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Nalod
Posts: 68794
Alba Posts: 154
Joined: 12/24/2003
Member: #508
USA
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good article not linked about Isiahs pick for new coach.
Nothing new, just interesting......
THE NEXT BIG THING?
By MIKE VACCARO
IT'S good that Isiah Thomas should take his time with this coaching decision of his, despite the fact that Knicks fans - the ones who still show their faces in public anyway - have begun to wonder if the Knicks might not just use individual game captains instead of an actual head coach by the time the season starts, the way teams used to do it at the start of the last century.
No, what the Knicks need is for Thomas to make the right decision, not the quick decision. If he selects Herb Williams, it had better be because Isiah is ready to go to the wall with him, and not because it's the path of least resistance. He'd better be ready to explain that Williams, long a Garden favorite, is a star on the rise, and not simply an expedient choice.
Here's the thing: Herb really might be a terrific coach on the make. Who knows? And that's the point: Nobody really does know. Sometimes hiring the right guy is about guts and instinct.
There are a few magical names in professional sports that carry a certain guaranteed cache with them: Parcells. LaRussa. Brown. Jackson. But what's forgotten is that somebody somewhere gave every one of them their first shot. Somebody somewhere saw something in every one of them that became obvious only later on, when they started winning, when teams were willing to trip over themselves to throw bushels of money at them.
The fact is, all Isiah needs to do is look at his own adopted city, at the coaches who've risen to prominence here in the past 25 years to see how unpredictable the art of finding a coach really is.
He can start with his own franchise, in fact. Hiring Pat Riley was easily the smartest decision Dave Checketts ever made, and Riley was the driving force behind some of the most unforgettable - and unwatchable - basketball we've seen around here in a long time. So hiring a guy with a track record worked - assuming you're not talking about Don Nelson, who arrived with a book of stamps and mailed in his only year as coach of the Knicks. In many ways, the elevation of Jeff Van Gundy was the exact blueprint Isiah needs to follow. Before Van Gundy started believing his own press clippings, he was the model of what every GM fantasizes about: the unknown, anonymous worker bee plucked out of obscurity and given a start - and a star - by a very smart boss.
But, then, we know all about that, because so many of the men who have made their coaching mark in New York across the past quarter century have followed exactly the same path. Never forget that before Bill Parcells was assigned his place as Vince Lombardi's coaching heir, he was a journeyman football lifer whose hiring as Giants coach inspired a chorus of yawns, who was very nearly fired after going 3-12-1 in his first year, and who never forgot every one of the slights sent his way during those down times. That Parcells became the greatest coaching star in the galaxy is actually besides the point. George Young rolled the dice on Parcells, and was rewarded a hundred fold.
The town's baseball teams know all about that. The Mets have never been more dominant, more of a grand baseball show, than when Davey Johnson was managing them, and when Frank Cashen picked Johnson as manager during the 1983 World Series, Johnson was best known in New York as the man who flied out to Cleon Jones to end the 1969 World Series. He had no track record to speak of - certainly nothing as deep as, say Jeff Torborg or Art Howe - and yet he became a genuine original here.
The Yankees? As difficult as it is to remember a time when they were in even greater disarray than they've been so far this season, the Yankees were in almost complete disrepair after the 1991 season when Gene Michael - operating independently, free from the starry-eyed whims of George Steinbrenner - decided to give a career minor leaguer named Buck Showalter a shot at the most demanding job in baseball. And all that did was turn the Yankees' axis completely upside down - and may have paved the way for Steinbrenner himself to make the unorthodox decision of hiring Joe Torre, a lifetime loser as a manager, to succeed Showalter when that time inevitably arrived.
Sure things are nice. Mike Keenan worked out once upon a time for the Rangers. Parcells worked out well for the Jets, long after he'd left behind the role of dark horse and entered his current role as legend-for-hire. Riley worked out. Chuck Daly worked out, for the 15 minutes he spent in the Meadowlands. Phil Jackson would be wonderful. So would Larry Brown.
Herb Williams?
If Isiah gives him the job, and really means it, he might well turn into Bill Parcells. Or he may be Ray Handley. It's Isiah's lottery ticket. He can either cash it or rip it up. He'd better make the right call.
(Mike Vaccaro's e-mail address is WriteBackVac@aol.com. His Yankees-Red Sox book, "Emperors and Idiots," is available at bookstores everywhere.)
VAC'SWHACKS
There's no more enjoyable character anywhere on TV right now than Ari, the agent played on HBO's "Entourage" by Jeremy Piven. Unless you include the weekly stand-up delivered on YES by Randy Johnson, of course.
The more time goes on, the more you can envision Willie Randolph having this conversation with himself sometime next October: "Why didn't I use Aaron Heilman more when we were still in the race?"
I guess I must have missed the rioting in the streets that was sparked by New York's Olympic bid going up in flames. But it wasn't hard noticing the way the mayor and his henchmen started jumping up and down and stomping their feet like kids sent to bed without dessert.
The fight scenes in "Cinderella Man" were more realistic than Joe Torre's temper tantrum in Milwaukee the other night.
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6/13/2005 12:09 AM