Posted by Pharzeone:
Actually it was pointed out to him by demanding to speak with Dolan one on one is going over Thomas' head. He responded that he didn't mean that and said that he now wants Thomas present. Blue you will not win that one, Brown is notorious for pulling those stunts. He did it to Joe Dumars and Billy King. Blue you fail to realize is that Thomas is Brown's boss. I know he is getting paid more than him but basically, he is his boss. I don't know about where you work but skipping level of managements to talk with the owner of a organization or company is uncommon. It is uncommon in the NBA. IMO, I do believe Brown was trying to get Thomas fired, so he could bring in Calipari. Brown was more or less fired by the Spurs for similar antics. Like Marbury, Brown got his own share of baggage.
If Phil, Riley, D'Antoni, Popovich, even Avery, ask for a sit down with the owner, even a one-on-one, do you make make the same conjectures about it? I doubt it. So until you show me something more substantial than that at some point in the season he asked for a sit-down I gonna take it all as stereotyping.
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That said, lets also address the alternative scenario.
In pre-season just about everyone knew Brown's challenge this year was to see if Isiah could share power with him and if Marbury would buy in. I think both were answered in the negative.
Brown saw Chaney escorted out by security, Wilkens overridden on trades, Wilkens allowed zero assistants of his own, Wilkens shat on by Marbury, Isiah giving half-time lectures undermining Wilkens authority, Wilkens understanding he couldn't work with Isiah and quitting, Herb trailed along, etc.
He also knew Marbury was someone he didn't care for from their time together in the Olympics, but he just witnessed Isiah cursing out the media just for asking if he we shopping Marbury:
Thomas, the team president, was frequently profane in his first public comments on the speculation surrounding Marbury, which began with an article in The New York Times on Saturday. A Western Conference team executive and a player agent had independently said that Marbury was being made available by the Knicks.
Similar reports have since surfaced in other news media outlets, all citing unnamed team executives around the league.
"That is so far from the truth," Thomas said testily, a few minutes after the Knicks played their first summer league game here. "And I'm ashamed for you guys that you even have to ask me that, because there is absolutely no truth to it at all."
Thomas and Marbury are next-door neighbors in Westchester County, and are known to be close. Marbury, a former All-Star, was Thomas's first major acquisition after he took over operations 19 months ago.
Asked if he needed to reassure Marbury about his future, Thomas said: "He and I and all of New York City know where I stand with him and where he stands with me. In my neighborhood, we say, 'We don't get down like that. We don't roll like that.' "
Marbury, Thomas said, has "never been in play," and the Knicks will "never put him in play." So LB certainly may have come in knowing he'd have a an uphill battle for a fair say in this organization, as no coach has yet had one while isiah has been here.
And it appears it might not have taken Isiah long for Isiah to resist:
According to an assistant coach, Thomas has been subverting Brown's authority with the players almost from the moment his coach began to undermine (read: devalue) his roster to the media. We're talking very early in the season.
From then on, there was hostility among the troops. "It's like two competing militias in Lebanon," underlined an extremist view of the scene.This was the same scenario AD spoke of upon being traded:
"Larry and Isiah, they need to get on the same page," Davis said of coach Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas, the Knicks' president. "Is the team going younger or older? What are they doing? Where's the team going?"
"I was telling the guys, this was the first time I've got to run up and down and enjoy myself in a long time. It was nice to see some fresh faces and see guys who really cared about playing and listening to their coach, trying to do everything they can to help each other and to win basketball games."Personally, in an organization that doesn't know what it's doing I don't think it's a bad idea for the owner to know what a HOF coach thinks. He certainly needs to know more than just what Isiah and Mills think and I hope Colangleo gave him some things to chew on, like to stop it with the Marburys, Hardaways and Francises of the league, and to hire a coach who fits your vision and to then HELP that coach.
IF (big if) there really is a direction here that Larry absolutely doesn't fit then Dolan needs to just admit his own starphuching mistakes and eat his contract and move on. Brown was a known entity and if Isiah/Dolan didn't want him to participate in shaping the team and wanted someone just to tow the party line and act as a figure head they should have just hired Herb and pissed in his ear. But when you beg the coach and his wife to join the club and promise to get him guys who'll play for him and then balk and undermine him you need to pay to undo the mistakes that you made.
Brown trying to round out this roster and bring in players who want to compete is not an evil deed, but if Isiah and Dolan are purely committed to running this place like a rehab center and will never give up on their "patients" then maybe they don't need a coach at all and should just hire a counselor and probation officer for the players to meet with once a month and then let Steph coach.
6/3/2006 10:41 PM