Nothing grows in Dolan's Garden anymore
Barbara Barker

June 23, 2006

Remember way back when everyone wanted to work for the New York Knicks? When Madison Square Garden was the epicenter of the NBA universe? When the Knicks were considered one of the classiest franchises in all of sports?

Those days have long gone the way of free television and affordable seats at the Garden. Yesterday, King Cablevision, James Dolan, fired his second Hall of Fame coach in less than two years and officially handed the job to team president Isiah Thomas, the only big name out there who could not turn it down.

Someone who has just dropped into New York from another planet might see this as a proactive move, a sign that the Knicks owner was so upset over his team's horrible season that he was willing to fire Larry Brown less than a year after hiring him and make what could be a very costly change.

Yet this change, like so many others that have taken place the past couple years at the .Garden, isn't so much about making the team better as it is about making the owner feel better. It's about punishing Brown for not changing his style to fit a corporate culture that values yes men over all else, including competence and talent.

Have you ever heard of the Bizarro World, the place Superman used to go where everything was the opposite of what it's supposed to be? Well, under Dolan, that is exactly what the Knicks have morphed into. Every day is opposite day at the Garden, a place where so many decisions just defy logic.

It's a place where Don Chaney keeps losing but is handed contract extension after contract extension. It's a place where adding Steve Francis to Stephon Marbury is heralded as a genius-like move. It's a place where the more money you spend, the worse your team gets.

And it's a place where Brown is fired and Thomas' job duties are expanded.

Brown did not do a good job this past season, yet was the one person in the organization who has enjoyed great success at his current job. You certainly can't say that about Marbury, who has torpedoed team after team. Or about Thomas, the architect of this Knick mess.

Yet, Dolan chose those two over Brown.

Which brings us to next season. The only thing that does make sense about Thomas becoming the next coach of the Knicks is that there is the sense of justice to the sentence.

Who more than Thomas deserves to coach the group he assembled? Let Thomas be the guy who tries to toughen up Eddy Curry's soft body and non-competitive demeanor. Let Thomas be the guy who tries to rein in Nate Robinson. Let Thomas figure out what to do with Marbury when he isn't playing the way he wants him to.

The weird thing about it all is that Thomas will be a better coach than he is a team executive. (Though unfortunately, he will continue to hold that job, too.) The most common refrain heard in discussing Thomas is that he has been an abject failure in every job he has held since his great playing career. And although it's true that Thomas ran the CBA into the ground and was not a rousing success as an exec in Toronto, he did an OK job in Indiana.

Thomas couldn't get the Pacers past the first round, but they did get better every year he was there. And he also did it while coaching what we all now know was a very volatile group. The bottom line is Thomas probably would not have been fired after three years if longtime nemesis Larry Bird had not been suddenly hired as his boss.

Thomas will probably have the Knicks playing better next season, because they certainly were better than a 23-win team. For a year, he will say and do all the right things. Unlike Brown, he won't criticize his players in the media, and he won't have an opportunity to undermine the general manager.

But that will be only fool's gold, something that just prolongs the agony before Isiah officially becomes the next former coach of the Knicks. And Brown turns around a different team.

Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.