Missing NY Sports Media

The terrible New York Knicks and the awesomely feisty local media environment in New York City is truly a match made in heaven. It's mighty hard, after all, to imagine anything prompting this lede from a DC paper:

NO BULL, KNICKS CAN'T TAKE CHICAGO LIGHTLY
By MIKE PUMA
December 14, 2007 -- Isiah Thomas wears rose colored glasses to protect his eyes from permanent damage. As president and coach of this catastrophe, it's safer to stare into the sun and count to a thousand than watch the Knicks without those glasses.

Right on. People used to hearing about the Knicks being bad may be overlooking the fact that they're actually considerably worse this season. Last year, they were 17th in offense and 24th in defense (in efficiency terms). The year before that, they were 25th in offense and 26th in defense. This year they're 26th in offense -- a new low! But they're also dead last in defense -- another new low! In short, they're really, really, really terrible and there's essentially no end in sight.

Comments

Why haven't they fired Isaiah? It's incomprehensible.

Posted by Jasper | December 14, 2007 5:41 PM

I haven't really been following the situation very closely, but what are the explanations for why Thomas hasn't been fired yet?

Posted by blah | December 14, 2007 5:42 PM

The explanation for why Isaiah hasn't been fired yet can be summarized in two words:

Jim. Dolan.

Anyway, who could have imagined that their defense would have gotten worse by bringing in Zach Randolph. It's a shocker, I know.

As to the offense, the big question coming in was whether Curry and Randolph could co-exist. The answer appears to be no. Curry has been signficantly worse this year than last. Meanwhile, their best player last year - David Lee - has seen his minutes decreased by over 4 per game from last year, with an even greater decrease in production.

Posted by Al | December 14, 2007 5:51 PM

Obviously, by not firing Isaiah, they are throwing the rest of the league into confusion. Now all that remains is to turn this to their tactical advantage.

Posted by Njorl | December 14, 2007 6:01 PM

Yeah - who would have guessed that Zach Randolph would make the Knicks worse? How about every single Blazer fan....

And what a year the Blazers have had so far - talk about a streaky team. Currently on a 5 game win streak with the struggling Jazz in town tonight.

Posted by Tiparillo | December 14, 2007 6:03 PM

"The explanation for why Isaiah hasn't been fired yet can be summarized in two words: Jim. Dolan."

Indeed.

The cossacks work for the czar.

-----

I am surprised with quite how bad the Knicks are this year. The Starbury situation has really taken all the air out of their sails.

If I were smarter than I am, I would've interpreted those weird Steph interviews this past summer as a serious sign of trouble. Well, that and the Anucha circus...

My favorite part of this year is that with Steph's dad dropping dead due to the MSG boos during a game, the Knicks' nervous breakdown now has a body count. I know. I'm a bad person.

They have a problematic but promising roster. But they've never been able to get past the distractions this year from day 1. Remember that training camp was all about Anucha.

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 6:05 PM

as a matter of fact, petey, you aren't just surprised: didn't you call the knicks to make the playoffs?

and admittedly, as little as i like marbury's game, they're even worse without him.

But Al has put his finger on my biggest concern: David Lee's reduced minutes (i actually expected his rebounding to drop off with a good rebounder like randolph around, and indeed, his rebounds-per-minute is at his career level). Were i coaching the knicks, i'd go ahead and start randolph in the middle (since neither he nor curry is a good defender, it doesn't much matter, and at least, as i noted, randolph rebounds) and lee at the 4 and use curry as my sixth man (red auerbach always said that your first substitution should be to improve your offensive capabilities), either to spell randolph or curry or to go big and have lee play the 3 spot.

they'd still be a lousy team but i think they'd get a little more out of the randolph-curry-lee troika....

Posted by howard | December 14, 2007 6:12 PM

Come on, Petey. Everyone predicted that putting Randolph and Curry on the same front line would be a disaster. They don't have a "promising" roster at all. Curry by himself might be a promising player, but really, he's getting a little old to be judged on potential. You don't really want a center who gets almost as many turnovers as rebounds. Blackman and Lee are promising in the sense that they could be good role players on good teams. The rest of the roster? I wouldn't take any of those players if you paid me. And there's no way I'd take ALL of them -- Q, Randolph, Curry, Marbury, Crawford and Nate Robinson are all ball hogs. Is it really surprising that a team with 4 shoot-first guards (none of whom is actually a very good shooter) is going to suck?

Posted by too many steves | December 14, 2007 6:13 PM

er, "either to spell randolph or lee or to go big...."

Posted by howard | December 14, 2007 6:14 PM

"as a matter of fact, petey, you aren't just surprised: didn't you call the knicks to make the playoffs?"

I was most definitely overbullish on the Knicks this year.

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 6:15 PM

"Q, Randolph, Curry, Marbury, Crawford and Nate Robinson are all ball hogs."

Yup.

Q and Marbury are semi-worthless. Z-Bo, Curry, Nate, and Crawford have worth.

"Blackman and Lee are promising in the sense that they could be good role players on good teams."

Yup.

I thought there was a stew to be made out of players who can play with the ball and player who don't need the ball. I appear to have been proven wrong.

As stated, I don't think they've ever had a chance to mesh this year due to the distractions. That doesn't make me any less wrong, but that's still how I see it. It's a roster with definite problems, but also some promise.

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 6:19 PM

I'm really glad the Knicks are horrible. I can only imagine once the big market Knicks become respectable that I'll be subjected to as many Knicks games as Lakers games on ESPN. God forbid LeBron James ever goes to NY...That will be the last time anyone sees a small market team no matter how well their playing (unless their playing LeBron's Knicks(c) or Kobe's Lakers(c)).

Posted by P | December 14, 2007 6:21 PM

"Were i coaching the knicks, i'd go ahead and start randolph in the middle (since neither he nor curry is a good defender, it doesn't much matter, and at least, as i noted, randolph rebounds) and lee at the 4 and use curry as my sixth man"

Makes sense to me. Or vice versa with Z-Bo and Curry.

Part of the problem is that Anucha seemed to have made Zeke feel that he couldn't take any chances at the beginning of the season, which prevented the bold experimentation necessary to making the roster work.

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 6:23 PM

Yeah, I think I'd try Curry off the bench too. I've been wondering, actually, if there is any way that Isaiah might trade Curry. (The Nets will take him - Isaiah can have anybody on the Nets roster other than the big three and Sean Williams.)

Posted by Al | December 14, 2007 6:31 PM

Often times, to my undying shame, I buy the Post. It's a quarter, it's pithy and the tabloid format makes it much easier to read on the subway than the Times. Of course though, you know, it is the worst paper in the entire world, save maybe the boston herald or Pravda or something.

The one brightspot is their sports coverage. If you can make your way through the virulently anti-Spitzer news pages, the Malkin-centric Op-Ed pages, the the unseemly sensational arts pages, well then you get to enjoy the delectable dessert of snarky, bunfungoo-esque sports commentary.

Posted by bend | December 14, 2007 6:33 PM

A little context, this is the kind of coverage you get when you treat the local media like shit

Posted by Pooh | December 14, 2007 6:48 PM

Yeah, that article is really amazing, isn't it Pooh? Isola's an excellent reporter. It's unbelieveable that they'd treat him that way - I mean, having a security guard follow him around while he does his job? Yikes.

Posted by Al | December 14, 2007 7:06 PM

The explanation for Thomas's continued employment is a little more complicated than just "Jim Dolan." If that were the only thing at work, then David Stern would have taken charge by now and forced the issue, because Thomas and the Knicks are major embarrassments to the league even discounting the team's play. The critical factor holding him back is Thomas's profligate spending on boxes of Cheetoes, or whatever else it is that makes up the Knicks' roster.

The rest of the league makes an awful lot of money off of the luxury taxes imposed on the Knicks without any worry that the Knicks might actually contend; that helps them put up with an awful lot of embarrassment. Essentially Dolan paid the rest of the league a $45,000,000 bribe this season in order to be allowed to keep Isaiah on the payroll. If you were wondering why losing an $11,000,000 lawsuit didn't get him fired, keep that in mind.

When you count luxury tax, lawsuits, lost revenues from disgusted fans, and salary, the Knicks are paying something like $75,000,000+ this year for the privilege of employing Isaiah. Essentially this relationship between Dolan and Thomas has morphed into by far the most ludicrous contract in the history of sports, rivaling the worst excesses of bad contracts for money managers.

On the other hand, if the Knicks get any worse they'll actually be fun to watch again, in a very macabre, paper-bag-over-the-head, reveling-in-the-disaster kind of way.

Posted by R Johnston | December 14, 2007 7:07 PM

"If that were the only thing at work, then David Stern would have taken charge by now and forced the issue"

The cossack works for the czars.

The commissioner works for the owners. If an owner wants to drive his franchise into the ground, Stern has little recourse.

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 7:14 PM

"Yeah, that article is really amazing, isn't it Pooh? Isola's an excellent reporter. It's unbelieveable that they'd treat him that way - I mean, having a security guard follow him around while he does his job? Yikes."

Yup. Good piece. The behavior really is pathological.

There is a Citizen Kane type movie to be made about the Dolans.

Along with that piece, I'd HIGHLY recommend this piece on Dolan.

Dave, this company rips the bones from your back:
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap.
You should have got out while you were young....
Because I have something to tell you: I'm Chuck Do-lan's son!

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 7:22 PM

"If that were the only thing at work, then David Stern would have taken charge by now and forced the issue"

The cossack works for the czars.

The commissioner works for the owners. If an owner wants to drive his franchise into the ground, Stern has little recourse.

The point is that he works for all the owners, not just Dolan, and he has broad disciplinary powers that certainly could have been used to suspend Isaiah from the league for, for example, the sexual harassment debacle much as the MLB commissioner suspended Steinbrenner back in the day.

The Knicks are costing the league a lot of revenue through the failure to capitalize on the New York market and the devaluation of a marquee franchise. In the end that's money out of every owner's pocket. If not for the luxury tax bribe being paid by the Dolans, the rest of the owners would almost certainly support a suspension of Isaiah, if not actually demand it. Stern has taken harsh measures against players and teams for far less that what he's ignoring now.

Posted by R Johnston | December 14, 2007 7:54 PM

"If not for the luxury tax bribe being paid by the Dolans, the rest of the owners would almost certainly support a suspension of Isaiah"

He could certainly suspend Zeke for 7 games, luxury tax or no. But I'm not sure what that would accomplish for anyone.

Stern would need to remove Jim Dolan from operations of the team to make things better, and he doesn't have that option.

Other owners would certainly not support serious action against one of their own under any circumstances, for rather obvious reasons. Jim Dolan could kill a man, buy off the jury, and be back operating the Knicks on Monday.

(There was a rumor that Stern asked Chuck Dolan to take the team back from his son at the start of the season, Dolan refused, and that was the end of that.)

Posted by Petey | December 14, 2007 8:04 PM

Petey, you were arguing that Thomas was a brilliant genius and we were just too dimwitted to see his master plan. Remember that?

Posted by Barbar | December 14, 2007 8:37 PM

The key is to start reading the Post from the back. That way, on a good sports day, you never have to read any other part of the paper before your stop, even if it's in Brooklyn.

Posted by Delicious Pundit | December 14, 2007 9:59 PM

This is what I don't get about the NBA; how the hell does someone with knowledge of basketball ever come to the conclusion that Marbury is worth the contract he was offered?

Posted by Will Allen | December 15, 2007 11:42 AM

The most recent horrible decision at a fork in the road was last year when Jim Dolan extended Isiah's contract with about fifteen games left in the season. Since that time:

1. The Knicks fell apart down the stretch (about 5-10), missing the playoffs by a wide margin. To be fair, there were a lot of injuries down the stretch (Crawford, Lee, Q), but the team seemed to pack it in mentally as soon as Isiah got his extension.

2. Isiah traded for Zach Randolph without shipping out Curry. At the time the trade was announced, everyone said that this would make a bad defensive team worse. It did.

3. The Knicks embarrassed themselves (and the NBA) in the Brown Title VII suit.

4. Isiah feuded with Marbury, which led to Marbury walking out. Isiah then asked the rest of the team whether Marbury should play when he returned. To a man, the Knicks voted that he should not. Undaunted, Isiah played Marbury the first game back. The Knicks on-court effort has dropped to sloth-like levels since then.

If Dolan simply had waited to the end of last season to make his call on Isiah, and then fired him when the team failed to make the playoffs, none of 1-4 would have happened. A new GM and coach would have been faced with re-building a team with multiple deadweight contracts (Rose, Marbury, Jeffries, James and Francis), a few prospects with flaws (Channing Frye, Curry, Robinson), a few flawed but servicable players (Crawford and Richardson) and two low priced hustle and rebound guys (Balkman and David Lee).

Posted by Ephus | December 15, 2007 12:26 PM

"Petey, you were arguing that Thomas was a brilliant genius"

No. I don't think I was ever arguing that Thomas was a "brilliant genius" as GM, just that his basic blueprint for how to rebuild the Knicks without going through the draft made basic sense.

My pretty constant POV has been that Thomas was an average GM and an above average coach. The second part of that POV is obviously in doubt at the moment, though, given how the team has fallen to pieces this season.

Posted by Petey | December 15, 2007 2:18 PM

"Why haven't they fired Isiah? It's incomprehensible."

Maybe they haven't found another venerated minor league for him to ruin. If I were the Charlotte Checkers and Wheeling Nailers I'd be pretty nervous right now.

Posted by ThresherK | December 15, 2007 5:00 PM