Job evaluation - Isiah Thomas - you're fired
Isiah,
Time for your performance reveiw. I comended you when you came in and traded a bunch of nuts and bolts for Stephon Marbury. You got rid of what were previoulsy untradeable contracts and players no one wanted (Ward, Eisley, Marcel Lampe - who has turned out to be a bust, and the rights to that awesome point guard from europe who has remined in Europe). Great move becasue despite everyone's bitching and moaing, Steph is much better than what we had before at the point.
But with that said, we have to talkabout a few of your other moves.
The Van Horn Trade and getting Thomas and Mohammed, good trade, but where are those players now. Youe traded Thomas in the Curry deal, I can accept that because hey if you are going to take a gamble do it on a big man like Curry. so far it has not panned out, but, I still would take that gamble.
Trading away Nazr Mohammed? Bad move. Malik who we got in return is ok, but he is undersized and while Nazr was inconsistent he was a serviceable big man. I know that the trade landed us a draft pick that turned into David Lee so not too bad, but it has not really improved us.
Jerome James for 6 years - what the hell are you thinking?!?!?! The guy could be the poster boy for hostess twinkees. Yes he has potential, but if potential were a drug Isiah, you would be in rehab.
Kurt Thomas for Q? Why, I like Q's game but he has back problems bad ones and a much longer contract.
Antonio Davis for Jalen Rose - again, what the hell are you thinking. Sure Jalen can spread the floor, but he plays no D and you know that he and LArry never got along.
and the final one Penny for Francis - are you out of your mind? If there is a carbon copy of Marbury in the league, Francis is it.
As Donald Trump would say - you're fired!
Re: Job evaluation - Isiah Thomas - you're fired
u got to understand that jerome james was a desperate move because believe it or not jerome james was the best center in da market...and the Q for kurt thomas was a good move but not great and the reason u said its bad is not good...yes Q got back problems but kurt thomas has ankle problems and Q is the only swingman on da knicks who plays D...malik rose is kinda like kurt thomas wit no offense
Follow-up to; Isiah - you're fired
I liked some of the comments this sparked. The truth is that when things go bad in any organization it is natural to want to find someone to blame. You could call it contributory negligence on the part of many.
Let's start at the top. We all know that is MSG sells out, the knicks make so much money that being over the cap means nothing. However, Dolan should at least have some knowledge of the game, if Isiah got off the reservation and made some bad moves - Dolan is partly to blame for not say no now and then.
Net onto Isiah, he mad some bad trades, sometimes he made trades just to make trades. One fan commented who around the league would do a better job. Well I don't know, but I am not sure one could do worse. Isiah gets some of the blame.
Larry Brown, I love Larry Brown he is a proven winner, however, if I have to pin more blame in one spot, it would be on Larry. I don't care how right you are, you don't publically humiliate people - they will not want to work for you. While Larry is a good teacher, he is a poor communicator when things get tough, he does it through the press. there is a rule of leadership, praise publically, punish privately, say what you need to to Marbury, but don't humiliate him. I will put some of the blame on Marbury in just a minute, but Larry could have handled it much better. You don't berate a player publically, you talk to him one on one and challenege him. you say to someone like Jerome James, "you have all of this talent, you've not got your money, you can ride out your contract and go down in memory as a lousy player who never lived up to his potetnial, or you can be rememebered as something much better - but it is going to take work..... I
Larry changed the linuep far too many times, and did not communicatw well with his players about what he was thinking.
Stephon - you behaved like a child, as much as Larry is to blame, you never get the fact that one of things that makes a great player is that they make the players around them better. Stephon - you are as talented as anyone - but you have never got that last point.
Bye Bye Isiah, we are getting a new GM
Isiah Thomas was one of the best players ever, he is charismatic, and one hell of a salesman. How else could he keep Dolan thinking that he could possibly turn this thing around. While Isiah did inherit a mess, almost tow years later the mess known as the NY Knicks is worse than Iraq.
Time for Dolan to wake up and realize that Isiah has been selling him a bill of goods, Isiah HAS NO PLAN. Dolan should get a new GM go after Kiki Vandeweghe. He may be the lowest paid GM in the league and has done a great job cleaning up Denver. They were a team with bloated contracts and such as McDyess, Van Excel and LaFrentz, and they were losing. He got rid of them, tore the team down and rebuilt them into a solid playoff team.
