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Zeke: I Hope LBJ Comes To NYC

by Ben Kopelman on February 2nd, 2010 at 4:33 pm

Via the NY Post:

“Despite all the turmoil Isiah Thomas faced with the Knicks, the former head coach and team president would recommend that LeBron James join the team.

“Thomas, in a wide-ranging interview on WFAN this morning, says he’s like any other New York fan when it come to LeBron.

“I think, like all of us, we hope that he is in a Knicks uniform,” Thomas said on the “Boomer & Carton Show.”

“Asked if he would recommend the Knicks to James, Thomas said, “If Jim Dolan owns the team, because I know he looks out for the players, looks out for the franchise. Everything is first-class and above. I don’t think there is an organization or team that treats his players and keeps an environment good better than Jim does.”

You can listen to the entire interview here.

It’s not all that surprising that Isiah feels this way.

True, Isiah got booed by the fans when his name was introduced on a nightly basis, but his boss, James Dolan, has always had his back.  This isn’t Larry Brown we’re talking about.

Isiah fumbled his chance with the Knicks (to put it lightly), but the turbulent relationship he had with the city and the fans doesn’t seem to have turned him off from the town too much.

Whether his LBJ endorsement has any clout, on the other hand, remains to be seen…
  • starksoakmase

    it was interesting interview, Boomer and carton did a good job, asking all the questions.

    I just want to throw out this question.
    If we can all be honest, which moves made by Thomas did you support at the time and which did you disapprove of? It would be good if we can go back in time for a moment and say what we really thought of those moves before we had the benefit of hindsight.

  • EQ1217

    Besides Marbury (I applauded Isiah at the time for this move), I did not support any of his trades or free agent signings.

    Curry – two 1st rounders for a player his former team did not even want.
    Crawford was OK – but his salary was too high
    Francis, JJ1, JJ2 – brutal

  • joetheknick

    I supported Isiah and I supported most of his moves. What is disappointing is that I thought Isiah and his staff had the ability to put together a team. The moves he made did not resukt in putting together a team. What was the plan? Looking back most of the moves just did not work out. Did we really need an Isiah to get the result that we got. I don’t think so.

  • starksoakmase

    Obviously Thomas was a great drafter. except I felt he chose Frye over Bynum because he felt the pressure and didn’t want to wait for the Highschooler to develop.

    I liked the Marbury trade.homegrown guy, can turn around his career, yada yada yada. the first pick was out of the lottery and I didnt think the knicks would still be out of the playoffs by 2010.

    I like the Crawford trade. Killer instict guy, not afraid to take the big shot.

    The summer of 2006 was strange. Very good draft. frye, Nate, Lee. Then he signs Jerome. Um hmm…..a lot for a guy who had only one good playoff series, but ok I guess, we need a center. but then a couple of weeks later he gives up everything for Curry. Then I was kind of pissed. Why get James if you are going to get Curry anyways? Didnt like that at all, but i have to admit Ididnt think the pick were going to be #8 and #2 respectively.

    Sprinkle in a junk yard dog, a Davis and a Francis and that spells disaster.

    A couple of the other seemingly bad deals got the knicks draft picks. (Jalen Rose, the PF from Houston Maurice I think(drawing a blank). I could live with them.

    Thoughts…..

  • J_Starks3

    I know Thomas made a lot of mistakes but the one thing that I can remember is when the Marbury trade was announce I was extremely happy. We finally had a all-star PG. I didn’t care what he gave up to get him. Marbury was still young and the sky was the limit. Remember that Marbury was once traded for Jason Kidd!!!! now that I think of it it’s kinda tragic how his playing career ended because he is just flat out CRAZY!!!!

    On a side note I figure I can share this story with you guys.

    A few years back I used to promote a night in club Cheetah (I don’t know if it’s still named that) and had a couple of buddies with me. After club closing hours we hoped on my little two door “93 Celica (which for those who don’t know was a pretty fast car) and start driving north on the west side hwy. At the last light before it becomes a hwy I see a car that I can’t recognize (still to this date I think that it was a Ferrari but my buddies disagree) and pull up next to it. It was Mr. Starbury himself with another guy on the passenger seat. we start to yell at him to come to the Knicks (he was with NJN at the time) and that we needed him and that NJ was a swamp and everything else our intoxicated minds can come up with. Well he got tired of hearing it and rolled his window up and took off. Me…….I tried to make it a race (silly me) but he went 0 to 90 in like 7 seconds or less (no pun intended………….actually pun intended). However he slowed down. I don’t know why because there are no hwy patrol around that area (if your from the NYC you know the west side hwy is the place to race). I eventually caught up to him again but drive by him going like 80 and turned my blinkers on (this is a sign that I win an unofficial race) but when I looked in my rearview again he drove right by me. We did this like 3 times on our way to the GW bridge to NJ. I had to take one of my buddies there anyway. That was the last time I saw his silver car because he got tired of playing.

    Cheesy story maybe but it’s my cheesy story.