Interesting article fellas! Pleae read.. Like i've always said and other true/real knicks fans, it goes back to upper mgmt!
Someone needs to assume the role of changing the culture of this sorry organization !

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-28-310/p---Firing-Isiah-Thomas-Will-Not-Make-the-Sun-Shine-on-the-Knicks.html

Man, that Knick game last night really got a lot of people talking. All of a sudden, they are just the topic.

I sense that among Knick fans, people are desperate for change, any change at all.

As it happens, Isiah Thomas is both the architect of this miserable roster, and the only piece of the James Dolan/Isiah Thomas/Stephon Marbury puzzle that is really severable from the larger whole in a timely fashion.

The New York media is writing the story like it is a certainty that Thomas will soon be gone, saying things like (this from Frank Isola of the New York Daily News): "It is hard to imagine that Thomas will survive much longer."

ESPN's Chris Sheridan wonders if Thomas might even want to be fired:

Taking it all in with a pronounced frown on his face was owner Jim Dolan, who marched straight into Isiah Thomas' office after the game and either did not have the guts, the will or the good sense to do the right thing and fire his head coach and president.

There was such a palpable level of tension in the hallway beneath the stands, you half-expected Isiah to walk out of his office with a pink slip in his hand -- especially after watching Dolan slump and slouch through one of the most humiliating nights his team has ever had in its own building. But Thomas instead walked down the hallway with his head still held high, made his way through the back corridor to the interview room and placed the blame for this latest loss squarely on his own shoulders.

"You never want to see this kind of display of basketball. That's on me -- on my desk," he said, sounding ever more like a man who might actually want to be fired.

Thomas shot a sharp look at a Knicks PR official when he cut off the interview, then stopped as he got up and made sure everyone heard him one last time: "That was not the players' fault. This one is on me tonight."

But help me through this. Let's do a little thought exercise.

Imagine. Isiah Thomas is gone. Umm ... are the Knicks good now?

I am not going to tell you that he is not part of the problem.

I'm just trying to think a few more steps ahead. What's it going to take to make this team win? I'm certain that the answer is not on the sidelines, but in the front office, where somebody needs to shake this organization right down its core. I have no idea who it might be (Glen Grunwald? Donnie Walsh? Jerry Colangelo?) but someone needs to map out a long-term plan to fix the culture of this sick organization. It'll mean wholesale roster changes and a radically different approach to the game of basketball.

Dumping Isiah Thomas might be a small part of that process. But splitting up with your coach and your GM is not like splitting up with your high school girlfriend. The playoffs are not a dance you can attend stag. You need both, and they both need to be extremely good in this highly competitive environment.

Who comes next matters a lot more than when Isiah Thomas's run ends.

The road to a good Knicks team starts with making the correct difficult decisions about how to handle all these massive salaries. Someone needs to make the magic list of who stays (I guess David Lee, Renaldo Balkman, Nate Robinson, maybe Eddy Curry), how you get rid of everyone else, and who you replace them with. And then someone has to have the skill and owner support to make those changes.

And that process will almost certainly take a couple of years, and it will almost certainly result in a young team.

The right coach, the coach who'll be on the sidelines when the Knicks are next great, will probably arrive on the scene after most of that bloodletting has taken place.

My point being: if you could wave a magic wand and replace Isiah Thomas with any coach in the league, I doubt you would have fixed much. Larry Brown couldn't make it work. Isiah Thomas couldn't make it work. You really think [insert name here] (who -- who are you going to get? -- Jeff Van Gundy is the best big name out there, everyone gets all aflutter about Phil Jackson) is going to make Stephon Marbury, Zach Randolph, Eddy Curry, Jamal Crawford and company into winners?

Fire Isiah or don't fire Isiah. What happens next week or next month isn't the key to the Knicks. What really matters is who's going to lead the hard work of anchoring an organization that has been adrift for some time.

I could have written this article

Bast-ard

It's so true. We keep finding scapegoats. We keep firing coaches and trading players and everyone new that comes in falls into the same traps. It's time to reset and develop the culture first. Bring in proven winners with proven track records and give them all rights to make decisions. Then focus on finding a true franchise type player. While you are searching for him you decide to only target college players from winning programs that work hard on the court. You bring in vets on short term contracts that know two things: Winning and playing hard. Then when you are lucky enough to find that franchise caliber player you know how have a hard working core to teach and mentor him. As he develops you now start filling in the blanks with roll players that compliment his skills.

What we are doing is lunacy. Targeting players from losing teams with questionable pasts and work ethics. Surrounding them with their likenesses and winning just enough games to keep yourselves out of the running for guys like Durant, Oden, Lebron, Wade, Carmelo and Howard. How anyone can't see the lunacy of this and is still holding out hope that a team of guys that have never tried on D is going to morph into a title contender is beyond me.

JOHNNY 5

Posted by nixluva:

Posted by Bippity10:

Bast-ard

It's so true. We keep finding scapegoats. We keep firing coaches and trading players and everyone new that comes in falls into the same traps. It's time to reset and develop the culture first. Bring in proven winners with proven track records and give them all rights to make decisions. Then focus on finding a true franchise type player. While you are searching for him you decide to only target college players from winning programs that work hard on the court. You bring in vets on short term contracts that know two things: Winning and playing hard. Then when you are lucky enough to find that franchise caliber player you know how have a hard working core to teach and mentor him. As he develops you now start filling in the blanks with roll players that compliment his skills.

What we are doing is lunacy. Targeting players from losing teams with questionable pasts and work ethics. Surrounding them with their likenesses and winning just enough games to keep yourselves out of the running for guys like Durant, Oden, Lebron, Wade, Carmelo and Howard. How anyone can't see the lunacy of this and is still holding out hope that a team of guys that have never tried on D is going to morph into a title contender is beyond me.

I don't know that people can't see your point. Who doesn't already know how winning team are often built? It's about what it realistic to expect from this org. Remember that the Dolan's own this and they're just not going to do things in the manner that would seem to make the most sense. Look at how they're handling this current situation and how they've handled things since Ewing was sent away. It's a pretty good bet that they will continue to do things in a similar manner.

When Isiah 1st got here, what did Dolan say publicly? He didn't want a rebuild! Isiah has tried to work around that, but in the end we still have to deal with Dolan's way of doing things. At this point I just don't see any change from Dolan. If he fired Isiah, which doesn't look likely right now, he'd have to hire a great GM and from what i've been reading those GM's will want full control and Dolan won't agree to that. He wants to be involved and maintain control.

What i'm saying is that we'll always work with the Dolan handicap. We can only work around him, we can't get rid of him. Unless he can be convinced of the things you're saying and that approach to team building nothing will change.

So if that is a given and Dolan is the reason. Why do fans continue to support his team and buy tickets and essentially fight in his favor on websites. By doing this you are saying "Mr. Dolan everything you are doing is A-OK with me."

[Edited by - bippity10 on 21-11-2007 2:40 PM]

Posted by nixluva:

Posted by Bippity10:

Bast-ard

It's so true. We keep finding scapegoats. We keep firing coaches and trading players and everyone new that comes in falls into the same traps. It's time to reset and develop the culture first. Bring in proven winners with proven track records and give them all rights to make decisions. Then focus on finding a true franchise type player. While you are searching for him you decide to only target college players from winning programs that work hard on the court. You bring in vets on short term contracts that know two things: Winning and playing hard. Then when you are lucky enough to find that franchise caliber player you know how have a hard working core to teach and mentor him. As he develops you now start filling in the blanks with roll players that compliment his skills.

What we are doing is lunacy. Targeting players from losing teams with questionable pasts and work ethics. Surrounding them with their likenesses and winning just enough games to keep yourselves out of the running for guys like Durant, Oden, Lebron, Wade, Carmelo and Howard. How anyone can't see the lunacy of this and is still holding out hope that a team of guys that have never tried on D is going to morph into a title contender is beyond me.

I don't know that people can't see your point. Who doesn't already know how winning team are often built? It's about what it realistic to expect from this org. Remember that the Dolan's own this and they're just not going to do things in the manner that would seem to make the most sense. Look at how they're handling this current situation and how they've handled things since Ewing was sent away. It's a pretty good bet that they will continue to do things in a similar manner.

When Isiah 1st got here, what did Dolan say publicly? He didn't want a rebuild! Isiah has tried to work around that, but in the end we still have to deal with Dolan's way of doing things. At this point I just don't see any change from Dolan. If he fired Isiah, which doesn't look likely right now, he'd have to hire a great GM and from what i've been reading those GM's will want full control and Dolan won't agree to that. He wants to be involved and maintain control.

What i'm saying is that we'll always work with the Dolan handicap. We can only work around him, we can't get rid of him. Unless he can be convinced of the things you're saying and that approach to team building nothing will change.

You see Nixluva, actually, YOU are the pessimist, and I, who you might consider a hater, am the optimist.
You look at this situation and say our ceiling is limited, we're handicapped by Dolan who we have to "work around".
I look and see Isiah has been able to put his FULL STAMP on this roster, had full lattitude to bring in as many different coaches as he wanted, whatever the cost, CRAZY amounts of money to work with, and has built a piece of dung as a result. *I* believe with the right brains in the front office convincing Dolan of the *right* moves unlike Isiah (whose moves incidentally were distinctly DIFFERENT from Layden's, thus they are not Dolan's dictat) all those resources could be channelled to make this team a championship contender. Not simply a .500 playoff contender which is your lofty ambition.

Talk about speaking to the obvious. Removing Isiah doesn't mean the team gets better...Duhhhhh.....

Dolan's the owner, and the fans can't get him fired. We have to live with him unless fans organize in a real way, not just chanting "Dolan sucks" at games because there's no one upstairs to replace him, only if he wants to do it and there is someone out there with the means to do so.

Many of us Knick fans have been clamoring about this for YEARS, even before Isiah, so this dude is a bit late.

The premise of this article could be construed as quite condescending to Knick fans, as if we just want anybody but Isiah.

[Edited by - PresIke on 11-21-2007 2:57 PM]

[Edited by - PresIke on 11-21-2007 2:58 PM]

Posted by PresIke:

Talk about speaking to the obvious. Removing Isiah doesn't mean the team gets better...Duhhhhh.....

Dolan's the owner, and the fans can't get him fired. We have to live with him unless fans organize in a real way, not just chanting "Dolan sucks" at games because there's no one upstairs to replace him, only if he wants to do it and there is someone out there with the means to do so.

Many of us Knick fans have been clamoring about this for YEARS, even before Isiah, so this dude is a bit late.

The premise of this article could be construed as quite condescending to Knick fans, as if we just want anybody but Isiah.

[Edited by - PresIke on 11-21-2007 2:57 PM]

[Edited by - PresIke on 11-21-2007 2:58 PM]

I'm pretty sure that there is a great thread entitled "anyone afraid of the following scenario" that covers this topic thoroughly.

Condescension? Hardly.

I don't think it is such a far stretch for Dolan to look around and find somebody who has DONE THIS BEFORE with some solid record of success. Is that so hard?

the hope is that the next guy dolan gets makes better decisions.

i personally think isiah left this team is just as bad shape as the team he inherited. alot will disagree but i don't see how the next guy coming in doesn't have a 3 year project in front of him again.

Posted by PresIke:

Not sure I am misreading your post Panos, but the assumption that someone "CAPABLE" comes in is wrong. Any fool can figure out that firing Isiah may be the first step towards doing that, and figure out that someone "capable" can come in...

So writing an article about that is something we're suppossed to go "oooooh" and "ahhh" about?

What some of the "haters" here may not realize is that many of the so-called "lovers" supported certain guys like Isiah, etc. because of the reality of having Dolan, and that at least it was a trend that made the team more entertaining than Layden's.

The real move is get Dolan out of here, but the problem is that is likely not going to happen, so we have to HOPE he does something good.

We all like the idea of Colangelo, Walsh, and a few others coming in, but how do we know that's who will come? Maybe Dolan finally listens to the critics, but how do we know he will. What's so special about asking for someone capable after Isiah? Any of us could have said the same thing, and the premise reeks of condescension towards Knick fans.

It really sounds like you have resigned yourself to Dolan and have completely given up.