Comments on: Report: Thomas’ Job Safe

By: retropkid

retropkid — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:43:57 +0000

You want to give Zeke credit for draft picks while not representing the Knicks, go right ahead. Ancient history. Not relevant in a NY Knick sphere — and he MISSED alot of guys who are better than the guys he drafted anyway. Over-rated, pure and simple. If you like Zeke’s draft prowess, you set the bar way too low imho.

His NY Knick draft picks haven’t had an impact, and it isn’t just his bad coaching that is to blame…it’s that the players are flawed.

Guys are already saying Chandler is a great pick and he has done nothing. Balkman isn’t on a track to greatness, neither is Nate. David Lee — a nice pick…In total, none of these guys is getting younger, and none of these guys is helping get Ws on the board. They look like gems because the rest of the squad is even worse. Time to face up to it — we have one of the worst organizations in team sports history, crud owner, crud coach, cruddy team.

By: zeeman

zeeman — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:25:30 +0000

I’m kind of in the same boat as Puzzled in Texas, I am not a Knick fan, but think it would be good for the NBA for the Knicks to get their act together, he said

“Knicks faithful, please educate me. I?m pretty savvy when it comes to basketball, but I?m also really baffled by Dolan?s renewed vote of confidence in Thomas. Assessing Knicks ownership feels like I?ve just slowed down to get a better look at a car wreck, so I was hoping that those of you who are more familiar with this man could tell me if his running this franchise into the ground is a product of hubris, ineptitude, or both.”

A view from afar:
1. Obviously Isiah needs to go, or Knicks will be down this same old path next year and years to come.
2. Knicks starting lineup isn’t anything I’d want (Nuggets fan here) Crawford is nice piece, Lee gives some good hustle. signing Zack Randolph was dumb (ball stopper) Curry is OK, but a turnover machine.

IMO the #1 goal of the Knicks should be to get Isiah fired, that way you can hire a turn around GM like Kiki, and start off with a scrub coach. and get back to winning

It seems the players know the #1 goal should be to fire Isiah, as they QUIT in stretches. latest Quit was getting blown out by Philly after they lost the previous night.

By: aaron

aaron — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:13:43 +0000

Hey,
I am a huge knick fan that is suffering so much by watching this team. Isiah sucks and he must go. Its quite sad that are three best players are our first three off th bench. This team is down right terrible. I also wanted to talk about this sports trivia website that I work for. It’s called triviafix.com. When I came across this blog,
I came across your blog and thought you might be interested in a “sports trivia widget” that we recently released for blog sites. You can customize the content to show only the sports\teams you are interested in (the New York Knicks). ). You can see a sample of the “all sports” version here: http://www.triviafix.com/widget/sportsnut.html (every day is a new question). You can see a Blogger version here at http://sportstrivianut.blogspot.com. Let me know if you are interested and I will set up a custom widget for you. Also, take a look at our sports trivia web site at http://www.triviafix.com How can I get a link to the site

By: Roshi

Roshi — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:26:32 +0000

I think the reason many people think that Isiah’s drafting prowess is overrated is because these players get drafted to a team that obviously has no idea how to utilize the strengths of players. While Balkman may seem like simply an energy player…given the chance to play on a real team, with proper coaching, he would become a valuable reserve. And you can be sure that under Popovich or Sloan, Nate Robinson could be turned into a disciplined, effective backup PG.

Basically, Isiah’s poor coaching and inability to inspire his team negates the effect of his good drafting.

By: Dan Panorama

Dan Panorama — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 16:43:44 +0000

I want Isiah’s ass fired immediately but his draft reputation is absolutely deserved and there’s more than enough of a case to dump him (see paper, today’s) without resorting to revisionist history. He grabs solid to spectacular players at every pick all of whom have hung around and will hang around the league for years to come. That’s a hell of a lot more than you can say for most GMs.

By: retropkid

retropkid — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:42:25 +0000

We all love Balkman, but c’mon….he plays 12 minutes a game, misses foul shots, and rarely scores double digits…he isn’t an impact player when it comes to Ws. Zeke is over-rated at drafting because he has nothing else to show for himself…he’s not fool’s gold, he’s just a fool. Now he blames the crowd! Booing makes his guys miss lay-ups??? This guy tries to lay blame everywhere but on himself.

By: Puzzled in Texas

Puzzled in Texas — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 12:06:22 +0000

Knicks faithful, please educate me. I’m pretty savvy when it comes to basketball, but I’m also really baffled by Dolan’s renewed vote of confidence in Thomas. Assessing Knicks ownership feels like I’ve just slowed down to get a better look at a car wreck, so I was hoping that those of you who are more familiar with this man could tell me if his running this franchise into the ground is a product of hubris, ineptitude, or both.

If his Wikipedia entry is anything to go on, I’m thinking he’s one of those Type-A, old money business wonks–you know, inherit the money from daddy, strap on the big-boy pants and pretend at being a businessman. The vanity band he plays in is just icing on the cake.

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:57:43 +0000

With the #7 pick and the #9 pick in Toronto, he picked up the 1995-96 Rookie of the Year and Tracy McGrady, respectively (oddly – he never picked in the second round as Toronto GM), so add in David Lee and Renaldo Balkman (are you seriously counting Wilson Chandler AGAINST Thomas?) and it more than makes up for the other folks, especially as Ariza is a fine NBA player.

I agree that Camby doesn’t count, as that was just obvious.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:40:42 +0000

Isiah is not an especially good drafter and discoverer of “diamonds in the rough.” This is a myth. Seriously, what contributions have Nate, Mardy Collins, Wilson Chandler, Channing Frye, Trevor Ariza, etc really made here or anywhere else in the NBA? The NY media overrates these guys severely, simply because they don’t trip over their own shoelaces and because everything else Isiah does is completely abysmal. He looks like a “good drafter” only relative to the rest of his putrid resume.

By: James

James — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:30:36 +0000

Isiah Thomas is a good “diamonds in the rough” drafter. I don’t think he’s that great a lottery drafter.

He drafted TMac and he drafted Camby. But they were pretty obvious choices. Frye is (actually as an aside, I wonder what Frye would be like if Larry Brown hadn’t gotten in his head), well anyway.

But in the lower reaches I think he’s a great drafter. Jury obviously still out on Chandler, but Lee, Robinson, Balkman, Ariza are all good picks.

This, however, highlights for me what is so difficult with Isiah. He’s not ALL bad. But that makes him fool’s good. Yes I think he’s a good drafter. But that just isn’t enough to justify a GM job.

I dunno, part of me still thinks just give him some time with this roster and see how the team plays out. Afterall, they have played 500 or slightly better ball periodically, and they haven’t played together that long. But then I see games like the Boston, Denver and Philly ones, and I think jeez, they’ve played maybe 5 zero effort games in, what, 20? Every 4 games they just give up? That just doesn’t sound like good coaching. I’d rather see 5 guys who suck but play hard than watch this. Adversity just isn’t an excuse either – every team in the league has that, and this team, for one thing, is pretty deep.

Just a thought (not sure I’d even do it) but Eddy Curry for Erick Dampier + a pick? Or even straight up? Dampier