Contender or pretender?
Knicks tip off season with lots of questions
BY FRANK ISOLA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
James L. Dolan again will spend more money on his players than any NBA owner this season, so if nothing else, the Madison Square Garden chairman has earned the right to dream a little.
On Friday, Dolan actually talked about the Knicks being a championship team in the very near future, which is something the Garden boss never said when Patrick Ewing was dominating the paint in New York. Apparently, it's taken Isiah Thomas only 10 months to turn Dolan into a true believer.
"You can't say it's going to be a long time because we have Isiah Thomas at the helm," Dolan said on WFAN's "Mike and the Mad Dog" program. "If you take a look at what he's done with this team since he's come on and the amount of improvement he's made, if he can just make as much improvement in the team (this) year that he's made in the last year then you would have to say to me that this will be a championship team."
Dolan has tickets to sell, which might explain his optimism. Even the most ardent Knick followers don't really believe their team is closing in on a championship. Most fans gladly would accept a trip to the second round of the playoffs, which is somewhere the Knicks haven't been since 2000.
Over the past three seasons the Knicks have won 30, 37 and 39 games, respectively, and have reached the postseason only once. They are certainly not a lock to win more than 41 games this season, which still may be enough to earn the Atlantic Division title.
On Wednesday, the Knicks open the 2004-05 season in Minnesota. They are soft at center and overloaded at shooting guard and small forward. Those are just some of the questions surrounding the Knicks and whether they are the legitimate contenders Dolan claims they are.
<LI>Will Lenny Wilkens survive the season? Most of the speculation regarding Wilkens' job security has been generated by Phil Jackson, Thomas and now Dolan. Wilkens, a Hall of Fame coach and player, deserves better. When Dolan was asked on Friday about Thomas pining to coach, he revealed that he would not stand in Thomas' way.
"I think Isiah makes good decisions for the team," he said. "If someday Isiah thinks that it's a good decision for him to coach, I'd probably (support the move)."
Such a move would not be surprising or unprecedented. Remember, the Garden's other tenant, the Rangers, were coached up until February by their team president, Glen Sather.
By his own admission, Thomas is more hands-on than most executives in the league. He is the face of the organization, and plenty of executives around the league are convinced Thomas will take over the coaching duties at some point this season.
As team president, Thomas has made a few internal moves that were necessary - banning all non-essential basketball personnel from the locker room and imposing a dress code, even on team charters to away games.
Other moves could be construed as undermining Wilkens' authority. It was Thomas who decided that the team will conduct game-day practices at the Garden, even though most of the players live near the team's training facility in Greenburgh, N.Y. Needless to say, some players aren't thrilled with the idea.
Pat Riley was the last Knicks coach to regularly hold game-day practices in Manhattan. But the one significant difference is that Riley was the coach. And who better than the coach to gauge the team's temperature each day and decide when and where it should practice?
It is also still debatable whether Shandon Anderson is being buried on the Knicks' bench because Wilkens doesn't think he can help or because Anderson had a highly publicized falling-out with Thomas.
Thomas has never tried to hide the fact that he loved coaching the Pacers and that coaching is in his blood. He will coach again one day, either here or somewhere else. That being said, Thomas also has given Wilkens a grace period by saying that a 10-10 record after 20 games would be satisfactory.
<LI>Can Thomas make any more big moves? No one knows better than Isiah that to emerge as a contender the Knicks need a legitimate superstar, preferably a big man. The best formula for the Knicks is to follow the one used by Miami last season: hope that several key players - Tim Thomas, Jamal Crawford, Stephon Marbury - overachieve and then use some of them to land a front-line big man.
Miami's success allowed the Heat to turn Lamar Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant into Shaquille O'Neal. Look for the Knicks to monitor Chris Webber's progress in Sacramento as well as Antoine Walker's in Atlanta. Vince Carter is also on Thomas' radar.
<LI>Will Allan Houston make a major contribution? He'd better if the Knicks want to advance to the second round. Houston has an impressive playoff resume: two conference finals and one NBA Final. More importantly, no one in the organization - Dolan, Thomas or Wilkens - knows what it takes to win in New York better than Houston.
Originally published on October 31, 2004 http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/247980p-212400c.html
see? I told you Knicks won't back off from a crazy, nonsense contract......Now don't get me wrong, all you Webber-haters or Webber-lovers, I'm not saying that we should or should not trade him, I'm just saying, if they wanna trade, the Knicks most likely would be the only one team to do that....
Knicks tip off season with lots of questions
BY FRANK ISOLA
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
James L. Dolan again will spend more money on his players than any NBA owner this season, so if nothing else, the Madison Square Garden chairman has earned the right to dream a little.
On Friday, Dolan actually talked about the Knicks being a championship team in the very near future, which is something the Garden boss never said when Patrick Ewing was dominating the paint in New York. Apparently, it's taken Isiah Thomas only 10 months to turn Dolan into a true believer.
"You can't say it's going to be a long time because we have Isiah Thomas at the helm," Dolan said on WFAN's "Mike and the Mad Dog" program. "If you take a look at what he's done with this team since he's come on and the amount of improvement he's made, if he can just make as much improvement in the team (this) year that he's made in the last year then you would have to say to me that this will be a championship team."
Dolan has tickets to sell, which might explain his optimism. Even the most ardent Knick followers don't really believe their team is closing in on a championship. Most fans gladly would accept a trip to the second round of the playoffs, which is somewhere the Knicks haven't been since 2000.
Over the past three seasons the Knicks have won 30, 37 and 39 games, respectively, and have reached the postseason only once. They are certainly not a lock to win more than 41 games this season, which still may be enough to earn the Atlantic Division title.
On Wednesday, the Knicks open the 2004-05 season in Minnesota. They are soft at center and overloaded at shooting guard and small forward. Those are just some of the questions surrounding the Knicks and whether they are the legitimate contenders Dolan claims they are.
<LI>Will Lenny Wilkens survive the season? Most of the speculation regarding Wilkens' job security has been generated by Phil Jackson, Thomas and now Dolan. Wilkens, a Hall of Fame coach and player, deserves better. When Dolan was asked on Friday about Thomas pining to coach, he revealed that he would not stand in Thomas' way.
"I think Isiah makes good decisions for the team," he said. "If someday Isiah thinks that it's a good decision for him to coach, I'd probably (support the move)."
Such a move would not be surprising or unprecedented. Remember, the Garden's other tenant, the Rangers, were coached up until February by their team president, Glen Sather.
By his own admission, Thomas is more hands-on than most executives in the league. He is the face of the organization, and plenty of executives around the league are convinced Thomas will take over the coaching duties at some point this season.
As team president, Thomas has made a few internal moves that were necessary - banning all non-essential basketball personnel from the locker room and imposing a dress code, even on team charters to away games.
Other moves could be construed as undermining Wilkens' authority. It was Thomas who decided that the team will conduct game-day practices at the Garden, even though most of the players live near the team's training facility in Greenburgh, N.Y. Needless to say, some players aren't thrilled with the idea.
Pat Riley was the last Knicks coach to regularly hold game-day practices in Manhattan. But the one significant difference is that Riley was the coach. And who better than the coach to gauge the team's temperature each day and decide when and where it should practice?
It is also still debatable whether Shandon Anderson is being buried on the Knicks' bench because Wilkens doesn't think he can help or because Anderson had a highly publicized falling-out with Thomas.
Thomas has never tried to hide the fact that he loved coaching the Pacers and that coaching is in his blood. He will coach again one day, either here or somewhere else. That being said, Thomas also has given Wilkens a grace period by saying that a 10-10 record after 20 games would be satisfactory.
<LI>Can Thomas make any more big moves? No one knows better than Isiah that to emerge as a contender the Knicks need a legitimate superstar, preferably a big man. The best formula for the Knicks is to follow the one used by Miami last season: hope that several key players - Tim Thomas, Jamal Crawford, Stephon Marbury - overachieve and then use some of them to land a front-line big man.
Miami's success allowed the Heat to turn Lamar Odom, Caron Butler and Brian Grant into Shaquille O'Neal. Look for the Knicks to monitor Chris Webber's progress in Sacramento as well as Antoine Walker's in Atlanta. Vince Carter is also on Thomas' radar.
<LI>Will Allan Houston make a major contribution? He'd better if the Knicks want to advance to the second round. Houston has an impressive playoff resume: two conference finals and one NBA Final. More importantly, no one in the organization - Dolan, Thomas or Wilkens - knows what it takes to win in New York better than Houston.
Originally published on October 31, 2004 http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/247980p-212400c.html
see? I told you Knicks won't back off from a crazy, nonsense contract......Now don't get me wrong, all you Webber-haters or Webber-lovers, I'm not saying that we should or should not trade him, I'm just saying, if they wanna trade, the Knicks most likely would be the only one team to do that....