I agree. He really did destroy this team. It will take three years to repair the damage that bufoon did to the organization.

This team was done in well before Isiah got here....He got younger, thats it...

Posted by izybx:

Posted by holfresh:


This team was done in well before Isiah got here....He got younger, thats it...

Isiah spent 4 years here and gave us nothing but a salary cap nightmare and one tradeable asset.

yeah but w/o him we would never had had all the memorable Marbury quotes... gotta draw a silver lining out of every dark cloud.

Don't excuse Isiah for this mess. It was his own doing. If he came her with an old roster, he could've pulled a Walsh and found a way to get under the cap. Instead he kept trading for "talent" that had no match on the team and terrible contracts that put the team into an even bigger hole. Oh and let's not forget what he gave us this great past season - 2 40 point blowouts, Marbury AWOL, guilty of sexual harassment, blaming the fans for losses, Zach Randolph, and much much more. And that was all in one season.

Not only did he come in here and drop the bomb, he did so while making us a league-wide embarrassment and a second-rate organization. Never in my life will I ever say this man "had nothing to work with" because that's a damn excuse. He had expiring contracts, draft picks, and young prospects to get Marbury, Crawford, and Curry, didn't he? If not, how did he get them. He had assets available to him and he turned them into the crap that you see today.

Screw Layden. He's an idiot too. But this "team" you see here today is all on Isiah Thomas.

Come to think of it, Im thinking through the moves Layden made in his time here, can anyone name me 1 good one? Not a rhetorical question, an actual question. Im just looking for one

He didn't draft a single player who even had an NBA career

Van Horn for Spree, Camby and the 7 for McDyess, the Ewing deal, which flipped into the Glen Rice deal, which added garbage like Shanden Anderson and Eisley. Clarence Weatherspoon? Giving Allan Houston a trillion dollars when he became a FA?

I actually believe Layden didn't make a single good move with the Knicks. Not one. The guy batted 1.000 when it came to craptasticness. Isiah was more of a .950 hitter

And then of course we had the 24 hour GM Ed Tapscott who made the dumbest pick in the history of the organization by passing up Ron Artest for a guy who is most famous for his starring role on a Vince Carter poster

Isiah was absolute crap as GM of the Knicks, but this mess started well before him. This team hasn't made a good decision since they dealt for Spree and Camby (almost a decade ago now! man time flies), and oddly enough those moves are what got Grunfeld fired

[Edited by - knickssince88 on 06-27-2008 05:45 AM]

[Edited by - knickssince88 on 06-27-2008 05:46 AM]

[Edited by - knickssince88 on 06-27-2008 05:49 AM]

Posted by CrushAlot:

Walsh isn't a magician and he can't fix what Isiah did overnight but he messed up the draft big time. The difference between this draft and the Artest draft is that there are so many other good players that fans will talk about that the Knicks could have had. Bayless, Gordon, Augustine, Armstrong, Lopez etc. In addition to messing up, Thorn and Kiki made the Knicks look stupid. They had an amazing draft and cleared a ton of cap space. The fact that Gallinari was scouted by Isiah is the icing on the cake.

You don't know anything about Gallinari, you have never seen him play. Let the guy hit the floor and then judge the pick. Hes a 19 year old kid who was one of the best players in the euro league (a league better than D1 college bball), he was a top 10 scorer and was 2nd in the whole league at getting to the foul line. He came up huge in the playoffs for his team with two big performances. Hes 6'10" and can handle and shoot it, let him play and then judge

I love how people watch youtube videos and think they are the 2nd coming of Jerry West when it comes to evaluating talent. I doubt anyone on this site has seen Gallinari play as much as one full game

Posted by CrushAlot:

I know as much as I have been able to find out. I have watched him on YouTube, and I have read anything I could find on him. He has been named as the Knicks pick for along time and I am a big draft guy. He probably isn't a bust as an nba player but from what I have read he also will not be a star. There were guys available who project out to have a much better career than Gallinari and filled the Knicks needs. There were guys available who fit what the new coach wants for his system ( Bayless, Augustine, Gordon). The fact that Isish scouted Gallinari and that it appears his regime targeted him makes this pick much harder to take.

We can all read different things. Heres one thing you may not have read

One longtime Eastern Conference European scout had the following to say: “He’s better than [Andreas] Bargnani, no question….The guy doesn’t back down from anybody. You’re in his face. He’ll get right back at them….The only Europeans who succeed in the NBA are the tough ones. The Italian league is better than college. If you put him in college ball, he’d be getting 25-30 (points) a night and everyone would be going ga-ga."

The bottom line is right now we don't know jack. The whole basketball world laughed at Don Nelson when he picked up Dirk. Gallinari was a more productive player in Europe than Gasol ever was. This guy could be anything from Bostjan Nachbar part 2 to an all star. We have no idea. Let the kid play and then we'll find out

And for all the talk about rod thorn making the knicks look bad, keep in mind he would have let no more than 10 seconds run off the clock to take Gallinari at 10 if he were still on the board




[Edited by - knickssince88 on 06-27-2008 06:20 AM]

Posted by CrushAlot:

Nachbar is the guy I hear Gallinari compared to most. Also, while I think Thorn would have liked to have drafted Gallinari, I think he did not think Lopez would be available at 10 and would take Lopez over Gallinari. One of my big problems with the pick is the link to Isiah and his regime. I also think D'Antoni really wanted a guard. I don't think D'Antoni has a chance at being successful if Dolan/Walsh do not get him the players he needs for his system. In my opinion, Gordon and Lopez were the best available players when the Knicks drafted and Augustine and Bayless were the best point guards available. I think all of these guys will be better players than Gallinari. The Knicks had the 6th pick. They were really bad. This was a big pick for a team with alot of needs. I am tired of the creative, different, shock the world type picks. Every team in the NBA is trying to get the next Chris Paul. The guard in the draft whose college game resembled Paul the most was Bayless. I think the Knicks will really regret not taking him.

From everything i have read about Bayless there is very much a split opinion on whether or not he can play point in the NBA. We'll see, Im not a big college basketball watcher so i can't speak with any authority on this issue. But I do know that when the Knicks passed on Bayless at 6, he did not go at 7, or 8, or 9, or even 10. He went 11th, to a team who would later trade him. So the Knicks were not the only team in the league who didn't see Bayless as a "Chris Paul type". In fact a guy who is widely thought of as a lesser player (Augustine) went ahead of him likely for the reason that he was more of a pure PG



[Edited by - knickssince88 on 06-27-2008 06:55 AM]

Posted by CrushAlot:

Augustine was the purest point guard in the draft and that includes Rose. That is why Larry Brown and Charlotte took him even though they have Felton and a front line of Lopez and Okafor would have been awesome.

Maybe the Knicks weren't enamored with the thought of drafting a guy who stands under 6 feet even with shoes on to be their PG of the future

Heres the thing about our situation... We're still gonna suck for the next couple of years. There is still time to add the PG of the future. There was no immediate need to do so now. Its not like the Knicks were a PG away from being good. I would have hated it if they forced a pick for need as if we are a PG away from hoisting to Larry Obrien trophy.

This was about getting the best player. Thats what we need right now more than anything. We just need an infusion of talent. They obviously thought Gallinari was the best player, hopefully they're right.