Isiah is not a genuis, but he has made moves to get the Knicks headed in the right direction.

I'm curious to know what guys you think Isiah could have signed for less that 5M that are equal to Nazr.

to me he has yet to prove one way or the other. I like a few things about him so far. The first (and biggest) is he clearly had an impact on the players right away. Under Layden there was no accountability. You stunk, the team stunk, everyone got extensions and "we love our roster." Isiah came in and started lighting fires under guys and they responded. The whole feel of the team changed.

Isiah didnt say "we love our roster" he said the team stunk, and he said the PLAYERS needed to take accountability for the results. Before we had no direction. The 3 prospects on the roster were Frank (stuck behind Eisley and Ward) and Lampe and Sweetney, who were stuck behind KT, Harrington, Spoon, McDyess, Doleac, KVH... whoever. Clearly a priority for Isiah was finding minutes for the #9 player in the draft.

If the Knicks do nothing else they will be at least a .500 team next year, probably better as I see guys like Frank and Sweetney getting better, guys like Marbury, TT and Nazr getting better together, and Houston and KT just getting healthy. I dont see this as a stretch.

The real hard part is next. No Isiah hasnt done anything genius by any stretch... only what ANY good GM should do. Trim some fat and inject some juice. Now he has to find ways to turn over the roster, keep up a good pipeline and stock some assets that will allow us to hit a blockbuster come next Feb or the offseason after that.

Time will tell, I can be a little patient, as I know this will take time. It makes me laugh that some would trade good players like TT for a draft pick and build around a couple HS kids... something the Bulls proved can take several years, but those same people cant be patient with a new GM for 6 months or a year.

I agree with the post. People were saying in other boards that they would be upset at Zeke if he didn't trade Shandon Anderson for ending contracts & land Damper & Sheed.

The Marbury trade he gave a lot to get a lot. Tim for KVH I give a small edge to us because Muhammad is a better player than Doleac & Muhammad has more value than Doleac.

I love how he made the move to develop Sweetney & I am confident that his only goal is to win a championship which is y I put faith in him. And im willing to give him more than a couple of months to judge him. Zeke is excellent at developing within the organization. And just recently they added a guy in Surr(i think his name is) who is known for making the trades to build quality teams.

Players want to play for Zeke. O'neal, Harrington, Sheed, Dampier, Crawford are examples. He is well respected which is y in the long run I see things working out for the best.

[Edited by - newyorknewyork on 06/23/2004 14:39:37]

isiah - so far so good

for the time he's been here, he gets an A.

but the overall grade is incomplete. i think we all will know what isiah has done for the knicks after this trading deadline and after the next offseason.

i think what prevented him from making the trade was that he was holding out on his demand for Amare Stoudamire in exchange for Kurt Thomas.

if someone were to ask you whether you thought a team would take Eisley in exchange for Penny, what would you have said this time last year? if you believed they would, what's to say any team wouldn't take Shandon for Raef LaFrentz straight up if they could at this point? to me, Isiah pulling off the deals to get rid of Eisley & Spoon & get players who at least could fill a role on this team were miraculous when no one ever thought those guys would be tradeable for any player...please, no one pretend they thought a trade of those guys was feasible at the same time last year.

Posted by MaTT4281:

Isiah has messed with Jordan and Mike had him excluded from the dream team which hurt him bad.

I know this isnt the part i should be focusing on, but wasnt it pippen, not mj?

I think the bad blood between Isiah and MJ was carried over from the incident in the playoffs when the Bulls defeated the then defending champs the Pistons. Isiah rushed his whole team off the court at the end of the game refusing to shake hands with the Bulls. There was also an incident during an all-star game where Isiah alledgedly conspired to freeze Jordan out of the game in order to make MJ's performance look poor.

Posted by tkf:

I keep hearing how the Marbury deal was a"easy" deal to do.. I ask then, why din't layden pull the trigger? This could of saved his job? was he asking to be fired? come on man, Layden was probably holding out for some unrealistic add on, like marion for Shandon Anderson...LOL...

Layden actually was in discussions for a Marbury trade. It has been said though that Dolan was fed up with Layden and din't want him making that type of huge move. He wanted to bring new blood in and destroy the bad image.

probably the most famous basketball player ever to come out of the Bobby Knight regime, Zeke has always been considered Piston's most favorite son. Zeke's dream could've been what Dumars has accomplished. i really hope when its all said and done knicks equal or surpasses Reily's era .