And just like Zenmaster Phil thought he could hoodwink the universe into a triangular time warp, Isiah had some sort of “I see potential in this guy that no one else sees and only I can bring it out in him, so whatever I’m paying for him is going to be worth it in the long run” fetish. There was no consideration of “fit,” either with each other or with whatever coach he hired.

Say what you want about Leon, he’s at least got an idea about how to build a cohesive team that somewhat fits his coach but is transferrable to another if need be. The Leon-Thibs regime seem to value actual talent, b-ball IQ, complementary skillsets, character, work ethic, and leadership. It’s not perfect, but compared to Phil and Isiah?

The 2007-2008 Knicks had the following players: Eddy Curry, David Lee, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford, and Stephon Marbury, among others. How are you supposed to play defense with that personnel? Who protects the rim? Most of those players would be useful in the right circumstances, but together they were just disastrous. Those guys won 23 games.

There have been plenty of less talented Knick teams than that team, but that team just has a special place in my heart. I can’t believe somebody thought that group of players would play well together. Phil Jackson was terrible at his job, but the 2007-2008 team is the work of an auteur of shitty basketball. Isiah Thomas is the Tommy Wiseau of basketball GMs.

oh yeah, that must have really sucked, wait a minute – i got something that’ll top that…here, check out this awful scar on my ass

Whatever, we’re essentially arguing about which form of medieval torture is the most painful, or which flavor of dogshit is the most putrid.

I have spent way too much time defending Isiah Thomas today (any time is too much time)

I think this is the only important point, and thus I step off the field of battle, and encourage others to do the same.

That’s fine, but the point is that he replenished the picks that he traded. He didn’t just fling away draft picks as fast as humanly possible. In all he traded two first rounders for Marbury and two for Curry, and he traded for 3 first rounders.

They traded their own pick for the upcoming draft and it ended up #2. The other pick they gave up in the Curry trade was #9 the following year.

And these weren’t unpredictable far off outcomes, they were the next 2 seasons.

Getting picks #23, #28, and #30 or whatever isn’t exactly recouping the cost.

As has been well documented, 3 of the 4 he traded away turned into all-stars (thank you Kirk Snyder for saving that last one). It was horrendous.

He was overrated as a drafter.

That’s fine, but the point is that he replenished the picks that he traded. He didn’t just fling away draft picks as fast as humanly possible. In all he traded two first rounders for Marbury and two for Curry, and he traded for 3 first rounders.

(And, personally, I think you are being a bit unfair to his drafting record by cherry-picking all those players he could have drafted, but I have spent way too much time defending Isiah Thomas today (any time is too much time) so I’ll just leave it here and let you enjoy your screeners.)

As noted, he made some very poor decisions, but he did understand the value of replenishing picks and was quite good at finding talent in the draft.

He was overrated as a drafter. Yes, Ariza, Chandler, and David Lee were all good picks for late in first round/early second. Nate, too, I suppose. But he also took Channing Frye over Andrew Bynum and Danny Granger, and then he took Renaldo freaking Balkman over Rajon Rondo and Kyle Lowry, followed in the same draft by Mardy Collins over Steve Novak, PJ Tucker, and Paul Millsap.

Basically, he had a decent track record of finding role players, but it wasn’t like he was unearthing hidden future stars.

And that was the thing he was by far the best at.