought KVH would be a main cog in any championship calibre team so his age didn't mean anything to me. We should have done that Sprewell for Penny & Joe Johnson deal that some Suns beat writer proposed before Johnson blew up.