Posted by TemujinKnick:

We have the draft, the trades, and the summer league. I want more of that and less melodrama.

Who are you the Pope?

Ohnestly, I say lets just get it over with, too. I mean is anybody really going to change their mind? We are just agrevating eacho other by repeating the same crap all over agina. There is a gropu of people that support IT to the end, and there is a group of people who think he is a total failure.

The next season will tell, agree?

could it really just be the papers blowing it out of proportion?

oohah,

I don't want to ignore your lengthy post, but after a while these splintered conversations lose context and substance.

My difference with you is that you exaggerate everything Brown did into franchise defying proportions while diminishing the significance of everything he was out to confront.

If I shared your view that Brown came in with subversive intentions I'd probably be as pissed as you. I simply don't. I think he came in highly courted with expectations that he was involved in the team-building of the Knicks for the future. I assume it was his expectation that as one of the preeminent coaches in the league he'd be allowed at least as much input and control as the D'Antoni's and McMillian's of the league.

I do not believe it was his intention to lose games, but early in the process he saw the poor effort, poor conditioning, lack of fundamentals, lack of commaraderie, and inbred entitlement complexes at hand, and he approached this massive undertaking in "his way."

It's easy not to like "his way" in retrospect, but a slow start and a fast finish are not unusual for Brown's teams and had we finished strongly few would have minded his approach. And we may have been on course for that had several things not interrupted our good mid-season efforts. Some such things include an injury to Marbury, a sexual harassment suit against our GM, several players feeling like little more than "meat" and "assets", multitudinous trade rumors to key players, constant dissent from our franchise player, crap chemistry and camaraderie, and probable disharmony and mixed messages between our coach and GM regarding our direction and approach.

Where I think you and I diverge is that you chose to keep the focus on all the things that can be said that Brown did wrong while I try to keep them in context. We were not a 50 win team that Brown destroyed. The team we took over went 17-39 since Marbury declared himself "the best." We had a crowded and redundant roster, we had a GM who appears to have trouble empowering coaches, we had a "star" player few teammates reportedly like, we had a star player who didn't like his coach, we had players come to camp out of condition, we were stocked with players who other teams gave up on for not being team players and/or hard workers, we had players who didn't fit the coaches vision, we had an owner who's beleived for years we are championship caliber team and who probably wanted to see his highly paid "name brand" players featured though many of them were our worst performers, and on and on.

So Brown tried to address this multitude of sins and did not succeed. His efforts failed. Nobody denies this. And since he failed it's easy to say he should have done things differently, and perhaps he should; or perhaps not, perhaps it was a necessary step along the road to a culture change. That's fair play for discussion.

But that is different than to say Browns efforts came out of sinister and subversive motives. He was dealt a tough hand and he took some radical measures, some gambles, under the assumption that building a winner for the future is a greater good than saving face in the present. But management wanted both ways at the same time. It's similar to Isiah's dual-track approach to rebuilding where you try to make the playoffs while adding talented youth. It's a nice concept but it falls apart in that trading high draft picks for low ones hinders your prospects for talented youth. Sometimes a step backward is appropriate for a leap forward. One need only look at Phoenix dumping Marbury for a CHANCE at something better for an example. Isiah doesn't seem at all willing to ever take a step backward. He tries to win every trade on talent but is losing the battle of team building in the process.

I think management failed Brown in that regard. I think their trades for Rose and Francis where efforts to keep moving forward in Isiah's rebuild but did little for Brown's needs for hard-workers, defender and team guys. Those trades were attempts to add more "talent" for Brown to work with, but at the same time they were more bad eggs to fold into his omelet. I think the rationale was that at worst they could be trade bait for next year, but now management is reneging on that aspect and all Brown got from it was the headaches.

Brown challenged his players hard, and in the process challenged management too. I imagine he understood his approach was abrasive, but not without merit. I also imagine he thought that even if management was turned off to him emotionally they'd at least buy-in intellectually, but it appears they have not. And I believe Dolan's lack of intellectualism, at least as it relates to bball, weighs heavily in that, along with Isiah's emotional and prideful ties to some of his players and his building approach.

So for every failing of Brown there are of course alternative explanations that go beyond the accusation he was sabotaging Isiah to take his job, etc. There were contexts, pre-existing conditions, and other protagonists to consider. Those are the elements I choose to focus on because whether Brown is here or not, I find their existance far more disturbing than Browns efforts to correct and overcome them.

Posted by rvhoss:

BS...all we care about is that you give Marbury a fraction of the benefit of doubt you give Brown. Just a fraction. I mean, even your footers show you hate marbury above all else.

I'm a fan of marbury's game, drive and score until you are stopped either by a better defending PG (then start the ball around and set up a play) or by a help defender...should the help defender come into play, drive and dish to the help defenders man...surrounded by players that have done their jobs in the past (QRich, Curry) there should be scoring a plenty.

Now marbs may have lost a step, but to force him to play like gimpy PGs that favor his style should have either resulting in moving Marbury to the 2 or to the bench.

Marbury did in fact play larry's way the entire first half of the season, with the exception of 4 or 5 of those games, and we SUCKED.

When he assumed the scoring load, we won.

Blame marbury all you want, pick your poison, 10 page hate marbury rant, 10 page defend larry rant, it's painfully obvious somebody isn't getting a fair shake and somebody else is given carte blanche.

Open your eyes. marbury isn't the problem, last year's larry wasn't the solution. Last year's larry wasn't the problem and Starbury isn't the solution.

We're just looking for a little of both, on the court and on ultimateknicks...it's one thing to say we love marbury, it's another thing if we are just sticking up for one of our own.

Lay off marbury, what has he ever done to you?

The master towels of scowels has led the franchise to the NBA bowels!

That is wha he has done to most of us.

Dig his game, but the result is not there.

Its not his fault we lose? Not entirely.

When marbury arrived I liked him. By the end of the playoffs I became concerned about his floor game, which wasn't helped by the olympics. By the time I learned he spent more time on the massage table than scrimmaging and was fighting with Kurt I started issuing warnings about his mental game too. I was told Steph was a star and guys like lenny and Kurt needed to get out of his way and the sooner we dumped the both of them the better we'd be. But it never worked out that way.

I gave Steph a year and a half of chances and this was to be his do or die year. I actually expected him to do better than he did. He never really tried for brown and he revealed himself to be beyond my worst expectations. There is no need to wait on this guy any longer. His bads out weigh his goods. He's not the only one but he's a large part of what's wrong with this team. He's a gargantuan distraction for everyone involved and the sooner we're free of him the sooner the right guys will get the attention they deserve.

Posted by rvhoss:



I'm a fan of marbury's game, drive and score until you are stopped either by a better defending PG (then start the ball around and set up a play) or by a help defender...should the help defender come into play, drive and dish to the help defenders man...surrounded by players that have done their jobs in the past (QRich, Curry) there should be scoring a plenty.

wwe must watch 2 different Stephs

walk it up & run 100 pick and pop sets is the Marbury I remember. those kick-outs looked good with KVH Doleac Houston spotting up or if KT got open. too bad the GM changed the personnel

[Edited by - McK1 on 06-12-2006 1:59 PM]

Posted by rvhoss:

hey, he did it with Tim Thomas and QRich had a ton of open looks early in the season.

You are correct, we are watching two different stephs...mine plays on MSG. Your's plays on the YES network.

Marbury never developed any chemistry with Tim or Q.

and there is no Marbury on YES. 2 of the greatest playmakers work on YES. noone would ever confuse those 2 with Steph

yeah, the yes network joke was a stretch, alluding to watching him on the away telecast where everything he does is bunk.

Marbury doesn't develop chemistry with players that don't produce...plain and simple.

Do I fault him for that? He's just like the rest of us, give effort or produce, talk is cheap.

While "the best PG in the nba quote" (taken out of context if you see the video and don't read the quote by itself) notwithstanding, marbury brings it every game before L.B.

last year, was a sick joke, but before LB bashed everyone into submission and Ariza to orlando, everyone was giving maximum effort from my standpoint. Even fat armed moT.

Qrich sucked this year, marbury called him out, qrich still smarting from losing a family member, went after him, but there is no denying even with marbury playing like crap this year, Q sill had no leg to stand on other than he hated him.

Here's to next year.