Posted by oohah:
Put me down as an Optimist...Put Team USA as well as Optimist..
I was optimistic last year because the Knicks had added some real good talent and landed a (supposedly) great coach.
I am more optimistic this year because those talented players are one year older and wiser, we got rid of the cancer that is LB (He was 10 times the cancer anyone else was last year.), and we have a coach who wants to coach these talented players.
No LB = addition by subtraction.
There is reason to be optimistic. Some just guys can't get over the loss of their hero LB and are still smarting over it. Make no mistake about it, no matter what they type, that is the source of the negativity. We were all here all season so we know the deal.
oohah
ooh, baby, you're too good for this shallow nonsense, so why do you do it? Seriously, why?
I can't speak for anyone else but the reason I supported Brown is because I perceived some things to be broken before he arrived that I hoped he could fix.
Some of those broken items included:
1. A face of the franchise player who wore the face of a defeatist.
2. That same player was allowed to run roughshod over prior coaches to poor effect. on this team alone he told Wilkens to shove his criticisms and he spent many a practice session on the massage table, even after giving a speech on self sacrifice, and while explaining our troubles away (like a 16-39 second half of the season) on lack of playing time together.
3. During that 16-39 span I watched a team play ball so gutless that many posters believed they were tanking for a draft pick, until they nearly cried after ending their 9 game losing streak. It was so gutless that Isiah himself said he was ashamed to be associated with such a soft team.
4. Isiah exhibited far too little respect for his prior coaches, and an emasculated coach is dead in the water before the get-go, especially when the inappropriate face-of-the-franchise player is given greater authority than him.
If I were out to rack my brain I'm sure I could come up with a lot more reasons, but those are enough. We had poor chemistry and leadership to begin with which evidenced itself in a very soft and fragile demeanor to our game. We got blown out in home openers, we had set franchise worst record months and losing streaks. Defensively we were at or near the bottom of the league. This was all BEFORE Brown arrived.
In short we were a dysfunctional and dispassionate team by virtually any measure and LB was a guy known to bring out the best in motivation from his teams. He was supposed to be the Mr Fix-it for our broken team. You can say I'm being too down on were we were but Isiah pretty much said as much when Larry was fired: "We needed him."
And while you think he was the great underminer I see it differently, That it didn't work out to me is analogous to if Mr Wolf, from Pulp Fiction, was brought in to help Vincent and Jules clean up their little "mess" but they failed because Vincent couldn't humble himself to do as he was told. In the movie he did, but in our case we had a Vincent who didn't.
But then again, Mr Wolf did say "pretty please, with a cherry on top", and Larry didn't, so I guess that excuses it.
Regardless, LB is gone now, and from the moment management starting hanging him in the wind I felt Isiah should be the next coach.
On May 16th I wrote this:
Dude, my negativity doesn't come from nothing. I saw Chaney led out of the Garden in shackles. I saw Fratello led to expect he was next in only to be dumped at the last minute. I saw Lenny brought in and in his press conference say "This isn't my team it's Steph's." I saw Lenny allowed only 1 assistant who was later fired. I heard Isiah pronounce "The two most important people in our organization are Jim Dolan and Stephon Marbury." I saw Lenny let Steph massage his way thru practice and too afraid to discipline him when he shat on him. I saw Herb "being groomed" apparently for naught. I saw Larry brought in and heard Isiah assure us that players would have to adapt to the coach, the coach would not change, and he would get the coach the kind of players he needs. Now I hear that's not true, and even if the coach isn't bought out the handling of this process has totally undermined his authority.
I see Isiah do nothing to empower his coaches. Isiah himselfs helps Lenny run practices and balls out the players after losses. He looks over the coach's shoulder from the sidelines, he choses their assistants. When his HOF "effort and defense" driven coach asks for his type of players he's given guys like Rose and Francis. And if there is any disagreement with his coaches he fires them, has them resign with pay, or he buys them out.
He is not a GM any coach should want to work for. He's a wannabe coach in GM's clothing. He sets all his coaches up to fail, and I don't think he should be allowed to repeat the process ad infinitum.
He obviously thinks he knows better than all his coaches, HOFers not withstanding, so let him do it already. At least he wont be stabbing himself in the back all the while. Or will he?....
You can read this all as a defense of "our beloved" Larry Brown, but it denies all the hope we had invested in him because our passions are invested in the franchise - fatties, prima donnas, malcontents and whiners be damned.
[Edited by - blueSeats on 09-01-2006 01:32 AM]
