Posted by islesfan:
The bottom line is that Isiah has done a ridiculously poor job as the GM and President of the Knicks.
As far as the team itself:
- he's spent hundreds of millions of dollars
- he's traded away 4 possibly very high draft picks
- he's onto his 5th head coach in his 2 1/2 years here
- he has put together a mismatched roster that doesn't compliment each other well and the best we can hope for after close to 4 full seasons here is a mediocre team
As far as the organization he's made us into the laughingstock of the league by:
- being involved in a sexual harrassment case
- going through coach after coach making it impossible to get a good proven coach here as long as Isiah is here
- getting involved in immature spats with sportswriters because his ego can't stand criticism
- seemingly changing plans and directions more often than he changes head coaches
It's not hate (ok, maybe a little bit), it's about wanting what's best for a franchise that a lot of us have put a lot of time and passion into for a lot of years. It's become obvious for most of us (thank God) that Isiah's tenure has done more harm than good to this franchise and think that it's time for change.
My question is what method of retooling/rebuilding a team has proven to be more effective in the same amount of time? To my knowledge NONE. Unless part of your retooling includes adding Shaq, it's VERY difficult to build a team from a loser into a playoff contender.
Forget the money, cuz it's Cablevisions to spend.
Forget the embarrasing media scandals, cuz if the team wins none of that history means anything.
Forget the number of coaches, cuz if we exclude Chaney who already showed he wasn't very good and Herb who was an interim coach, then that leaves Lenny an obvious short term solution and LB, who quit on the team cuz he lacks the will to stick it out when it's tough.
Now the roster may not be textbook, but neither are LOT of winning teams in this league. If the team wins this year that's all that is important. How many prototypical NBA teams are there in the league anyway? You bring in talent and fit the pieces around that to make it work.
My point is that he hasn't won a lot of games, but then if you're trying to change the roster as drastically as he has then you're gonna have some rough times. This is a good roster! Isiah rebuilt this team in 3 years and I think it's ready to start winning now. That's not bad. How long has it been in Boston, Atlanta, Toronto etc. There are plenty of teams that have been trying to get back for as long and even longer than Isiah has been on the job. He may not be a very good GM, but I think he's going to prove to have been more effective than it might seem from all of his mistakes.
[Edited by - nixluva on 10-31-2006 05:13 AM]
