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For good or bad the Knicks have had their share of exciting stories this year. Over the summer New Y [...]…

1. dolan- what in the world would ever have posessed this man to hire thomas, fired from every job except playing point for detriot(and it pains me to say he was damn good at that job, but ive got to give him his lone prop there.) this man has shown no managerial, coaching or business skills. he may be a decent evaluator of talent on some level, but my god, didnt they look at his resume at all before hiring him? hes been shitcanned from every important job hes ever had. he busted the cba for god sakes! why woul i hire a man to run my team, who had run an entire basketball league into the ground? he couldnt make the fake cheese at the concession stand. if he were running the nacho machine, one day id go to buy some, the cheese would be replaced with warm mucous, the price would be 80$ a tray, and a smilig thomas would serve it to me in his spiffy pink tie yellow shirt combo, all the while telling me it was better than the oter “nacho product”. this is the man that james hired. so dolan is the major culprit here.

2. thomas. all he has to do is show up and be himself, and the good times roll baby, and they keep rollin until you have a team with two shoot firsthead case sophmoric point guards who have never done a thing of note in the postseason, a fat jerome james who was so happy to be given about sixty times his value that he hasnt been sober since they day he was signed, an arrogant weaseling coach, a pissed off fan base, no draft picks, no cap relief, and the worst record in team history knocking on the door. all he has to do is show up, and these are the results. its like the anti midas touch. anything he comes near immediately turns to poop.
somebody please prove me wrong.

But that’s the thing, does anyone want the players he’s gotten? Do teams really want Jerome James? Jamal Crawford? Q? Steve Francis, whom the Magic were attempting to deal all season because he was keeping touches away from Dwight Howard? They all have exorbitant long-term contracts which make them unusable for cap relief, so any team wishing to acquire a Knick would have to make that player a franchise centerpiece for years to come, which doesn’t seem too likely for any of these guys. It certainly looks like this is the roster that Isiah will have for the foreseeable future, unless he makes a trade in the offseason which sends Rose, Taylor and change to the Blazers for ZBo and Darius Miles. Which no one should put past him, seeing as the idea falls under ‘trade for as many headcases with huge contracts as possible’.

“Take the package we gave for Marbury. Is it easier to get Jason Kidd with the package we gave up for Marbury?or for Marbury himself?”

Um… probably the former, seeing as the Nets traded Marbury to the Suns for Kidd years ago and they promptly went to two Finals, so they saw the disparity in playmaking ability. Besides, another swap would never happen today. Have you looked at the Atlantic Division standings recently?

I essentially agree with your analysis Dave and it’s hard to clear up my point of view because as I posted before there are really 2 seperate debates going on.

In as much as it relates to your point about the BIG picture, I agree with you 99.99%. Thomas has some huge weaknesses that do hurt our team on a regular basis.

The ONLY point I might disagree with you on is that I don’t think Thomas is in the mode of trying to make the pieces fit yet, because I don’t think….let me put this a different way.

I think rebuilding, with no cap flexibility, requires a 2 step process.

1) Get rid of the crap and get in actual tradeable talent. Typically you can only do that by trading garbage for flawed stars or players other teams are trying to trade for NON-talent reasons.

2) Once you upgraded the talent you can THEN deal that talent for talent that fits your needs.

It’s the “beggars-can’t-be-choosers” philosophy. I think for what we are trading it’s more important to simply get the best talent you can first….then work out the pieces later.

Obviously, we’d all like it if we got a different TYPE of pg or a different TYPE of SF or whatever. But when you look at what we were trading that’s asking alot for Thomas to not only upgrade the talent, but get the RIGHT talent too.

I think the key is you upgrade the talent FIRST, then when you have players that teams actually want you can then go get the RIGHT players.

Take the package we gave for Marbury. Is it easier to get Jason Kidd with the package we gave up for Marbury….or for Marbury himself?

In that way I won’t hold it against Thomas yet that we don’t have all the right pieces. To me it’s enough that in just a few years we went from the Layden garbage to what we have now.

However, I won’t excuse this stuff forever. Now that we have some talent that is tradable Thomas MUST MUST MUST get the RIGHT parts in here quickly. If he can’t do that in the next few years then it would show he’s incapable of it and it might prove it was never his intention to begin with. At THAT point I’d be with your view 100%.

But I see him as in stage 1 of the rebuild process and I want to see an ATTEMPT at stage 2 before I conclude that he isn’t up to the task.

Finally, I’m glad folks are seeing that my defense of Thomas is limited and not that I think he’s this great GM who gets to skate on our woes. It’s more complicated than that.

Look at the per-40 minute stats for these two players in their first 4 seasons:

JO: 10.0-12.5 REB/40
EC: 7.5- 9.5 REB/40

JO: 1.8-2.9 BLK/40
EC: 1.3-1.8 BLK/40

Jermaine O’Neal was better in his first 4 years than Eddy Curry in just about every important stat (for a center): rebounding, blocked shots, turnovers, fouls, etc. Curry has him beat in scoring stats. After their first 4 seasons, O’Neal showed plenty of potential, while Curry has shown a knack at scoring, but he is a liability in all these other areas which is critical for an NBA starting center.

Other than the Eddy Curry trade (which, I agree turned out disastrous in including the no. 1 pick unprotected), I think it’s hard to say that Isiah “undervalues draft picks.” According to reports, he patiently held out for a number 1 pick from Phoenix before pulling the trigger on the Quentin Richardson trade and also patiently held out for a number 1 pick from Toronto even though the Jalen trade had been rumored for months beforehand. I know less about the Malik trade, but considering the success San Antonio has had with its late draft picks, getting two no. 1 picks from them must have been tough as well. Of course, I’d trade all those picks for the Knicks’ number 1 this year, but I really don’t think anybody foresaw this team being so horrid. A lottery team maybe, though not likely, but not worst in the league and team history.

As for KVH for Tim Thomas, that wasn’t a lateral move. The Knicks also got Nazr Mohammed in the deal when he wasn’t exactly seen as an asset around the league. Isiah saw something there and flipped it to San Antonio for greater value (though it probably would have been better to hold him).

I agree with a good deal of your analysis in the last couple posts, though not all the conclusions you draw.

On Thomas: We are in agreement, I think, that Thomas–given that the decision was made and agreed between he and Dolan to NOT to tear it down–has improved the roster talent.

However, I don’t think you can stop there. (I’m conceding that may have been the parameters of the debate. I’m speaking in a broader sense.) Just because you get the most talent in each individual trade does not mean you have put together the best available team. To my mind that is the central critique of Thomas’ tenure. He seeks to maximize the talent in each transaction, with virtually no plan for making things fit together. As a consequence some of his moves produce redundancy (e.g., Marbury and Francis), such that even the talent advantage he gets from increasing the talent base is offset because players do the same thing.

The point you make about Thomas’ inability to manage assets, imo, is a direct consequence of his fundamental weakness: a myopic focus on maximizing the talent in each transaction without regard to broader issues of fit. (He is arrogant too but that trait is practically ubiquitous among execs of all types.) That myopia is what causes him to undervalue draft picks relative to current talent–and yet still have a great eye for young talent. It’s what causes him to make lateral moves for what he perceives to be a slightly more talented player (e.g., Tim Thomas for KVH).