How can this happen?

Only at Garden could Isiah & Steph outlast Larry

Shooting From the Lip

Maybe the old system of player contracts in the National Football League is dying in front of our eyes along with the league's old collective bargaining agreement. But if basketball operated like football, and players weren't guaranteed money and jobs forever, a player like Stephon Marbury would be gone by now, provided the person or persons in charge had a real strategy.

When James Dolan met with Knick beat reporters the other day, as truly amazing a single media briefing as we have ever had in sports in New York, he used that word, strategy, a total of 31 times. It was as if Dolan thought that if he said "strategy" enough, the Knicks would suddenly have one.

Isiah Thomas is now moving into his third year in New York even though Dolan acts as if it is his first, and he has as much of a strategy to get the Knicks turned around as Marbury had a strategy to beat the Bulls on Friday night. There Marbury was, driving the lane at the end, running the play he wanted to run - him, to the basket - and then stopping to beef at the nearest ref because he thought he got fouled. From Coney Island on, it is all supposed to be about him. Ben Gordon ran down the court and made a three-pointer and the Knicks were going to lose again.

It wasn't the first time in the game Marbury, who wants the rock in his hands all the time, had pulled a rock like that.

Of course Friday night wasn't all Marbury's fault the way this Knick season isn't all anybody's fault. Larry Brown said yesterday, "You can't look at a team playing the way we're playing and not talk about coaching." But more and more, it becomes painfully obvious the Knicks have no chance to move forward with Marbury.

Dolan? He says, "You can't say that Stephon hasn't been a positive for the team. That's just not right."

Anybody else who wanted Marbury admits they were wrong now. Not the owner of the Knicks, certainly not Isiah Thomas. He's not wrong. Whatever he says in public, he still thinks he is right about these players and believes the Knicks should have a much better record than they do.

There is absolutely no question that Thomas has gotten Dolan to buy into this. It is why this is on the owner as much as his general manager from now on. If the Knicks can't even get to 20 victories, this will go in with the worst seasons any New York team has ever had. The 1-15 Jets of Rich Kotite. Casey Stengel's '62 Mets. Anything.

But no worries. Thomas still has Dolan's ear the way Marbury has his. Thomas has told enough people that when the Knicks were winning some games earlier in the season, they were doing it by outscoring people. So you have to wonder if he thinks Brown is holding everybody back the way Marbury, who doesn't want to run any plays, thinks Brown is holding him back.

The coach still believes he and Thomas can work this out together, that they can get on that same page we keep hearing about. Maybe he has to believe that to get through the rest of this season, or even the rest of his contract. I sure don't.

Does Thomas want the Knicks to win? You bet he does, in the worst way. He has everything riding on this, he knows that the coach would get another job after an epic sports disaster like this, but he never will. Thomas also has to know something else, when he looks at the rest of the schedule: Things aren't going to get much better. And could even get worse.

"(Thomas) is trying," Larry Brown keeps saying. "We're all trying."

Only at the Garden, increasingly paranoid about everything basketball related, do they think the coach is the only one who has figured out what a mess he inherited. Or that anybody who knows anything about basketball would need Larry Brown to make up their minds about the '06 Knicks. Good grief. Heavy on the grief part.

Brown says he's staying. He says it to me, he says it to everybody. He never says anything different about that in private than he does in public, never suggests that he won't be here next season. Still, ask yourself something: If he gets out of this season and sees that things aren't going to change for the better, why would he want to?

Whatever he says now.

Imagine that. Imagine an ending like that. At the end of a season like this, as bad as we will ever see, Isiah Thomas and Stephon Marbury might be two of the last men standing, right next to James Dolan. And Larry Brown could be the one gone.

There's your strategy.

wow. that has to be the biggest load of crap ive ever read.

Does the term "reaching for journalism" or "trying to create the news" apply here? I think so.

jets could use an arm like yours Nalod

It still amazes me how much negativity is directed at Steph. Sure he's not perfect, but for much of this season, he was the only player besides Frye, who was really producing out there. If he hadn't been injured just as he was getting the hang of things during the win streak, I believe this team wouldn't have fallen so hard. But that's OK keep on bashing the man cuz he's not the picture perfect player or gives great cliche media statements. keep believing all the media rumors about him being hated. I don't think anyone really appreciates how hard it is to be a star athlete in NY. Do you think you could just throw any PG into this mix and he'd be tough enough to deal with it? When this team is winning games again, no one is going to be complaining about Steph. Just like they were praising him during tthe win streak. All this is about is losing. Win and its all good.

Can you blame him for not watching, this team is a pain to endure for a quarter, let a lone a game.

When Giambi starting hitting again the roids stories went away

You kidding? All the critics said that he got out of his slump because he started using steroids again! The media will always love to hate NY. Build a championship team and they'll shut up; anything less, including losing in game 7 of the finals, and they'll mock the Knicks like they mock the Yankees for not even making the world series (actually barely squeezing into the playoffs) despite a huge payroll.

Lupica sounds like he needed a story late at night before deadline and whipped this one up. Or he owed LB a favor and said, "Steven A. Smith is all over you. I'll take a shot at Marbury and Isiah for you. You can thank me later." These media guys are no better than any of us. They choose sides and don't deviate. Score one for the LB column.

I don't see this as necessarialy anti-marbury.

his point about brown calling it quits at the end of the year isn't so far off