The Worst Story a Knicks Fan Can Hear

WHY????!!????

It’s been more than 2 years and almost all signs of the Isiah Thomas era in New York have been wiped away. Just as things are starting to look good for the Knicks and the expectations are as high as they’ve been in a decade, James Dolan brings back the one person guaranteed to ruin everything. The Knicks re-hired Isiah Thomas as a consultant.

There is absolutely NO reason for this to happen. The only way one can look at this optimistically is that he is consulting on draft picks for the Knicks. The one thing right that he did in his reign of terror was make good draft picks low in the draft. In the 2004 Draft he selected Trevor Ariza with the 43rd pick. In 2005 he drafted Channing Frye (8th overall), David Lee (30th), and traded 
for the draft rights to Nate Robinson. In 2006 he drafted Renaldo Balkman (20th). Finally, in 2007 he drafted Wilson Chandler (23rd). Especially considering the picks the Knicks had, these are all very quality picks who, for the most part, became solid players. Unfortunately, what he did wrong strongly overshadowed the small things he did right.

The Worst of the Worst

It pains me to go through it, but in order to show how preposterous this move is, it’s time to go through the worst moves Isiah made as a member of the Knicks front office.

Not only did he trade with Phoenix for Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway while giving up Charlie Ward, Antonio McDyess, 3 other players, a 2004 1st round pick (16th overall), and a 2010 1st round pick (9th overall). Not only did he sign legendary coach Larry Brown to a 5 years/$50 million contract only to fire him 1 season later. Not only did he sign Jerome James, a 7 footer whose best averages in the 5 seasons before joining the Knicks were 4.2 rpg and 5.2 ppg, to a 5 year/$30 million contract as he averaged 22 games per season in the 4 years he played with the Knicks (although he did make sure the Knicks got their moneys worth on that stationary bike). Not only did he trade for Eddy Curry, who at the time was 7 feet tall and over 300 pounds and averaged 11.8 ppg and 4.9 rpg (that’s right, FOUR POINT NINE REBOUNDS PER GAME) with the Bulls, for a handful of players as well as their 2006 1st round pick and a swap of 1st round picks in 2007 (In 2006 that was the #2 pick which turned out to be LaMarcus Aldridge, in 2007 that was the 9th overall pick where the Bulls selected Joakim Noah). Not only did he create a Knicks team with a $130 million payroll that lead to the 2nd worst team in the NBA that season. Not only did he trade Trevor Ariza and Penny Hardaway to the Orlando Magic for Steve Francis in an effort to team up two of the most selfish point guards in the NBA, which quickly backfired as everyone realized there were not enough basketballs on the court to satisfy the two of them. Not only did he trade for Zach Randolph in an effort to pair up two overweight, self-centered centers which, like with the point guard experiment, quickly blew up in his face (He must have forgot, again, that only one basketball is allowed on the court). But as the icing on the cake, Isiah was accused of sexual harassment by Knicks employee Anucha Brown Sanders. Brown Sanders sued Thomas and MSG and the case went to trial. In the end, James Dolan, not Isiah Thomas, had to pay Brown Sanders $11.6 million to settle.

FIU

Isiah Thomas is currently the head coach at Florida International University. In his 1st season there, the team went 7-25. It seems like in order to fulfill his duties to lead FIU to success, he is going to need to focus his attention on coaching and recruiting. This, however, he cannot do if he is spending his spare time consulting with the Knicks. 

In addition, the NCAA has to step in because there has to be something wrong with this hiring. Being a head coach in college basketball and being a consultant for the Knicks has to create a massive conflict of interest. The NCAA prohibits people from having jobs with both the NCAA and professional sports teams. Even though this may be only a part time job, there is no way the NCAA can allow this to happen without going against their own rules.

What It May Lead To

The Knicks are looking for a person to hire as general manager and rumor has it that this consulting job for Isiah will eventually lead to him being named GM. Why on earth would anyone in the Knicks front office want to have this man making the decisions that a GM has to make. As outlined before, Isiah clearly has no idea what a good trade or signing would be if it came up and punched him in the face. To sign this man to such an important job would undo everything Donnie Walsh did in fixing Thomas’ mess and all the big moves Donnie did this off season.

The bottom line is, nobody seems have any idea why the Knicks would subject themselves to this.