Posted by crzymdups:

Guys... I just enrolled in his online class in how to be a GM. Do you think I should ask for a refund?

Stephon Marbury, PG, New York Knicks
Knicks president Isiah Thomas went nuts over Tuesday's column (and a New York Times report) stating that Isiah was willing to trade Marbury.



The team that gets Stephon Marbury in a trade comes up short in the win column.
"That is so far from the truth," Thomas told reporters, in an angry tone, at a press conference after the Knicks' first summer league game. "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."

Marbury has "never been in play," and the Knicks will "never put him in play," according to Isiah.

That's sharply at odds with what several NBA executives have told Insider over the course of the last week.

Thomas also took issue with the use of other, unnamed executives as sources.

"Tell the GM, whoever the GM is, to put his name on it," Thomas said.

Knicks fans likewise were displeased at suggestions that Thomas would be willing to trade Marbury to get Samuel Dalembert in a sign-and-trade. They were even more shocked at the possibility of trading him to Atlanta for Al Harrington, Tony Delk and Jason Collier.

The funny thing is, trading Marbury is a move the Knicks should make. A trade for Dalembert (which I'm told Sixers GM Billy King has zero interest in) would help the Knicks here and now. That trade would add a shot blocker, put Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson at the point and give the Knicks a good chance at the playoffs.

A potential Hawks trade would be more about the future. By moving Marbury for players like Harrington, Delk and Collier (all in the last year of their contracts), Isiah could be on the verge of the previously unthinkable -- cap room. If Marbury were moved and Thomas could resist the urge to throw a max deal at every free agent that bats his eyes at him, the Knicks would be around $20 million under the cap going into the summer of 2007.

That just happens to be the summer that LeBron James becomes a restricted free agent, with his full free agency to follow a year later. Given what we know about the huge endorsement kickers James would get by playing in a big market like New York, combined with the chaos in Cleveland right now, it isn't a stretch to think that the Knicks would be real players in the LeBron market, provided they can get their house in order.

If Thomas really is going to hold firm on his pledge to "never" put Marbury in play, he's going to have to do something else to ease what's turning out to be a major logjam in the backcourt. The Knicks have Marbury, Jamal Crawford, Quentin Richardson, Allan Houston, Penny Hardaway and Nate Robinson, making a total of $66 million.

Houston will likely be waived using the new "amnesty" rule set up in the new CBA. Hardaway is in the last year of his contract, which makes him a tradable piece. But even with those two players eventually out of the picture, the Knicks logjam is still fairly significant and Crawford will be unhappy if he has to come off the bench.