Larry lucky to survive ship of fools
Mike Lupica

Here is second-rate blues singer Jimmy Dolan's idea of facing the music: He sits with Steve Mills and Isiah Thomas and one of his PR people and takes questions only from the seven Knicks beat reporters. Then he goes on his own network with Thomas, suddenly turned into a hood ornament yesterday, and is interviewed by one of his very own announcers, Al Trautwig.

And the whole time you watch this, at least the part you were allowed to watch, on Dolan's pathetic version of state television, something else he is running into the ground, you are thinking one thing: Dolan thinks his own fans are as dumb about basketball as he is. Maybe that is why he treats them with such contempt.

"(I hope) the fans understand the moves that get made," Dolan says to Trautwig, apparently under the impression that even though the fans don't have a prayer of understanding the moves Thomas has made already, they're suddenly going to crack The Isiah Code now.

This is after Dolan says on his own television network that Larry Brown "begged" Dolan and Thomas to bring Stevie Francis to the Knicks.

Dolan says this with a straight face. To Trautwig's credit, he managed to listen with a straight face, even though he should have been leaning forward enough to fall out of his chair and saying something along these lines:

"Mr. Dolan, do you actually believe anybody with an IQ above room temperature believes that?"

Understand: Even Dolan and Thomas don't believe that, because both of them know it's a total fabrication. They were just saying it yesterday, because they thought it might sound good to NBA commissioner David Stern, who will eventually have to determine whether coaching contracts in his league are worth something more than the paper on which they're printed, whatever kind of real bad job you think Brown did last season coaching the Knicks.

Dolan also said yesterday that he practically "begged" Brown to stay on when he met with him last week, right before he fired him. Dolan's idea of begging Brown to stay was getting him to sign a document stipulating that he, Brown, would do everything the way Dolan and Thomas want it done around the Knicks. And after being with the Knicks a year, after seeing Dolan's operation from the inside, why would Brown, or anybody else in his right mind, agree to something as insane as that?

Ultimately these people truly only care about the way things look.

People say, Look at how Dolan spends money! He does. Not his money.

Dolan and Thomas didn't present themselves honestly to their fans yesterday. They were handled. They were prepped. Dolan said he couldn't get Brown to take any responsibility for everything that had happened around the Knicks last season, and at the end of all that, he pointed a finger at Isiah and said that the Knicks were his "ship" now.

If you have followed the Knicks and weren't listening closely enough, you thought he had said something else.

James Dolan's ship. Isiah's ship. Say it real fast yourself and you have cracked the code here yourself.

Brown is gone now. This is up to his lawyers to fight about the money with Dolan's lawyers. Knicks fans? They're left with Dolan, the Son of Cablevision, and Thomas. The closest either one of them comes to taking any real responsibility is Dolan trashing Brown and then sadly admitting he made one of the biggest mistakes of his life by hiring him in the first place.

Thomas takes responsibility for nothing. But even as Dolan officially put him on the clock yesterday, saying he is the next one to get it if the Knicks don't show big improvement next season, you have to say Isiah Thomas had a successful day because he got his story out. And an amazing story it is: The only two players on the Knicks who matter suddenly are Stevie Francis and Jalen Rose. Why? Because Thomas convinced Dolan that they're only on the team because Brown wanted them.

The other stiffs Thomas brought in here, the stiffs who help make up the biggest payroll in the NBA, suddenly they don't matter. Only Francis and Rose. "We went off-plan," Thomas said. Right, up until then he had a great plan going for him, an brilliant, inspired plan.

"Jim has been great," Isiah Thomas says on Jim's network. Of course Thomas would think that way. He still has a job, at a time when no other owner in the league would give him one.

When Anucha Browne Sanders hit Thomas with a lawsuit on sexual harassment, all the people at the Garden were quick to smear her. They sure weren't going to get beaten to the punch by a basketball coach looking to score the rest of his $50 million contract off Dolan.

And the Knicks aren't going to contend for an NBA championship on Dolan's watch. They're not going to come close to contending for a championship on Thomas' watch. If they make any strides at all next season with this collection of players, it will be towards flashy mediocrity. Or the No.8 spot in the playoffs, which is where Thomas came in.

The irony of all this has to do with the Knicks' famous media policy, these now-famous "gag rules" they have on coaches and players. Those rules really should be applied to Dolan and Thomas. Because yesterday we saw a whole different kind of media policy at the Garden:

Gag me.

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GARDEN CIRCUS
JIM'S ACT IS A DOG-AND-PHONY SHOW
By PETER VECSEY

June 27, 2006 -- CHARADES, I've sniffed out a few, but yesterday's Knick "beat writers only" conference produced, directed and starred in by the disorganization's leading men, had the symptoms to top 'em all; until, that is, James Dolan's commemorative announcement that Isiah Thomas is on "one-year probation."

If Dolan actually means it, his stock is on the high rise for the first time since winning the gene lotto.

Five days after firing coach Larry Brown - claiming the team has "just cause" not to pay him $40 million over the next four years - Dolan and Thomas finally came above ground to meet chosen members of the press.

Greenburgh's police force, Madison Square Garden security and off-duty club bouncers were on call, just in case any uninvited journalists needed to be hauled away.

For someone who thought so little of the Knicks, the way they misplayed, misbehaved and gave fans the business (I attended all of one home game), crashing the caucus was my very next priority after deciphering Stephen A. Material.

Now I'm practically in tears I didn't beg for a credential. I'm told Thomas' stunned look when Dolan made his blindsided, get-tough, damn-the-master plan statement was worth the price of submission.

What constitutes significant progress?

Must the Knicks, with Thomas in charge of both the sidelines and the front office, advance into the playoffs in order to appease the Manhattan Stadium-busting cable clown, er, czar?

What happens if Dolan and Thomas can't agree on what represents genuine success? Does David Stern have to arbitrate that, too?

Is the meaning of success measured on how many games or sexual harassment lawsuits are dropped?

Is Dolan's one-year design contingent upon the Iraqis being able to defend themselves?

Might Dolan be a bit more lenient once his band gets its long-overdue record deal?

If Thomas exceeds expectations, can he bring in Latrell Sprewell to verbally abuse the owner?

And, to think, I'd enlightened my editor prior to yesterday's Knick gathering that it'd be insignificant and unnecessary, an exercise in senselessness.

Never did I expect Dolan or Thomas to be vaguely forthcoming about the Brown or anyone or anything else relating to the team. I didn't believe they knew where to begin, to be honest. How do we even know if they accidentally stumble into telling the truth?

For instance, how do we know Brown demanded six Knicks be cut outright at the cost of $180 million, as Dolan and Thomas claim?

Obviously, we're well aware of Larry's loathing of Stephon Marbury, and there's no way they could've co-existed.

OK, that's a $58M hit! Find me one rational NBA demi-expert other than Dolan, Thomas and Steve Mills who says the Knicks would be better off without Brown than Marbury?

That leaves $122M. Who else did Brown want paid off? Jerome James? OK, that's another $24M. Again, not a single soul outside of the above brain drain would argue with that deletion, either.

Who else? Steve Francis? Jalen Rose? Maurice Taylor? Maybe Quentin Richardson? Maybe Malik Rose? Did Brown want four of those five rerouted out of New York? Of course, he did. The thought of coaching them any more or any less than last season was repugnant. For the most part, their emphasis is on scoring, not rebounding, defending and running the floor.

Still, Dolan and Thomas can't convince me Brown demanded them waived before the Knicks break camp in October.

Why? Brown knows as well as I do that each of those players, exempting Malik Rose, perhaps, is exceedingly tradable. George Karl had interest last season in Francis and Richardson (his Nuggets continue to crave outside shooting), whereas the expiring contracts of Jalen Rose and Taylor are certified assets.

In other words, it's easy for Dolan and Thomas to make whatever claims they want about Brown, what he supposedly did and didn't do, when he's in no position to open his mouth and defend himself at this time due to pending contract arbitration. That's not all I don't believe that was leaked through a platoon of peons (or the prophet, himself) during the Garden's smear campaign of Brown.

C'mon, how much of this anthrax are we supposed to ingest, especially since it's all originating from the same larcenous laboratory?

Is there any person with an ounce of Vin-sanity who believes Brown had a snowball's chance in global warming of saving his job when he met with his, ahem, superiors, late last week?

That might've been true had the meeting been held the day after the Knick season ended, but certainly not after being publicly humiliated for the last six weeks.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing: I have it on good authority Stern did not agree in advance to be the arbitrator of any contract dispute between the Knicks and Brown. Meaning, he's under no obligation to be one because he was not party to the contract.

Having said that, there's no reason Stern would refuse to do it if both parties agreed at the time they entered into the contract that he should resolve any disputes.

Nice precedent, huh? What's to stop any pact from arbitrarily including someone of influence - without his or her knowledge or consent - to arbitrate?

I'm surprised the parties didn't have Warren Buffett rule on any traffic violations that may have occurred during one of Next Town's drive-by press conferences.

Afterthought I: Last summer the Knicks hired Brown for $50M and gave him five years to turn around the team. It's interesting that Dolan has so little faith in Thomas that he's only giving him one year of Brown's remaining four to get the job done.

Afterthought II: If Dolan really wanted to prove he's not as spineless as he's shown, he would've given himself that same one-year probation.

Peter Vescey doesn't even know that Q is one of LB's guys. What a loser.

"Mr. Dolan, do you actually believe anybody with an IQ above room temperature believes that?"

That's a good line. The article itself is just more run around to fil up space in the paper and look busy.

Pharzeone, IT and Rose don't get alone which further proves that it was LB who wanted Rose !! Dolan isn't lying about that part atleast !!

Just pay the man his $40 million dollars, and move on with your life. Shouldn't have hired him and gave him that much guaranteed money. Learn from your mistakes.

Larry is a hoops grifter.

This situation just gets worse and worse, but it is certainly good conversation.

Posted by Pharzeone:

On one point, I heard two interesting things about Jalen Rose from Donnie Walsh on Foxsports. Apparently, Brown still coach of the Pacers singled out Rose as a guy that he wanted Walsh to pursue (which the Pacers did do the season before Brown left) and Thomas asked that Rose be traded which Walsh granted. Interesting I thought. I didn't know that Rose and Thomas didn't care for each other.

Not many people do.

If Rose's expiring contract isn't traded before camp opens, tell him to stay home until it eventually is.

Posted by Pharzeone:

On one point, I heard two interesting things about Jalen Rose from Donnie Walsh on Foxsports. Apparently, Brown still coach of the Pacers singled out Rose as a guy that he wanted Walsh to pursue (which the Pacers did do the season before Brown left) and Thomas asked that Rose be traded which Walsh granted. Interesting I thought. I didn't know that Rose and Thomas didn't care for each other.

yup. and Brown was sick of Mark Jackson, who he begged Walsh to ditch. then he begged Walsh to get him back. oh, that Larry.

Posted by joec32033:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by Pharzeone:

On one point, I heard two interesting things about Jalen Rose from Donnie Walsh on Foxsports. Apparently, Brown still coach of the Pacers singled out Rose as a guy that he wanted Walsh to pursue (which the Pacers did do the season before Brown left) and Thomas asked that Rose be traded which Walsh granted. Interesting I thought. I didn't know that Rose and Thomas didn't care for each other.

Interesting. JoeC was saying Isiah wanted Rose for several years.

I still stand by this. Maybe it was for the contract, maybe for the player. There was a deal in place that we get Jalen for Penny a couple years ago. It was reported on TNT during a game I was watching.

it's true that Jalen has rumored to the Knicks since Isiah showed up, heck he was rumored here when we were trying to dump Spree. but it's also true that Isiah and Jalen didn't exactly get along in Indy and Jalen was moved to promote the development of the kids.

also, even though Larry begged Walsh for Rose, he only played him sporadically and didn't really like him. gee, that sounds familiar...