Isiah Thomas fired as head coach of the Knicks. It’s about time. He’ll remain with the team, with an unspecified title, reporting directly to team president, Donie Walsh.
The Knicks have been, shall we say, a troubled team for many seasons now. They hav definitely had their downs and downs, on-court and off. At 23-59 this season, do you think the team will see any improvement by next season because of this move, either by the hiring of a new coach or the cleansing involved in getting rid of this stinker?
Mark Jackson and current assistant coach Herb Williams are being considered for the job. Who do you think will be the new head coach?
I’m almost a little sad. I’ve enjoyed all the comedy that the Isiah era has brought us, and as a Bulls fan seeing the Knicks utterly hopeless warms my heart. I can’t imagine why the hell James Dolan loves this twit so much. He’s been an asshole pretty much as far back as anyone can remember and has never done anything positive since retirement.
Incidentally I don’t see how they can hire Marc Jackson as the coach. He seems to be the guy with all the buzz right now, but he’s basically Isiah all over again. He has no experience and no credentials. This time at least the Knicks will have Walsh as the GM so Jackson can focus solely on coaching, but it’s still not a great idea. Also, Walsh is getting treated as the savior but what exactly did he do in Indiana? He’s the architect of the Artest-Jackson Melee and the Jermaine O’Neal contract albatross and the Pacers have never gotten over the hump.
It’s amazing how a great floor general and possibly the best pure point guard of all time and playof fperformers of all time with all the basketball acumen in the world can be so incredibly retarded in the business of basketball-related operations.
I don’t know about that. While I do give Thomas credit for his career as a player, I’m convinced that that kind of talent does not necessarily translate into a man who has the talent to coach an entire team or exhibit the executive abilities needed to be president or general manager. Like Jimmmy said, he lacked executive ability was ability from his time in the CBA; why he kept being given chances to coach and take on other executive duties, I don’t know.
While not direclty related to his coaching ability, don’t forget that Thomas cost the Knicks $11.6 million (the team $8.6 mil, Dolan 3 mil) in the Browne Sander’s sexual harassment trial. While no one can be sure of what really happened, this verdict had to have been related to his inadequacy in the executive decision-making department and certainly left a blot on his and team’s already degraded image.
Because he’s charming and personable, and sometimes you can bullshit people.
A lot of sports owners are essentially nerdlings and ordinary schmoes who got rich and are now in a position to hire their heroes; witness the embarassing man-crush Bud Selig has on Henry Aaron. I think Thomas just pulls the wool over people’s eyes with his charm and his championship rings. He’s unquestionably the worst sports executive or coach in North American pro sport of the last ten years, but he’s got that big smile.
For whatever reason, sports fans, media and insider insist on designating some athletes as Leaders, and declare tha the LEaders will someday become great coaches. There’s only so much you can write about a pro basketball player in terms of describing why he’s great, and it starts to get boring pretty quickly; he’s faster, or he’s stronger, or he’s just more inherently aware on the court, or he works harder. But you can’t fill a weekly column with that over and over, so you have to start making up bullshit.
Thomas, as it turns out, was propelled forward by the bullshit. There’s examples in every sport; Don Baylor was anointed The Next Great Manager a good five years before he retired as a PLAYER, because he could really dish out the bullshit. He turned out to be a bad manager. They’re itching to give Mark Messier a job in someone’s front office now because Messier was The Great LEader, even though for the last ten years of his career Messier’s teams got worse when he showed up and improved after he left. But he’s great with the media and has a strong jaw, so he MUST be a leader, right? $50 says he’s a GM or a coach for five years before anyone notices he sucks at it.
Because Dolan is the worst owner in American Sports. He is a horrible scumbag as owner of Cablevision, holding fans hostage to his mistakes of losing the Yankees and then Mets cable contracts and he has made two great franchises bad jokes in the NBA & NHL. This is the same idiot holding up the rebuilding of a real and magnificent Penn Station and fought hard to destroy the chance of the Jets moving back to NYC. He is a complete ass and his loyalty to Isiah is just the tip of the iceberg.
As to Isiah, he is crying all the way to the bank. He is still do millions of dollars over the next three year to the idiot that really destroyed the Knicks. He had also destroyed the Rangers, but the league stepped in and rescue him of that one.
I was thinking special scout to Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Borneo, any place known for Malaria and lets not forget Antarctica. There must be some untapped talent in Antarctica.
Yes, but he’ll find a mosquito who he SWEARS can dish the rock and a penguin who looks like he can defend in the post, and he’ll talk Walsh into signing them to long-term deals, ensuring that the Knicks can extend their lease on their townhouse in Salary Cap Hell.
In fact, I’m not sure if towels are too much of a responsibility. You just know he’ll find a way to douse them all with smallpox or something.
Come on. Now you’re just being disingenuous. Isiah would never claim to find a guy who could pass and defend. He’d be a mosquito that was an athletic tweener that can guy up and down the floor.
Not necessarily the worst- there have been several as bad, in my opinion. But apart from Matt Millen, I can’t think of anybody else who’s been that bad for that LONG!
Most bad executives, in sports as in other businesses, get dumped fairly soon after they’ve proven inept. Isiah isn’t unique in being a bad GM- but he’s ALMOST unique in his ability to fail for years and years and years without being held accountable.
But as you say, Rick, sports aren’t like most other businesses. When Michael Dell or Warren Buffett hires a new executive, he’s looking for a guy with the right background and certain credentials. There’s no applicant that’s going to make him swoon or go weak in the knees. MIGHT he hire a charming jerk who gives a good interview? He might- but he’d rectify his mistake in a hurry once he saw the results.
But if I were an NBA owner, and Larry Bird was my GM, and he was doing a horrible job… gosh, it’s LARRY BIRD, man! I can’t fire LARRY FREAKING BIRD!
I was factoring in his length. I mean, Buck Martinez was a horrible manager, but he didn’t last long enough to do a lot of damage.
Thomas is especially bad in that he tends to destroy and poison everything he left behind. He left the Toronto Raptors in a terrible, terrible mess. He single-handedly destroyed the CBA. He’s leaving the Knicks almost hopelessly paralyzed; even if they were smart enough to hire a goodGM it’ll take years to clean this disaster up. I wouldn’t hire Thomas as a data entry clerk.
And so an era of stunning, comical ineptitude at long last comes to an end. I’ve heard a few people say the Knicks will be lucky if they can sort this mess out by 2010, when LeBron James could become a free agent.
The mess can be cleaned up, but the Cavaliers will get rid of half the roster and mortgage everything they own to keep James. New York teams can’t count on everyone wanting to play there. A mess of this scope can’t be fixed with a single player, even King James.
True dat. Most definitely; and most notably, besides his role in building the 2004 championship team, he was actually named Executive of the Year for the 2002-03 season. Even John Starks has gone on beyond retirement to find his level of (in)competence and done well as an alumnus and fan development official for the Knicks. Thomas even failed at that aspect of his duties, as detailed in the recent harassment trial, when asked by Browne Sanders to exert professional influence over players to turn out for corporate events, shouting, “Bitch, I don’t give a f–k about the sponsors …” and further, “I don’t give a f–k about ticket sales.” Some executive.
Marley23, what else do you think they can do to begin augment that rebuilding, even assuming they can get James. From GM on down, what would be your suggestions?