I was talking with Andrew yesterday. Wasn't it the Lenny Winkins Raptors that beat the JVG Knicks in a playoff series a bunch of years ago?

I prefer that Thomas run the organization with a more professional manner. He was wrong for going on Letterman during this mess. Things got out of control and he had to fire chaney. Ok, that should have been done by now.

Dolan had a fit with "fire chaney" chants and wanted somthing done. Well he did nothave to give him those extensions, and its not like Chaney has been doing a bang up job.

It appears Wilkins was a spur of the moment decsion. He is better than Chaney, but is he the right man? could we have done well with an interm until the end of the season. Even if its just Thomas?

So be it, Once again, I root for Thomas' choice to do well. Wilkins did well with Gus williams in Seattle, Mark Price in Atlanta, and was a pretty good guard himself.

Im not buying the "NY boy" thing. He has never been a knick, and has not played in NY for 50 years!

Are we so desperate for change that we accept anything from the team?
Is the thought process from management well thought out? Or reactionary based on attendance, profits, and then winning? How loud is the fans voice? What a fan wants today might not be the right thing for an organization. After a few years of Laydogs tight process of OVER THINKING everything to death, is the team doing a 180 and just stirring the pot and see what comes out?

Posted by fishmike:

"Wasn't it the Lenny Winkins Raptors that beat the JVG Knicks in a playoff series a bunch of years ago?"

Yes... The following year JVG quit. Lenny's a good coach

That was in 2000-01... The last time we made it to the playoffs.
Sure feels like a bunch of years ago.

I am glad that we'll be there again soon.

Posted by fishmike:

"Wasn't it the Lenny Winkins Raptors that beat the JVG Knicks in a playoff series a bunch of years ago?"

Yes... The following year JVG quit. Lenny's a good coach

Wasn't this the series when Camby sister got held hostage and the knicks never recovered from that? If so put an asterick next to that series.

Wilkens was brought here so that Zeke could manipulate every move in the lineups without any conflict from the head coach and Zeke was actually doing Lenny a favor by letting him coach again(nobody else chose him) and in return Thomas could run the team from his GM position. Lenny had fire as a young coach in the 70's, but now he will eventually add to the Passivity KVH and AH on the court after the honeymoon expectations wear off..

What has Lenny accomplished lately that could even merit consideration?

Wilkens hiring makes no sense
But it could help Raps' bottom line


DAVE FESCHUK
BASKETBALL COLUMNIST

Isiah Thomas surveyed the basketball universe yesterday, searching for a new coach for his spaced-out New York Knicks, and quicker than you could say "How about Mike Fratello or Doc Rivers?" the Big Apple general manager proved he indeed resides on another planet. Lenny Wilkens, fired in April after three seasons spent presiding over the Raptors' steep decline, was pulled from the unemployment lines and handed the gig.

Martians Contacted! Raptors Champions! As newswire alerts go, Wilkens Hired! will go down as one of the all-time-most-memorable, you-can't-be-serious bulletins in history. Considering the way Wilkens had been run out of Hogtown — the way he'd been criticized by management for a laughable work ethic that clearly rubbed off on his already motivationally challenged troops and led, some believe, to an unprecedented wave of injuries — it sounded more like a punchline than a headline.

And you could imagine the scene at a certain Seattle retirement residence: "Iron my mock turtlenecks, Marilyn! I'm leaving today!"

Strange, but this is no fiction. And so the city that never sleeps awaits the arrival of a 66-year-old coach who once disgustedly remarked, when asked by a reporter if he and his Toronto staff would burn the midnight oil scouting a just-announced playoff opponent, "I'm not staying up past midnight."

It's an ill-thought-out move for more than that reason, and it came complete with something Torontonians would expect from Thomas, a bush-league parting. Deposed Knicks coach Don Chaney awoke to newspaper headlines that he was about to be replaced as coach by Fratello, currently broadcasting in Miami. But Chaney was made to preside over yesterday morning's Knicks-Magic shootaround, finally leaving Madison Square Garden without a job around 5 p.m.

Perhaps that kind of minute-to-minute job insecurity is to be expected in a league that recycles coaches with an efficiency that would make David Suzuki proud. And perhaps Thomas is cribbing an all-time great. Seventy-year-old Hubie Brown, after all, has done wonders for the Memphis Grizzlies since having his long-dead coaching career resurrected by general manager Jerry West last season.

But Thomas is no West. And while Brown remains a basketball junkie with a palpable enthusiasm for today's NBA, Wilkens, in his three seasons in Toronto, showed a growing disengagement from the game that was mirrored in his club's uninspired performance.

Thomas was looking for a coach to harden his club's soft defence but Wilkens presided last season over the league's most porous squad. Thomas was looking for a coach to mentor his club's talented-but-untamed point guard Stephon Marbury. And who better to relate to the tattoo-rockin', Bentley-rollin' 26-year-old than a senior who has long been criticized for his inability to reach young players.

It makes no sense for the Knicks although it could for the Raptors, who owed Wilkens $5 million (U.S.) in salary when he left. That could be reduced depending on how much he's paid in New York, Raptor GM Glen Grunwald said.

You shake your head. Last season when the media crowded around the locker of Charles Oakley, the former Raptor and longtime Knick, on the occasion of the opening of Wilkens' 30th season, Oakley laughed: "The crowd should be in Lenny's office, asking him how he got that deal."

They'll be asking the same question today, and only Thomas knows the answer. Perhaps he's convinced that Wilkens can actually get this not-untalented team to the playoffs, even though the winningest coach in league history — also the losingest — hasn't kept up with the league's strategic innovations.

More likely he's using Wilkens as a malleable rest-of-season replacement before seizing the job next year. More likely Fratello and Rivers and anyone else you figured might have been a good fit were too slick, too media-savvy, too much of a threat to Thomas' reign.

Whatever. It should be fun to watch. Wilkens bristled when kind-hearted Canadian columnists questioned anything from his commitment to his lack of timeout calls. Now that he's in viperous New York you can bet the heaped-upon coach will soon be reprising his favourite post-game refrain, "I'm not stupid, okay?"

Now that he's landed this deal, we'll never suggest such a thing again.

When the 4th qtr comes around that is when the coaching will show!

Hey you never know... Look @ the Yankees back in '96 when GM BOb Watson Hired JOE TORRE TO replace Buck Showalter. Everyone was like" OH No, not this guy".

Torre Who is from Brooklyn brought a Championship to NY.... As a matter of fact , he help the Yankees get four Championships. You never know this could be a repeat with Lenny

Coaches or Managers who are from their hometown feels an extra feeling that gives them more of a reason to win..

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/sports/basketball/15ARAT.html

SPORTS OF THE TIMES
Thomas's Smart Move Kept People Guessing
By HARVEY ARATON

Published: January 15, 2004

The timing was lousy, the logic impeccable. Isiah Thomas was at it again, his quick crossover dribble leaving us guessing at air.

Mike Fratello was reportedly coming to preach defense, slow the Knicks to a crawl before they could walk. But before Fratello could be hired, before Don Chaney could be fired, Thomas was weaving his way in the open court, thinking smartly outside the box.

After years of fielding pedestrian talent at the position on the court from which everything flows, the Knicks are relaunching their run for respectability and beyond from the point guard wing of the Basketball Hall of Fame: Thomas from the front office, Lenny Wilkens from the bench, both within earshot of Stephon Marbury, the new franchise player.

Of Wilkens, the 66-year-old patriarch who ranks as the N.B.A.'s career coaching leader in victories and losses, Thomas said: "He's a perfect fit for Stephon."

Thomas couldn't have found two more disparate styles than the two finalists for his clumsy but necessary displacement of Chaney yesterday. Fratello, in one sense, made perfect sense, given his commitment to building the defensive foundation these Knicks lack. But by the end of his time in Cleveland, Fratello was dismissed as an autocratic play-caller of halfcourt drills and his Cavaliers were the canned vegetables of the N.B.A. Thomas did not bring Marbury to New York to walk the ball up the floor and lob the ball into the post, to exist in a universe apart from his coach.

For all the tough playoff talk and fantasies of a distant title, nothing is more crucial to the Knicks' foreseeable development than Marbury's realization of his potential as a floor leader worthy of the men he now works for. Reacting to Thomas and his latest spin move, Marbury said: "I'm pretty much like the same player as him. If he says that's a good fit for myself and the team, that's the most important thing."

Cynics can say that Wilkens was fired in Toronto in large part because his franchise player, Vince Carter, failed to reach his potential and ultimately tuned Wilkens out. But as Thomas said, Carter probably had more problems with his health than with his former coach.

How many young N.B.A. superstars have greased the skid of a coach or two on the way to finding the situation that unlocks the secrets to maturity? Magic Johnson comes to mind. Jason Kidd. The last time Tracy McGrady was in town with Orlando before Marbury's 26 points and 10 assists helped the Knicks to a 120-110 victory over the Magic last night, Doc Rivers sang the praises of the young man he had just named captain. The Magic then slipped into a long losing streak, and McGrady turned mute as Rivers took the fall.

Wilkens and Marbury, who will play for his ninth coach in eight N.B.A. seasons, are both from Brooklyn, and that ought to help. "His relationship with Marbury could be an important one," Thomas said.

How much do today's megamillionaires relate to their ancestors? Once, while on Wilkens's United States Olympic team, Shaquille O'Neal asked the old coach, "You ever play?" Wilkens looked at O'Neal with his lips pursed, with his trademark wry smile. Yes, he played, and was so much the point guard that they made him a player-coach in Seattle when he was only a few years older than Marbury is now.

If Marbury is listening, Wilkens can help him become the player he says he wants to be. For the next couple of years — or at least until Thomas makes the Knicks more athletic and decides to coach them himself — the choice of laid-back Lenny is an uncanny call, even if Wilkens has more in common in personality with Chaney than the dearly departed Jeff Van Gundy.

Thomas called the players' coach label a positive, not long after failing to inform Chaney he was fired before he had reported to work. Good company men don't deserve the kind of denouement Chaney got last night in particular and over the last week in general. But who said Madison Square Garden is a good company?

Much as he said he felt Chaney's pain, Thomas had to know last week that he wanted his own coach. He should have made a quick surgical strike, gone the interim route until the permanent replacement was found. Chaney deserved that much after coaching the Knicks in the post-Patrick Ewing era, a well-paid shepherd through the inevitable storm.

The Knicks being where they are, a case cannot be made for Chaney, only an objection to the insensitive ending and the treatment by a Garden audience that was once celebrated for its sophistication but now is as yahoo as it gets. Fans pay good money. They get to voice whatever judgments they want to. That doesn't mean they don't sound like heartless fools when they ridicule a decent man who stepped into a situation from which his predecessor, Van Gundy, executed a slick backdoor move into a broadcasting seat on his way to an opening with upside.

The Garden, of course, has always been a political jungle. Thomas wasn't brought here by James L. Dolan, the Garden chairman, to win humanitarian awards. He was hired to pull the Knicks from the shaft they fell down under Scott Layden. If Thomas's job is to scratch and claw, few men are more qualified. Not only did he fire Chaney yesterday, but he coldly sent two of Chaney's assistants, Lon Kruger and Brendan Malone, packing, too.

Malone, a so-called friend of Thomas, has now been hired and fired by him in three cities. Which brings us to the moral of our story: Friend or foe, people generally get Isiah Thomas's point.

let's give lenny a little time fellas. look what he did with marc price and mookie blaylock. they enjoyed their best seasons ever under him. if he could make stephon marbury a leader like jason kidd, then this is a perfect fit. obviously, this is now "stephon's" team and isiah is really playing it up so let's all take a wait and see approach. i initially didn't like the move, but i'm willing to give it a chance.

remember, sports media is about creating drama and controversy. If it wasnt all you would read about is the actual games.

Yes, Lenny can fair here. Yes Lenny can have great success here. We will see, time will tell. My gut feeling (yes, Im biased and want to see the KNicks do well) is that with Lenny here with a 4 year deal the players know this is the their coach. Stability... they didnt have this with Don. Also I think Lenny will get these guys playing good team ball, he will build around Marbury who gets other guys involved and the players will start enjoying to play the game again.