I don't like Marbury. He's an overpaid crybaby that couldn't lead a cult if he tried.

I don't like Dolan. He's the most fiscally irresponsible owner in the league.

But I hate, hate, hate what Isiah Thomas has done to this team. If I could take my anger at any single moment, put it in a box, tape it up, and mail it to someone, I'd mail it to him.

He is SOLELY responsible for putting this group together. You can bring Steve Mills into this, or Dolan, or Marbury, or Brown.....but bottom line is that Isiah is the creator of this team. It's his "vision", not Brown's, not Dolan's, and certainly not Marbury's.

Do you know what all that has amounted to?

(and keep in mind I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here by ignoring the record we had through 2003 when he was just hired):


79-111......

Just barely over 40 %. That's 190 games.....more than 2 seasons, and like I said, if you wanna be strict about it, he's had closer to 250 games.


So let's recap what he's done in that time.


I'm not gonna go into detail about the moves. But there are a few I think we can all see as having an impact (good or bad) on this orginization:

http://hoopshype.com/general_managers/isiah_thomas.htm


Acquiring Stephon Marbury:

Pros: Gained an All-Star caliber guard for not much value.

Cons: Set us back BIGTIME in cap space and overall flexability


Acquiring Tim Thomas and Nazr

Pros: I loved this trade at first. Looking back on it, I'm not AS fond, but IMO it was his most level-headed move. Gained talent, didn't lose cap $.

Cons: Didn't make us overall better, just gave us extra bargaining chips.


Acquiring Mo Taylor

Pros: Gained a fringe-starting caliber PF with post moves.

Cons: Hated the deal then, still hate it now. Gave up a couple million in cap space, and GAVE UP a draft pick just to do it. An all offense, no defense washed up, undersized big man. How many more did we need?


Acquiring Malik Rose

Pros: Gained draft picks.

Cons: Gave up like what, 15, 20 Million in cap space? Did gain 2 draft picks, both of which will have been late 1st rounders, which so far has turned into David Lee. Isiah will probly deal the other. Oh, and let's not forget he traded big for small. You NEVER do that. Never, never, never. Especially in this scenario. He traded our starting center for Christ's sake.


Acquiring Q Richardson and Nate Robinson

Pros: Gained youth and athleticism. Isiah gets to appease Marbury.

Cons: Well, Kurt would have fit in far better in Larry's system, but he's getting old, and not doing much in Pheonix. And while Q has been anything but effective for us, we did get Oakley Jr. out of it........


Signing Jerome James to 5 yr./30 Million $$ Deal

Pros: NONE

Cons: ALL.........Isiah likes to talk about being patient and rebuilding NOW.....but what about that just a few months ago? Hey Isiah, why weren't YOU patient enough to wait around, instead of jumping the gun?


Acquiring Eddy Curry

Pros: Gained a potentially dominant big man for not much value.

Cons: Tim Thomas and Mike Sweetney for A. Davis and a resigned Curry is a pretty sweet deal at first, but then you consider the draft picks.....yes...all THREE of them.....and all that cap space, and I give it a grade of Incomplete. Let's be clear though.......it doesn't look good.




Bottom Line:


Isiah talks a GOOD talk, lemme tell you. He's a used car salesman for sure. He sounds so smooth and composed all the time, but you'd think the star player from the Bad-Boy days would build a team around DEFENSE. Instead he's fallen in love with flash, potential, youth, and athleticism.....NONE of which have gotten us any closer to even the PLAYOFFS.


And what about Isiah -- why is it that he defends every move he makes as if he doesn't realize we're a capped over, inconsistent, ZERO-defense bunch with no leader?

Are you for real? I mean, how does Channing Frye become your future? He's our new Gerald Wilkens. This is what happens when your team is so bad -- ANY improvement becomes overjocked to the point where it gets plain silly. Frye an All-Star? Are you for real? Ya....he's good, but let's be real. He has role player written all over him.


I mean, I think when your GM starts bringing in dog killers and sacrificing a draft pick for 9 Million dollar over-the-hill PF's a little light should go off in your brain that says "Whoaa, wtf?". But obviously Mr. Dolan hasn't had the privelage of having that light go off in his head.

He's too busy playing golf with Allan Houston.



You know what all this has amounted to?

Larry has publicly criticized his players and said he doesn't like the team.

Marbury, Isiah's boy, is gettin boo'd in the Garden, his hometown.

Several players have asked to be traded.


I mean, for Christ's sake, when 3 ROOKIES are the ones that help you lead comebacks and are the only bright spots on a team, you KNOW something's wrong. How can 3 rookies have SO much influence on a team? That's just ****in sad. I mean......we're not talkin about Larry Bird or Magic Johnson here. These are good, young, smart players. But all 3 of them are role players.

And let's not forget how Isiah has changed game plans more than the Taliban. He's gone from win-now, to win RIGHT now, to rebuilding, and back again.

Hell, does he even know what he wants? When you're the GM of a team (and no less the Knicks), and you try to defend signing Jerome James to a 30 Million dollar deal in the midst of "rebuilding", then that's what I call Operation Rock Bottom.


And ironically, that's exactly where this franchise is gonna be if Isiah isn't fired SOON.

Defense wins championships. Isiah, if ANYONE, should know that.


What a BUM.

From that Detroit bad boys team back in the 80's, the backcourt were zeke and dumars..

Dumars was the more defensive-minded player from that team.. Isaih was more of the offensive player

You can see as Pres/g.m of the pistons, Dumars recruits or picks up defensive minded hardnosed players that shows no fear.. Wallaces, Billups, Prince and etc..

Isiah in terms of trades or free-agent signings, picks up offensive minded athelic players that are not knowned for their defensive prowess. Ex. marbury, crawford, Q, Tim Thomas from before, Mo taylor..

Once the players became part of the roster, he then hires Larry Brown.. Look @ the problem with this team.. No Identity and not Larry Brown typed players..

You noticed how we get killed from the 3 pt line and teams tend to put up nearly 30 pts within a quarter... Not exceptable!!!!

Sooner or later MArbury will be gone along with Crawford, Mo TAylor and others.. The 3 rookies along with future young bloods will give this Knicks team an identity.. The question is WHEN!!

this is where the critiscm belongs. I really do not think it sits on the players who were put together at the highest expense in basketball hstory. There is no layden blaming or layden crying--isiah came in here and had free reign to spend endlessly--he did NOT have to trade for Marbury and ig he did, he dI NOT have to give in to all of their demands

and to say hes been on the job for only two years--frankly hes made more moves and spent more money than Gms do in 5 years. I understand he wanted to get younger and more athletic. But that is not defining a basketball team, its not a style of play--many teams have players who are young and athletic.

he hasnt had the cahones to admit mistake, he has tried to pawn all blame omn the players like he did so last week. how about isiah step up and say i fcked up, we need to do this and this and we will try the best to do it--the problem is everythuing now has to be precise, there is no more room for f cups--frankly i dont see it getting done because we dont have anything to give if payroll has to stay down

How exactly is Zeke supposed to admit the mistake with Marbs? This confuses me.

Posted by Bippity10:

How exactly is Zeke supposed to admit the mistake with Marbs? This confuses me.

He admitted the Marbury mistake when he said I have 3 building blocks - LB, Curry, Frye. He said "this is LBs" team.

Posted by BRIGGS:

Posted by Bippity10:

How exactly is Zeke supposed to admit the mistake with Marbs? This confuses me.

when you take on 140mm in contracts and give up 2 1 and 2 2s, you should do so with a style of play in mind. What exact style of play does Stephon marbury represent and were the following transactions synergistic? the answer none and no. Isiah has collected expensive pieces that dont fit. the arguement that getting marbruy for picks and ending contracts hasnt been a successful one. he didnt have to get marbury, he didnt have to do a lot of things, but he did, so he has to be held accountable. hes not a thinking man, hes a coniving man--we need a thinking man a man with a specific style of play in mind.

And WHO should that man be? Tell me who besides Greg Pop and Joe Dumars is a good candidate?

when you're in a situation that we were in...you needed patience. you needed the patience to FULLY assess the situation at hand before making moves. within 2 weeks of his hiring, he took back over $100 MIL in contracts AND gave up 2 #1's in the process. that's a tough move man. a tough move. there were some strong reasoning behind it...but in hindsight, it hasn't worked out as none of the subsequent moves were to cater to steph. what absolute sucks is that isiah is not getting paid millions to play the "in hindsight" game. and right now, we're suffering.

but now we have to deal with the here and now. what i would like to do? i would like isiah to deal marbury for whatever he can in contracts that expire BEFORE 07/08. immediatly waive penny and let AD expire. i want the goal of this team to be around or under the cap in the summer of 07/08. i would keep everyone else we have right now and then fully assess what we have for the rest of the season. then make a list of who to keep and who to move and act accordingly. the day of acquiring contracts for player over $7 mil are OVER unless it's a superstar...which is something i don't want to see until 07/08. the day of acquiring players with MORE years should not be made UNLESS they make sense. i would almost force isiah NOT to use the MLE next summer other than to re-sign our own guys like ariza, butler, and possibly q2.

Id be looking at guys like Bryan Colangelo, Donnie Nelson, R C Buford
upper management in the spurs, mavericks and suns. these are the best run teams besides Detroit. Cleveland took out Danny ferry from the Spurs and they are sitting at 17-9.

I'll add 1 more thing --


Our bench is better than our starting lineup.


That won't cut it. You won't win a championship if you don't have a solid core. Isiah is like 1 of those guys that flakes on building materials and covers it by coating it with some nice paint.

He's too impatient of a GM to actually do it the hard way.


What a bum...

Are you for real? I mean, how does Channing Frye become your future? He's our new Gerald Wilkens. This is what happens when your team is so bad -- ANY improvement becomes overjocked to the point where it gets plain silly. Frye an All-Star? Are you for real? Ya....he's good, but let's be real. He has role player written all over him.

Well, Bobo, this one thing your gonna be wrong about, Frye is gonna be better than that, you evaluation of talent is a bit obtuse, that's something you really need to spend more time on that.

So tell me this Knicks fans who has done a better job. Scott Layden when he was the GM or Thomas? Obviously people fail to realize that Layden left Thomas with nothing to work with. What was Thomas supposed to do? Who could have done a magical job with the roster that Layden left? What could have been done differently? This all goes back to the way Ewing was pushed out of town during the Layden/Checketts era. That has been what has set us back. The horrific signing of Clarence Weatherspoon. Ring a bell Knicks fans? The trade that brought the two Jazz buddies. The horrific NBA Draft night that saw Artest go to the Bulls. All of this added up. There was nothing the Knicks could have done to satisfy millions of Knicks fans.