Good riddance to this clown. Please, please hire Mark Jackson and land Derrick Rose. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3353483 Isiah Thomas couldn't win as coach with the players he assembled as president. Now, he's lost both jobs. Thomas was fired as the New York Knicks coach Friday after a season of listless and dreadful basketball, a tawdry lawsuit and unending chants from fans demanding his dismissal. Isiah Thomas was 56-108 in two seasons as coach of the Knicks. Thomas lost a franchise record-tying 59 games this season, and along the way seemed to lose the support of his players, who didn't always play hard for him the way they did last season. "I can't really tell you where he failed with the club. I think that we reached a point this season when our team didn't compete for a long time," new team president Donnie Walsh said. "The bottom line is that we haven't won and the team didn't look like it was motivated to try to win and be competitive."
As a Wizards fan this saddens me...I do see them hiring Mark Jackson. Who wants to bet the leagues 'behind closed doors but fairly chosen' lottery lands the Knicks 1 or 2 this year?
I agree with Walsh. It's hard to find one particular thing where Thomas failed out of a whole list of equally horrible failures.
Well look at it this way, the league gets significantly better ratings when NY, LA, and Boston are good. Those are arguably the 3 most storied NBA cities. Stern stepped in and encouraged them to hire Walsh if he became available. They did. Stern encouraged the Knicks to go in a different direction; Isiah wasnt allowed (though Dolan wouldnt say in those words) to make more trades. The first time in his tenure he went through an entire season with the same group. the leadership, and I use that term loosely, here is sooooo dumb it projects a bad image for the league when a team consistently has the highest payroll (by a landslide) and cant even get to 35 wins and an 8th seed in a awful eastern conference. Bottom line: we need all the help we can get bro doesnt matter who or where it comes from. I need it for my sanity. The entire organization is outright dysfunctional Scary thought of the week: Even as bad as there were they were still top 5 in attendance. Not sure if that says more about the stupidity of the corporate heads who actually went to games and supported this idiotic regime then the regime itself.
This is why I don't particularly care if NY teams are good or not. You people attend anyway. I'm tired of hearing about how sports leagues "need" New York teams to be good. No, they don't. Count me as on board the "Stern will rig the lottery to give the Knicks a high draft pick. Again." bandwagon. Michael Beasley playing next to Dwyane Wade? Not anymore!
Am I the only one that finds the fact that the league stopped holding the lottery in public totally ridiculous? Could it be a bigger farce?
I don't really watch the NBA much at all anymore. Enjoyed watching the Lakers/Celtics in the 80s, and the Bulls in the 90s, but anymore it's just not that much fun to watch. I've watched a little of the Isiah farce, and I feel a little bad for Knicks fans. Then again, they should have known what they were getting into when they hired the guy. As far as the NBA Draft goes, I think it's a joke. I completely disagree with everything that goes into the way the draft is done, particularly the lottery process. I'll be the first to call it - Michael Beasley will be a Knick next year.
And I don't buy the "league will help the Knicks get a top pick" conspiracy theory, people said the same thing the year Channing Frye was drafted and it didn't happen. As much as the league would love to see NY in the playoffs and fighting for a championship, they aren't going to go to those lengths to do it.
I disagree, the league basically hired Walsh to run the Knicks so that in and of itself lends credence to the conspiracy theory. The league picks and chooses who gets the top picks does anyone even question this after LeBron to Cleveland or the #1 pick to Jordan when he took over the Wizards? Granted Kwame Brown might be the worst #1 pick in history but still. The league moved the lottery process, and I use that term loosely, behind closed doors to pick and choose who gets those picks. I love the NBA but they are by far the shadiest pro sport. The refs allow Superstars to do whatever they want in order to give them a better chance to go farther in the playoffs and the league handpicks where the top players go. As much as I love the game the way the NBA runs the league gives ammunition to people that believe they set everything up.
Miami got handed an NBA title in 2006 because of comically bad officiating. So your complaints about league fairness and conspiracies don't interest me even a little bit. They're also bogus. In any event, if Stern really wanted to rig things for the Knicks, I'm pretty sure he would have intervened to cut short the Isiah Era LONG ago. And for all these people talking about Donnie Walsh as some sort of league-appointed savior...um, have you taken a look at Walsh's personnel moves over the last several years? His drafting has been particularly unimpressive, apart from having Danny Granger fall squarely into his lap. This isn't exactly Joe Dumars or RC Buford we're talking about here, folks. Walsh is an upgrade over Thomas, but my cat is arguably an upgrade over Thomas.
unfortunately not only was isaiah destroying the team, but the team has given up. they need to wipe the slate completely clean if they want to start this franchise anew.
I don't think Walsh is a genius or anything like that but Stern did have a hand in his hire. When have you heard of a Commissioner playing agent for a GM or VP? The league wanted to make sure Isiah was gone after the black eye one of their marque teams took for the sex harrassment trial and the obvious joke they've been on the court.
On a side note, whats up with this 'adviser' role Isiah has now? My guess is that Walsh will listen to his advice then do the exact opposite, you'd have a winner in no time using that strategy. Are the Knicks still paying Larry Brown and Isiah now? Whew.
Actually I think he will keep isiah until after the draft. The one thing hes done reasonably well is drafting. This is the best run of knick picks since the mid 80's when they took Ewing, Strickland and Mark Jackson. Pretty sad. As far as Brown goes, he and Dolan settled out of court. So hes gotten his $$$.
I will concede that was somewhat unusual. However, I think it was more due to wanting to ease Isiah out of the spotlight after the sexual harassment trial. And while I don't believe Stern is the master fixer behind the scenes (i.e. the infamous "frozen envelope"), I am willing to believe he's done a few things on the down-low to spare the league some embarrassment. Helping to ease Isiah out (after Dolan had decided to get rid of him) would be one of those. I'm also perfectly willing to believe that MJ's retirement and flirtation with baseball was Stern's way of suspending him for gambling. Isiah has drafted reasonably well, so I wouldn't be averse to his input in terms of talent evaluation. Everything else, though, forget it.
No offense, but Dolan is an idiot and needed to be pointed in the right direction. If Stern hadn't stepped in, we may have been in for another year of "Fire Isiah" chants. Thomas is a very charming guy, he knows how to sweet talk dumb people. I firmly believe that he would have remained HC if the league didn't talk Dolan into finding someone else. The fact that Dolan didn't expand his list of candidates is due more to his incompetence than league pressure. Sorry, I disagree
1. They have an independent (and well-regarded) independent accounting firm auditing it. They have way too much to lose by participating in a cover up. 2. Because the opening of the envelopes makes for better television than the picking of random numbers that the draft lottery actually is. 3. Because conspiracy theorists who think it's rigged wouldn't be dissuaded just because the numbers are being drawn in public. (I don't know, maybe we should put the Mythbusters on this, then it would have more credibility.) 4. If it was rigged, don't you think some disgruntled NBA GM, or former GM, would have blown the lid off the whole thing by now? Do you think Stern has THAT much power in his hands that he could keep that many league personnel AND an independent accounting firm quiet? 5. If it was rigged, don't you think the Knicks would have won the 2003 lottery, and landed LeBron James? Or do you believe the NBA was THAT interested in reviving the (ahem) glorious tradition of Cleveland basketball? 6. If it was rigged, don't you think the Celtics would have won the 1997 lottery, and landed Tim Duncan? Or do you believe that sending Duncan to one of the league's smallest markets was more important to Stern than restoring the glory of the league's most successful franchise?
I don't think the lottery has always been rigged, maybe the Duncan to Spurs pick made them want to start? LeBron is a Cleveland native and yes I do think the league wants to help clubs like Cleveland. I think the behind closed doors thing lends credence to the conspiracy theories, not the other way around. Lets look at the NBA, the refs openly favor the Superstars to allow them to go further into the playoffs. The 'lottery' is held behind closed doors, the league is shady at the very least. I don't think any GM or league official would have blown the lid on it, if I was making millions I wouldn't either.
Well, the conspiracy theories usually begin with the 85 draft, and the Ewing to NY pick. So IF he's been doing it, that's presumably when it began. If Stern's been in the business of rigging lotteries, I absolutely cannot believe he would have allowed the 97 and 03 lotteries, two of the three most important since 85 (the 92 lottery was the other: Shaq/Zo/Laettner), have ended up the way they did. Not with two of the league's flagship franchises prominently involved in both those affairs. Refs DO favor superstars. I don't think anyone seriously disputes that. And while I'm not convinced that's intentional, it certainly goes on. But then, that goes on in all sports, to some measure. In baseball, different pitchers got different strike zones for years, until Sandy Alderson broke the umpires' union (thank God). Even so, the NBA has a real perception issue with that, and I can't deny that they need to address it. Refs like Bennett Salvatore, Dick Bavetta and Joey Crawford (the only ref who seems to go out of his way to make calls to ANTAGONIZE the home crowd) need to go. And maybe no current GM would blow the lid, but why wouldn't a former GM? Why not someone who had been run out on a rail, when they might have earned a better fate with a fair shake at the draft lottery? Someone like, I don't know, Rick Pitino? Pitino's never been shy about running his mouth, he's got a huge ego, his whole strategy for rebuilding the Celtics revolved around getting Duncan in that draft and he's been **** on by pro hoops fans ever since. He'd just sit idly by and take it, if he knows that Stern screwed him over by sending Duncan to the Spurs? Really?
I don't think the rigging is so blatant that Stern and some shadow committee sit down and determine every pick every year, but I do think they slide a gift like hometown star LeBron going to Cleveland when it suits them. I don't believe an independent 'paid by the league' firm is that much of a reason to believe they don't. Why doesn't any state hold lotteries behind closed doors? There would be a lawsuit after the first one. I think no former GM or Coach has any real proof to make such an accusation. I don't have proof and don't pretend that I do, just that its fishy to me and I think the league is foolish for doing the lottery behind closed doors. I'm not sure when that started but thats the first time I really questioned what they were doing. If someone came forward to claim the NBA lottery a farce they certainly would never work in the NBA again and they probably would have trouble getting work at a good college as well. No proof and being blackballed would stop me. The refs in the NBA are a joke. The NBA is the most Superstar driven league in sports. You're right that other sports, the baseball strike zone is a good example do this as well but its not anywhere near as obvious as in the NBA. Look at the Jordan push off on Byron Russell, good god thats such an obvious foul but everyone just laughs it off, 'ah its just the NBA', the stars in the NBA operate on an entirely different set of rules than the regular players do. Elite players in other sports get the benefit of the doubt I'm sure but there aren't two different sets of rule books in other sports. NBA Superstars can pushoff, run over, double dribble, walk, etc almost at will, especially in the fourth quarter.
