What I was trying to say is that they would probably like to make a run at James. I don’t think they’ll sign him. But what I’m reading is that they have so many bad long-term contracts that it may be hard to even get into position.
I’m not a Knicks fan, I’m actually a Bulls fan, so I’m not sure who they can move to improve things. I’ve been watching this with detached bemusement. They do have some good young players, that much is for sure, although Thomas refused to give them much playing time. Maybe they can blow a lot of money to buy out Marbury and one other contract and trade Randolph or Curry. I don’t know how much else they can expect to do in one offseason.
Mark Jackson may very well be the next Avery Johnson, but not with the current roster. I don’t know their spending possibilities and who’s available, but a quality power forward or center is a must have, and if they get one and a good coach they could be in the playoffs next year, as 37-45 was good enough to get in this year.
I’m hearing rumors that Marbury will be gone and agree that trading the other two would be good.
Wee Bairn, do you agree with any of these trades and, yes or no, why do you think such serious rebuilding and playoff-contention-attaining could happen so quickly?
22 posts and not one mention of Kevin McHale? Come on now…
As a lifelong Knicks hater, I’m sorry to see Isiah Thomas go. With him at the helm you could count on high salaries, big egos, and bad teams. On the bright side, maybe they’ll hire Mark Messier to replace him!
I don’t know all the contract situations by getting rid of Marbury’s 20 mil and Randolphs 13 mil would be a good first step, especially since there are better cheaper players on the roster at Marbury’s position, and Randolph, while a solid player, is just too much of a loose cannon to depend on.
I just think that in the East, you only need a moderate turnaround to make the playoffs- who knows, with a coach like Hubie or Larry Brown they could have made a run this year. I don’t see their current roster as being that much worse than the Hawks. Hubie got a not so great Memphis team to 50 wins a couple of times mainly by good coaching, and Larry Brown did similar with bad Clippers and other teams.
Hell if they had somehow gotten Garnett they would have made it IMO even with Isiah coaching, so getting a similar player next year with a better coach, I don’t see making the playoffs out the question, especially if 37-45 is good enough.
Dumars has also had tremendous success in business interests outside basketball. I mentioned him because I worked with a company he had some controlling interest in, and they were all floored by Dumars’s brilliance and drive.
I’m reading here about how Knicks fans would love for management to seek out Jeff Van Gundy.
While he would be a sentimental favorite of mine – I thought he was an excellent coach with a 248-172 win-loss record, and several trips to the playoffs – how practical would this be and how good of a fit would he make right now?
I also think that, for the state of flux the team is and will be in, he is an excellent candidate to manage that, given his history with the team and its various personalities when he was there. He’s in the broadcast booth right now and is theoritically available; I haven’t seen any pictures lately, but I wonder if he has the hair, errr, I mean the stomach left to endure the ups and downs of a rebuilding Knicks franchise. I know he has coaching in his blood (his father, brother), so I’d love to see them at least dangle the carrot in front of him – offer him a decent salary, a management position and a lifetime supply of leg-velcro. See what happens.
Hmm. First he’s fired, then he has a position where no one reports to him, now he cannot even talk to the players. What a freeze out. Why doesn’t he just negotiate a settlement and get the hell out of Dodge?
I agree. I would have slunk out of town just on the basis of the record I was leaving behind alone (56-108 win-loss), but this seems like it’s going to be death by a thousand dandelion-slaps to the face. Fired, unnamed position, isolation. All of this also has me wondering why there isn’t more “I’m resigning (although I got fired) to spend more time with my family,” like there is in the top echelons of corporate America.
Has anybody heard about anything that happened to cause this to be done this way, a whisper campaign, incitement to insurrection, something carried over from the lawsuit that Isiah could use if they cut him loose completely?
I also didn’t realize that, as the link says, all of the current players on the roster were acquired under his watch as president.
In the article, Walsh says about Isiah, “I think he’s a good guy to bounce things off.” Can anyone think of OTHER things they might like to bounce off Isiah? Or that they might like to bounce Isiah off?
I think the standard for wanting to dump someone you have under contract, you agree to a buyout so the person can then get another job. However, since there probably isn’t any team in the league looking to hire him at this point, Isiah would be screwing himself out of money by taking a buyout, so if he’s smart, he’ll sit at home and collect his full salary until the Knicks decide to just pay him off in full.
According to the record, he re-signed to a multi-year contract sometime in the spring of last year. Although my earlier suggestions were kind of lurid, is it as simple as this? People with time left in their contracts lose their jobs all the time and, once the decision is made to fire them, it is known they’re still owed on that contract. With that in mind, why not just pay him off, rather than keep him around in an “unspecified role” (although it now appears it will be some sort of scout/consultant gig), then further, have to go through the trouble of forbidding him to have contact with the players? It just seems that it might be more than that.
Are you suggesting any buyout will be at less than the full value of the contract? I thought once buying out is brought up, you get that full value, so whether Thomas forces the issue so he’ll be in a position to get another league job (hee-hee) or hangs around the Knicks under the current embarassing set of circumsances, he’ll get the same amount of money.