When Alan Cohen was made the CEO of the Madison Square Garden corp in 1974 he said that his first duty was to his shareholders and championships came second(sound familiar?).

Posted by lrluis:

When Alan Cohen was made the CEO of the Madison Square Garden corp in 1974 he said that his first duty was to his shareholders and championships came second(sound familiar?).

Sounds very familiar, but in a good way. Unless one is sole owner of a team, one is also accountable to the other owners. The firm's CEO and its officers are agents of the Board of Directors and its Chairman. The Board members, in turn, are proxies of the firm's stakeholders: shareholders and lenders.

That is not to say that championships or play-offs won't bring in the money, which is why we invest in the first place, right? In fact, that is the goal. More fans, more gate receipts. I don't know why it is implied that Alan Cohen's two priorities are in conflict with each other.

Wait. Are you on the board or something? Holy crap.

Posted by fishmike:

Championships are a bonus. Which investor wouldn't want to win a championship while balancing solvency for the the long-term?

they arent a bonus... they should be the single goal.

What investor is going to accept immediate losses on the potential of a future title? None. Just do the math. If the Knicks make the 2nd round every year they gross the same amount if they rebuild for 3 years and a have a 3 year playoff run that results in one title. The later isnt even guarenteed.

The Ewing Knicks had their 400 sell outs, had their 2nd round every year and the garden was a cash cow. Then the short sightedness of corporate America strikes again. Its bette to give Houston and Sprewell max contracts and trade for someone like McDyess then accept a temporary loss in revenue while you rebuild assests. Terrible management.. plain and simple.

Posted by BRIGGS:

a charles smith dunk, john starks hits a few more js in game 6 a missed patrick ewing finger role, a healthy ewing heck we couldve won it 2 or more times.

it wasnt lousy management in the 90s we got riley we always stocked our frontcourt. we tried to retool in 94-95 with houston childs and 3 number 1 picks-we quickly moved nelson out for van gundy even though he had a winning record

we developed john starks anthony mason

we always tried to get that extra vet piece--no we were very well run in the 90s--they knew the bread and butter always started with the frontcourt

we were very unlucky beyond the few things i posted there doc rivers blowing out his knee blackmon just started to stink when we acquired him i could go on. we had a great 10 year run, nothing to be ashamed about.

the problem is after you go on a run like that, its almost pivotal to stink for a year or two[or do what the pacers did and raid other teams for young undervalued players] we continued to try to roll it over and i really do not know where we are at. i believe a good team is built front to back. we are built back to front.


i will say for the most part since i can remember we were a TERRIBLE drafting team with very few exceptions i.e rod strickland[who we traded for a washed up cheeks] mark jackson charlie ward gerald wilkins and that was pretty much it. we took our scouting to lightly and that also hurt us

I think it s important to try to improve the team each year through the drafting process im glad ariza has made a solid stake on a spot.


this thing need to be shuttered after we went to the championship from seed 8. thats where POOR POOR management really showed.


now isiah has built this team front to back + has spent a TON of money doing so---i hope it works out i really believe if this doesnt work in the next two years--we need to really consider a HUGE transitional makeover

Posted by PhilinLA:

Exactly. They traded away both of the dynamic PG options they had in the Ewing era and tried to get by with old slow guys like Derek Harper where they really neeed a player.