Monday, April 21, 2008
Isiah's Day of Reckoning
"I just believe a new voice, a new coach, is necessary to change the direction of the team."
With that statement from last Friday, New York hoops fans can feel free to come out from their caves and from under their rocks. Take the brown paper bags off your heads and rejoice. The slasher movie villain with the devilish grin they called "Zeke" has finally been taken off our big screens once and for all. Surely now, the Knicks will swiftly rise back to their Patrick Ewing-era status and become an elite team contending for a title in 2009.
Right. Who am I kidding?
Before I move on, I feel this is a moment worth reveling in, even if only for another paragraph. Isiah Thomas was a man who sometimes felt too comfortable in his position even though we never wanted him to be. He was an inept coach and poor motivator who has not been successful at any job since he last took No. 11 off his back in 1994. What he talked about doing and what he did were often two amusingly different stories. He condoned and seemingly encouraged brawling and violence against opposing players if he felt it necessary to provide a 'spark.' He had a devilish ate-the-canary smile that gave you the idea that he felt he could get away with anything he wished. There seemed not to be even the slightest hint of any moral code or accountability from the man. Certainly, Anucha Browne Sanders could attest to that. Thank you, Knicks front office, this day was long overdue.
Now, while the canning of Isiah was just what we begged for and very much needed, obviously there is so much more to be done. Many have already forgotten that Isiah Thomas did not actually get the Knicks into this mess. He just mixed in some blood and guts on top of the mess that already existed.
If you can think all the way back to the 2001-02 season (which seems so hard for most to do despite the fact that fans can all very easily hearken back to the Ewing days ... funny how time works) the Knicks, who still had Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Marcus Camby, and Kurt Thomas, fell into the tank in a hurry. Beloved coach Jeff Van Gundy realized the team was beyond help and resigned. It was this team that still had much of the tried-and-true talent from the 1999 NBA finalists that fell upon what announcer Marv Albert famously called "the point of embarrassment" during a live broadcast in yet another blowout loss at home.
The comment got Marv fired as the Knicks announcer because owner James Dolan found it to be too negative. Dolan has also famously gone to great lengths to make lives miserable for New York beat writers who generally tend to write negative columns about a team headed in a negative direction. Unfortunately, while Isiah is no longer a threat to ruin the team's season, perhaps the main problem with the Knicks organization is the fat cat at the top.
Not only has Dolan made rash, quick-fix decisions, thrown obscene and unnecessary amounts of money at players and coaches who could not get the job done, he also gives off the feeling of a dictator and a corrupt politician rolled into one. When the fans relentless screams to "Fire Isiah" became intolerable, Dolan finally obliged and hired an executioner of sorts named Donnie Walsh to do just that. Perhaps he did this to spare himself the embarrassment of firing the man whom he himself had put so much stock in. Sadly, Walsh cannot strap Dolan in the chair, as well.
What this does, however, is it allows someone other than the incompetent Dolan to figure out the team's basketball-related decisions, which is a great step. The team still needs a coach, a general manager (why Walsh does not don that hat himself remains a mystery to us all), and some way to make up for all the precious salary cap space and draft picks lost.
One ray of hope is that announced among potential candidates for the coaching job are former Knick Mark Jackson and former coach Jeff Van Gundy. While Jeff would be the ideal choice for his smarts, work ethic, and link to past team success, Mark Jackson proves an intriguing choice, as well. Detractors will say he is relatively young for a coach and has no actual experience on the sideline. They say he may get overwhelmed with the massive task at hand, and they could very well be right. But I ask you, who wouldn't?
Mark is a bright basketball mind who has proven that on his ESPN duties doing color commentary and studio analysis. He has proven to be a stand-up man with strong convictions and strong character, and yet can still be charismatic enough for the modern athlete to be able to relate to him.
Then there is the matter of the general manager position. There is a very simple solution to this, one in which I cannot think of any other alternative: Jerry West. The man once nicknamed Mr. Clutch has been money in the bank just as often with his personnel decisions. West is responsible for creating the Kobe/Shaq tandem that was so good they won three championships, despite the fact that they hated each other.
West also went to Memphis, took an awful Grizzlies team, and made them into 50-game winners in only his second year in 2004. This would be the first of three straight playoff appearances for the Grizz before West stepped down from the job in 2007. The Grizzlies organization, which has been around since 1995, has not been to the playoffs before or since those three years.
Finally, the roster needs to be overhauled. While there appears to be no shortage of raw talent on the Knicks, cohesiveness, leadership, and motivation all seem to be sorely lacking. While it is easy to name a number of players the team needs to be rid of (see Curry, Eddy and Marbury, Stephon), the more interesting question is, which players in this train-wreck can actually be a useful part of a winning team and should thus be kept? It is hard to tell when few of these players have even seen a winning season.
Enigmatic players such as Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford seem to be hard to project. Both are fearless, both very talented ball-handlers with a flair for the dramatic. However, Robinson's feistiness and apparent napoleon complex have been known to cause infighting. On the court, he often chooses to be flashy with the basketball rather than smart. Likewise, Crawford has been known to make a number of game-winning and buzzer-beating shots for the Knicks. However, Jamal has also been accused of taking too many bad shots and being a selfish player. Could you picture either or both of them making clutch plays or dagger shots for a team that actually wins? Or do you make them trade bait and hope for something better?
Lastly, who will they shop for to replace these players and how will they get anything of value in return for them? I will not even speculate on this. This is where you, the reader, get to play Knicks upper management in your head, and by all means, have a ball.
Mr. Walsh, that includes you, too. I must say, you sure have your work cut out for you.