Bill Simmons feels relevant right now. He's not. I could debate several of those points of the top of my head. Is Rick Carlisle somehow a bad coach because the season after he's gone the pistons won a championship?

to be able to give credit to a team for being 2 possesions away from something (losing) when it makes hime look bad, but not do the same when it makes him look good, is a clear and total bias.

Does he factor in this little guy named Allan Houston who went from good to gone in the matter of a couple of months after Steph arrived? Who could have expected this guy would turn into dust over the course of the next 2 seasons? No one.

Anyone can hate, some of the moves can be questioned, but some of this stuff is just not true.

Eddy Curry can't be traded? TEAMS ARE ALREADY ASKING ABOUT HIS AVAILABILITY!!!!! What a freaking moron!!!! A hater is a hater. He has a valid point about our record being one of the worst, that is a fact. But this is character assasination, not analysis of GM. This is a smear of an individuals entire professional record. Except of course for that which cannot be debated: his basketball career.*

Why has no one EVER written a piece like this about Kevin McHale? A guy who for what 10+ years has had one of the best players to ever play the game and only got him enough firepower to get him past the first round once? Kevin McHale is the worst GM in basketball by a freaking mile. Who has ever done less with more? Who could possibly be worse? Oh yeah, I forgot, McHale was a celtic, and he's white.

Yes I said it. Isiah isn't being targeted only because he's black, but you better believe its a part of the deal. Layden NEVER got this and did a much worse job all around. From drafting to trading, to free agent signing, LAYDEN sucked ass!!

Yeah, that's the most ridiculous thing from Simmons: if the Knicks have a roster that can't be traded and have had one (according to Simmons) for Isiah's entire tenure, how has the roster been turned over completely in less than two years?

And who anywhere honestly believes that Isiah wants to turn over the entire roster again? I think he's pretty happy with his young pieces, the ones he won't trade Artest for (oh, wait, I they were untradeable?). I think Isiah has a right to be happy with this roster and it's far from untradeable. The only reason some of these guys are untradeable is because Zeke won't trade them. Ironically, I think our only player who is truly untradeable is Marbury, because of his Webber-like contract.

Killa, I agree, McHale has done a wretched job. I don't think this is a race issue, I really hope it's not, but I think it's more a fact that ESPN likes to kick New York when it's down. It's a market the rest of the country hates and an easy target. Nothing gets fans in small markets more riled up than when they get to bitch about how much money the Knicks and Yankees spend.

Posted by Killa4luv:

Bill Simmons feels relevant right now. He's not. I could debate several of those points of the top of my head. Is Rick Carlisle somehow a bad coach because the season after he's gone the pistons won a championship?

to be able to give credit to a team for being 2 possesions away from something (losing) when it makes hime look bad, but not do the same when it makes him look good, is a clear and total bias.

Does he factor in this little guy named Allan Houston who went from good to gone in the matter of a couple of months after Steph arrived? Who could have expected this guy would turn into dust over the course of the next 2 seasons? No one.

Anyone can hate, some of the moves can be questioned, but some of this stuff is just not true.

Eddy Curry can't be traded? TEAMS ARE ALREADY ASKING ABOUT HIS AVAILABILITY!!!!! What a freaking moron!!!! A hater is a hater. He has a valid point about our record being one of the worst, that is a fact. But this is character assasination, not analysis of GM. This is a smear of an individuals entire professional record. Except of course for that which cannot be debated: his basketball career.*

Why has no one EVER written a piece like this about Kevin McHale? A guy who for what 10+ years has had one of the best players to ever play the game and only got him enough firepower to get him past the first round once? Kevin McHale is the worst GM in basketball by a freaking mile. Who has ever done less with more? Who could possibly be worse? Oh yeah, I forgot, McHale was a celtic, and he's white.

Yes I said it. Isiah isn't being targeted only because he's black, but you better believe its a part of the deal. Layden NEVER got this and did a much worse job all around. From drafting to trading, to free agent signing, LAYDEN sucked ass!!

First of all, Isiah is only being "treated" by one obnoxious writer, not a reporter, not THE MEDIA!

Layden was hated by the masses. The hate thrown his way Isiah has yet to even have a sliver of of it.

Baylor and Mchale were not controversial during their playing days. Neither owned part of a team and was voted to leave the ownership group, hoodwinked a minor league (I have read both accounts, I don't know it all, but ex-CBA owners think Isiah burned them bad), coached team well during the season and twice got bounced in the first round,, got blackballed by Jordan on the dream team for shutting him out during an allstar game, perhaps in jest he dissed Larry Bird, and as a GM inflated our payroll by 50% and for all his charisma, he disappears from time to time when the team needs a voice.

Now Im not hating on Isiah, but this is the past that Isiah has to live with. I give him a lot of credit for sticking his neck out and being the player he was, and the balls to go at it from the business side.

Simmons I thought did a funny job of all this. He is not relevant and Isiah should have just blown him away or made light of his negative stance.

The knicks are a bell weather franchise in this league and to date its record sucks and payroll is off the charts. Isiah could have just pointed to what good is being accomplished and been done with him.

Killa: First of all, for full disclosure, I really like reading Simmons (even though I have to roll my eyes at some of his NY suff, for obvious reasons). That said, I think everything he's said about Isiah has been perfectly in line, if not accurate. I am on the fence about Isiah, but I think I'd say we're better off with him than without.

Either way though, I agree with your big point which is that Simmons just feels relevant right now. He has a nice following (me included), but he's not some big shot. He's not even a Peter Gammons-evel person in terms of name recognition. Having Isiah Thomas notice him has got to feel nice, I guess.

I don't think this is a race issue, though. Speaking as somone who has attended the NBA draft for most of the past several years and watched it on TV otherwise, I can tell you that Knick fans hated (and hate, frankly) Layden infinitely more than Isiah. I was there for the infamous 'Fire Layden!' chant and was actually one of the guys chanting. NY hates Layden much more; dude's name is like a dirty word.

As far as the media goes (which may have been your focus)? While Layden's time with the Knicks is just a joke to them, Isiah's tenure is at least subject to debate. You WILL, however, find more negative stuff said about Isiah because people write vastly more about Isiah in general. No other GM ever gets press like him, Layden included. The press that Layden did get, though, was just brutal. Remember the day of the infamous $100mil Houston contract? It was like Layden had tried to blow up the offices of sports media outlets worldwide.

I'm not trying to hate on you. I enjoy reading your posts. I think the Simmons and Layden\Isiah thing was a little off-base, though.