|
islesfan
Posts: 9999
Alba Posts: 37
Joined: 7/19/2004
Member: #712
|
It's not just the local NY media that's killing the Knicks.
San Antonio Express-News
"If the Knicks had known it would be so easy to pry Bryan Colangelo out of Phoenix, maybe Cablevision honcho James Dolan would have fired general manager Isiah Thomas in time to make a run at the reigning executive of the year.
After watching the pathetic Knicks at AT&T Center on Monday night, with both Dolan and Thomas as fellow eyewitnesses, you'd like to think Dolan realizes what a mess Thomas has made of his team.
Having covered the 1997-98 Nuggets who went 11-71, the second-worst record in league history, I feel safe in reporting that not once that season did I witness a more disjointed effort than the Knicks put forth against the Spurs.
The Knicks this season are the polar opposite of the 1999-2000 Orlando Magic, who overcame limited talent to such an extent they earned coach of the year honors for Doc Rivers despite finishing 41-41. These Knicks have talent. They just don't fit together as a team. That is more Thomas' fault than Larry Brown's.
Ordinarily, fans of a team as bad as the Knicks have one huge consolation at season's end: The prospect of one of the top draft picks.
Knicks fans don't even have that. When Thomas traded Tim Thomas and Michael Sweetney to the Bulls for Eddy Curry and Antonio Davis, he also conveyed the Knicks' 2006 first-round pick.
Unprotected.
No, really.
If the draft lottery turns out to make that pick No. 1 in the entire draft, the Knicks still have to give it to the Bulls.
For this reason, alone, Dolan would be justified in firing Thomas. Please spare us the argument there aren't any great players in the draft class upcoming.
But the Knicks do have a $125million payroll, roughly twice as large as the Spurs', so they've got that going for them.
Reportedly, Dolan was to address the Knicks on Tuesday, in Memphis. He and the Knicks' chief operating officer, Steve Mills, met with Thomas and Brown, too. That must have been a happy session.
An NBA owner recently expressed to a few writers his firmly held belief that Brown took the Knicks' job with every intention of getting Thomas fired so he could have greater input in the player personnel decisions.
Thomas doesn't seem to need any help in that regard.
There is a solution for the Knicks, though, as long as they are willing to part with Thomas, who can then go to Indiana University, where he remains venerated, and be the new Bobby Knight.
Come this summer, Kiki Vandeweghe is going to be available. There is a greater chance Eddy Curry will lead the league in assists than there is of Vandeweghe, his contract with the Nuggets in its final months, getting a new, long-term deal from owner Stan Kroenke.
(In case you haven't been paying attention, Curry has played 47 games this season, and the assist he got credit for against the Spurs was his 12th, and that's for all 47 games.)
There are several compelling reasons for the Knicks to hire Vandeweghe, even a historic one. But Dolan need think back only to trade deadline day of 2002, when Vandeweghe managed to dump four bad salaries on the Mavericks in just one deal. Vandeweghe somehow got the Mavericks to take the bloated deals Dan Issel had given Nick Van Exel, Avery Johnson, Raef LaFrentz and Tariq Abdul-Wahad. The Nuggets had to take back Juwan Howard's overpriced contract but had to live with it for only one full season before the club was then under the salary cap and in position to rebuild.
Vandeweghe knows Brown, too. He played for him when Brown coached the UCLA Bruins, in 1979-80. He understands Brown's foibles, some of which would remind him of George Karl's.
The historic rationale for the Knicks to sign Vandeweghe? Kiki's father, Ernie Jr., was one of the franchise's earliest heroes, playing from 1949-56. As a rookie he played only home games because he was going to medical school at Columbia and couldn't miss class. He still managed to average 10.0 points, and that was before the shot clock.
If it didn’t work in Phoenix with Nash and Stoutamire... it’s just not a winning formula. It’s an entertaining formula, but not a winning one. - Derek Harper talking about D'Antoni's System
|
3/1/2006 2:43 PM
