Happy Anniversary Isiah Thomas

[heyabbott]

Thomas replaced Scott Layden as Knicks president four years ago today and inherited a team that was 10-18 and hadn't won a playoff game since 2001. However, since Thomas took over the Knicks, they have yet to win a playoff game and are on pace to miss the postseason for the fourth straight year.

Record-wise, he even falls short of Layden; the Knicks were 171-185 during Layden's four-plus seasons, which includes a 50-32 record with the team he inherited for the 1999-2000 season. The Knicks are 126-200 during Thomas' tenure as team president. Also, the only year the Knicks made the playoffs under Thomas - 2004 - they did so with mostly Layden's players.

The absolute worst head coach and general manager in professional sports. Matt Millen deserves the Nobel Prizes in Sports and Peace compared to this defective cretin. PLEASE god, keep him employed with the Knicks, watching the miserable excuse for a human fail is a wonderful Christmas present. One of the dumbest and most ignorant people employed today is Isiah Thomas.

 

[Starman]

Matt Millen is as bad a GM; happily, we haven't seen him coach yet.

Isiah Thomas has failed at every single thing he has ever done in his life that doesn't actually involve playing basketball.

First-ballot Hall of Fail-er.

 

[brettwatson]

It would be interesting to poll fans of the CBA -- where he ran the league into the ground -- and the Knicks and see who hates him the most.

 

[sportschick]

I hate him, and I'm neither a CBA fan nor a Knicks fan. That asshat wasted the Pacers team he coached. ****tarded idiot.

 

[brettwatson]

I'd bet he will be gone by the All Star break. Probably a decent gig for whoever replaces him (assuming Zeke doesn't stick around in the front office and continue to muck things up).

They will have to clear out the roster and the first year or two will be bleak. But the expectations will be low. And anyone with a pulse will look better than IT.

Can't imagine it's going real well for Thomas on the home front either in the aftermath of the lawsuit which revealed his apparent low regard for women.

 

[PhantomPunch]

Two asshats in this story.

And Johnette Howard teed off on that yesterday:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-sphow215509786dec21,0,181784.column?coll=ny_sports_basketball_knicks_head_1

 

[hockeybeat]

I'd bet he will be gone by the All Star break. Probably a decent gig for whoever replaces him (assuming Zeke doesn't stick around in the front office and continue to muck things up).

They will have to clear out the roster and the first year or two will be bleak. But the expectations will be low. And anyone with a pulse will look better than IT.

Can't imagine it's going real well for Thomas on the home front either in the aftermath of the lawsuit which revealed his apparent low regard for women.

It ain't going well for Zeke, but he won't go bye-bye until after the season ends. And that's if Daddy Dolan lays down the law to Junior.

 

[heyabbott]

Two asshats in this story.

And Johnette Howard teed off on that yesterday:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-sphow215509786dec21,0,181784.column?coll=ny_sports_basketball_knicks_head_1

Completely disagree with Howard. She's seems to blame Dolan for not putting Isiah out of his misery. Presumably because Howard thinks Thomas is too much of a man to quit.

Thomas asked for complete control and Dolan gave it to him. Thomas must be allowed to not only wallow in his own diseased excrement, but finish it all up. If Dolan is intentionally being sadistic towards Thomas, making him eat his own ****, then Dolan is the greatest owner of our generation. If Thomas quits, he's done forever. If he's fired, someone will pick him up someday.

The Garden should be chanting KEEP ZEKE!!!. It's the greatest show in town, watching a retarded assclown eat his own crap.

 

[beefncheddar]

It would be interesting to poll fans of the CBA -- where he ran the league into the ground -- and the Knicks and see who hates him the most.

The CBA had fans? I always thought he did everyone a favor by running that ship into an iceberg.

 

[heyabbott]

It would be interesting to poll fans of the CBA -- where he ran the league into the ground -- and the Knicks and see who hates him the most.

The CBA had fans? I always thought he did everyone a favor by running that ship into an iceberg.

He couldn't intentionally do that. If he ran the CBA into an iceberg it was because he was aiming for something else.

 

[PhantomPunch]

Two asshats in this story.

And Johnette Howard teed off on that yesterday:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-sphow215509786dec21,0,181784.column?coll=ny_sports_basketball_knicks_head_1

Completely disagree with Howard. She's seems to blame Dolan for not putting Isiah out of his misery. Presumably because Howard thinks Thomas is too much of a man to quit.

Thomas asked for complete control and Dolan gave it to him. Thomas must be allowed to not only wallow in his own diseased excrement, but finish it all up. If Dolan is intentionally being sadistic towards Thomas, making him eat his own ****, then Dolan is the greatest owner of our generation. If Thomas quits, he's done forever. If he's fired, someone will pick him up someday.

The Garden should be chanting KEEP ZEKE!!!. It's the greatest show in town, watching a retarded assclown eat his own crap.

Thomas' four years here have been marked by ridiculous spectacles as well as losses and bad judgment. He continues to show a baffling inability to assemble a balanced roster or mesh talent, manage the salary cap or hew to an operating philosophy over time. There has never been any steadying vision. Just ineptitude.

Howard makes it crystal clear that she considers Thomas a retarded assclown. The point of the column is that Dolan is an assclown himself, taking perverse pleasure at the expense of his team.

Everyone's in a lather in the holiday season, so the blood lust runs deep as the bad guy gets fed to the lions. But come on. It's perverse fun for a game or two, but now it's a public stoning, repeated game after game. If that's what you're marketing instead of Knicks games, let's hire O.J. Simpson as coach and put on a damn good public stoning.

The fans should realize that Dolan is making his players walk through the ****storm also, so everyone loses as long as it continues. Dolan should fire Thomas now and concentrate on a) building a winner again, and b) finding people who will run the franchise professionally and ethically.

I'm not a Knicks fan, and I'm firmly planted in the camp that thinks Thomas is an idiot and a fraud. But enough of this charade. Kick his ass out the door and move forward.

And who's dumb enough to give Thomas another NBA job?

 

[brettwatson]

Fans in CBA towns like Fort Wayne absolutely loved and supported their teams pre-Isiah. Not everyone can live in a metropolitan area. The Yakimas of the world threw a lot of love toward the league. Then IT came along and took away local ownership, which meant little to no promotion. And it went kaput, for awhile.

IT is Mr. Non-Midas. He could touch a piece of gold and it turns into crap.

 

[BYH]

I usually like Johnette Howard's work, but she came off as an Isiah sympathizer here. She used to cover the Pistons during Isiah's career and has written favorably of him before...which isn't a crime. She had great access to him in the 1980s and surely knows him better than anyone currently covering the team.

But he deserves NO sympathy for this. None. Just on basketball crimes alone, he deserve to dangle for all to see. He is even more deserving of taking every last licking once you take into account his, uhh, spotty record of interpersonal relations.

The irony, of coures, is that the only person in MSG who treats people worse than Zeke is piece of **** Jimmy Dolan. Just because that guy is Isiah's boss doesn't mean Isiah deserves sympathy though.

I hope the Knicks go 18-64 and I hope Isiah is the coach for every single second.

 

[heyabbott]

Two asshats in this story.

And Johnette Howard teed off on that yesterday:

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/sports/basketball/knicks/ny-sphow215509786dec21,0,181784.column?coll=ny_sports_basketball_knicks_head_1

Completely disagree with Howard. She's seems to blame Dolan for not putting Isiah out of his misery. Presumably because Howard thinks Thomas is too much of a man to quit.

Thomas asked for complete control and Dolan gave it to him. Thomas must be allowed to not only wallow in his own diseased excrement, but finish it all up. If Dolan is intentionally being sadistic towards Thomas, making him eat his own ****, then Dolan is the greatest owner of our generation. If Thomas quits, he's done forever. If he's fired, someone will pick him up someday.

The Garden should be chanting KEEP ZEKE!!!. It's the greatest show in town, watching a retarded assclown eat his own crap.

Thomas' four years here have been marked by ridiculous spectacles as well as losses and bad judgment. He continues to show a baffling inability to assemble a balanced roster or mesh talent, manage the salary cap or hew to an operating philosophy over time. There has never been any steadying vision. Just ineptitude.

Howard makes it crystal clear that she considers Thomas a retarded assclown. The point of the column is that Dolan is an assclown himself, taking perverse pleasure at the expense of his team.

Everyone's in a lather in the holiday season, so the blood lust runs deep as the bad guy gets fed to the lions. But come on. It's perverse fun for a game or two, but now it's a public stoning, repeated game after game. If that's what you're marketing instead of Knicks games, let's hire O.J. Simpson as coach and put on a damn good public stoning.

The fans should realize that Dolan is making his players walk through the ****storm also, so everyone loses as long as it continues. Dolan should fire Thomas now and concentrate on a) building a winner again, and b) finding people who will run the franchise professionally and ethically.

I'm not a Knicks fan, and I'm firmly planted in the camp that thinks Thomas is an idiot and a fraud. But enough of this charade. Kick his ass out the door and move forward.

And who's dumb enough to give Thomas another NBA job?

Why should you fire a guy who will continue to get paid? Historic incompetence and complete failure are insufficient grounds to break the contract. The only way Dolan can end this without having to pay Thomas is for Thomas to quit.

 

[heyabbott]

“I wanted to put together a team that was exciting for the fans to come and watch, a team that had some character and some guts, but also a team that you can grab a box of popcorn and grab a soda and enjoy the game. ”You want players and you want a team that people want to see. I think this is a team that when everyone is healthy and playing well, it can be an exciting team that people will want to see and talk about.” — February 15, 2004

“As long as I’m the president of basketball operations here in New York, I don’t see myself coaching the New York Knicks,” he said. “And I wish you would stop writing it or stop saying it, because that’s not going to happen while I’m here. — November 19, 2004

“I’ve been in pressure situations before.All my life has basically been about pressure, about having to get it done. And just because you say it publicly does not make me afraid of it or shy away from it. You got a job to do, go get it done.” - responding to the mandate by Dolan for significant progress — June 27, 2006

“To me, it’s win or die. And I literally mean death. I don’t mean walk away. I mean death. That’s how I approach it. And we got a job to do here, we’re going to get it done. I’m confident we got the right players, I’m confident we got the right people, and we’ll dig our way out of this. — December 11

 

[Pete Incaviglia]

I have a friend who staunchly defends Zeke. It makes me sick to my stomach to argue Zeke's ineptitude with him.

Even with the original post sent to him, he says the stats presented here are skewed in favour of Layden.

 

[ThomsonONE]

I have a friend who staunchly defends Zeke.

You need to find a new friend because this one is a complete idiot.

 

[Lugnuts]

I love Johnette's work. She has a great, unpretentious voice in her writing.

I don't agree with her points in that column, but it made me think: Is Dolan doing this to Thomas as a punishment for the $11 million sexual harassment debacle?

I think it's possible he's pissed and letting him twist.

 

[PhilaYank36]

This is all everyone needs to know about the Knicks: as long as Jimmy Dolan is running the show, they will ALWAYS be pathetic. Any other owner would have had the good sense NOT to hire Thomas in the first place. The thing about Dolan is that he fancies himself as the next George Steinbrenner, only he doesn't realize that he lacks the competence or killer instinct.

As despotic as Steinbrenner was in the early days, I don't recall any stories about Yankees staffers following around beat guys with clip-board, writing down every little thing that went down. And also unlike Steinbrenner, Dolan gave out huge contracts to players who CLEARLY didn't deserve them. At least in most instances, free agent busts on the Yanks either had a track record of prior usefulness or put in a quality year or two.

So the first step for a Knicks redemption is to purge the organization of Thomas and all his hallmarks. Cut Marbury -- regardless of the money they'd have to eat -- trade Curry and Randolph and get character guys to save the careers of David Lee and Renaldo Balkman. They don't have to be good. They just have to bring good attitudes and play hard every single game, without exception.

Then, once if that happens, either Dolan's father or David Stern have to intervene and wrestle control away from Jimmy. Yes, I realize that the previous statement is much easier said than done, but I just can't fathom Dolan reaching some sort of enlightenment or nirvana. That is one dog who cannot learn any new tricks.

 

[heyabbott]

I love Johnette's work. She has a great, unpretentious voice in her writing.

I don't agree with her points in that column, but it made me think: Is Dolan doing this to Thomas as a punishment for the $11 million sexual harassment debacle?

I think it's possible he's pissed and letting him twist.

I would love to believe he's that smart and calculating. Letting the dumb ******* twist in the wind and exposing him as a moron and a fraud seems beyond little Dolan's abilities. Maybe it's being done on orders from father Dolan.
If Isiah wants his money, let him work for it like the crack ***** he comes from. Merry Christmas.