All Press Is Good Press?

Good post. I don’t really think the Isiah news qualifies as “news” like you said. Very baffling to say the least to make that public like they did, since he was essentially holding onto the same job he had after he was fired.

Really, it all comes back to Dolan. Maybe Walsh was involved too, he seems to really like giving guys second and third and even more chances(Isiah, Bender, Harrington). Either way, its a pretty classless move and reminds me of why the organization got into trouble in the first place. Which is bad ownership, unfortunately that never seems like it will change.

But, while troubling, this is not the end of the world or even necessarily bad news. It’s the same job he’s had, and I do think players look up to him and he’s a decent guy to have just in recruiting and maybe some talent scouting.

That’s it. Keep him away from management and I’m fine. If he even gets considered for the gm job, and if it’s really Dolan that has prevented Walsh from hiring Mullin, then it’s a real problem though. I really hope that isn’t the case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/sports/basketball/07araton.html?ref=sports

Araton just blasted them–and I totally agree with him.

Love this:

Nor did the Knicks’ brass: the big boss, James L. Dolan, known in N.B.A. circles as a clueless meddler who sings the blues; Donnie Walsh, whose Indiana teams made it to the finals all of once; and Mike D’Antoni, who carried a reputation as a fun guy to play for, just never in June.

And this:

In any capacity, nobody will cheer Thomas’s return to the Knicks, most of all the female employees in the Garden who haven’t forgotten the ugliness of the Anucha Browne Sanders sexual harassment trial, coming up on its three-year anniversary next month.

And much more….

This is another example of how Dolan doesn’t care about the fans.

I would think that if you are considered a laughing stock and all of the above by fans in the NBA you would be motivated to undo what has been done to your reputation. I’m sure these people have certain drives and motivation…they were NBA players. No one goes out to work and say yes I want to be horrible… Was it best to be done on this team…? I rather not see him because he right now has a certain stigma attach to his name. I’m just feeling kind of clueless now. That doesn’t stop me from supporting my team. Excited for this upcoming season.

That’s a pretty great article. Very well-written.

Interesting read on ESPN about the NCAA implications of Isiah being named a consultant:

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/14128/isiah-thomas-glaring-conflict-of-interest

“I mean, have you ever heard of another person being appointed as a team consultant?”

It’s not about the position it’s the person. I could care less about Mel Gibson but ive heard the tapes of him screaming at his chick the past 3 weeks. Mel is a drunk – you don’t hear about other regular drunks screaming at their old lady. Zeke is known as a cancer to our organization… If he took a job as consultant for the any other team it would still be “news”.

I was as big a zeke hater as anyone when he was the bmoc but i’m not phased. He’s making a living and he’s doing something he’s more qualified to do on the professional level

Yeah. It made me think about what a bad move this, in so many ways.

Yeah, good article, I wonder how the NBA can allow him to return too.

I really don’t see anything wrong with this move. Like the 1st poster above said, it’s neither good or bad news.

The only people making a big deal out of this is the media. Their the ones blowing it out of proportion. I’m happy for Isiah and I hope he gets his career back on track. People always ask, why would someone do this for Isiah? Here’s an answer….maybe he’s actually a nice guy.

exceelent point dvj in regard to the media. thomas was still working for the organization anyway….. so who calls if he now is simply labeled a consultant?

It’s funny how majority of posters dog out Zeke on this blog, and I wonder about their own character based on what’s being posted day after day! Sounds hypocritical! They know who they are that I’m talking about. It’s all good. However, I don’t want to get caught up with the drama like a bunch of women gossiping about day time stories! Let it go fellas and get back to talking ball!

Well, in all honesty , its a weird move and at the totally wrong time. The Isiah era is over and it just makes NYK franchise look like a club that doesn’t learn from its mistake .

IF we were in May …maybe Id understand but there is no draft upon us and we have seen what Donnie Walsh has done w/out his help and we are a better team for it

Only time will truly reveal what this move is really about.

Plus 1,000 I wanted to stay away from the irrational and boarder line racist hatred of this man! This guy is a great talent evaluator and has every right to earn a living and did great drafting for us. Was he the best GM no far from it but then again he did not ever have the “blow it up start from scratch” green light that Magoo had coming in. Add to that the fact you better damn well believe Magoo was more then fine with this because 1) he knows he sucks at drafting while Isiah is one of the best! 2) Magoo and Isiah are good friends so lets stop pretending magoo is being strong armed in to this!

Isiah is one of the 50 best players of all time and the prototype for most of todays high end PG’s so yes plenty of players look up to him.

Where was the outrage when Marv Albert went on a bitting attack of a hooker in a hotel room? roman polanski is a child molester who has been on the run for 2 decades and still won a freaking oscar! But Isiah gets lynched?

Like many other current and former athletes Isiah was a good pay day for a female looking for a quick buck! It was a civil not criminal case where a very unattractive chick scored some cash the same way that loon did with Kobe and a ton of other targeted guys! Bet any woman who really went through what she claimed happened would have fought her case in criminal court!! I mean c’mon have you seen that chick!?! A multimillionaire hall of fame well groomed man with legendary charm & charisma is dying to be with her?? lol.

Get off your high horse guys “let he without sin case the first stone” and all that! When I see the same venom and hatred going Layden’s way (the guy who destroyed the Knicks)then I will say there is no underlined racist element to the irrational over the top hatred for this guy!

“He couldn’t get LeBron, right?”

Nether did Magoo but he got 100 people in here making excuses that I said would be made 6 months ago!!

Here she is “C’mon guys really!”

http://www.sportaphile.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/anuncha-brown-sanders-isiah-thomas-katrina-looter.jpg

By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

“But getting an official title back with the Knicks has a special meaning, especially after his mother, Mary, passed away in January.

“I’m excited to work with the Knicks again,” Thomas said. “I wish my mom was still alive to see this.”"

What Isiah put NY Knick fans through was more incompetence than maliciousness.

Isiah was clearly horrible for the Knicks, but you got feel for the guy.

@blackwood…
I couldn’t agree with you anymore. There is an underlying racist attitude regarding Isiah. And great point about that unattractive woman who said he wanted her. I mean being realistic guys something stinks about that. Isiah is charming and has money. Do u really think he has to chase and harass this woman??? Really??? Take another look and ask yourself if that story is true. What bothers some of the kids here is that they cant understand why they hate Isiah and Dolan actually likes him. Look it has always been about Dolan get used to it guys.

Now I am getting censored how funny is that!!

Bottom line is no matter how bad things eventually turned out for Isiah, the team, and us Knick fans, things should have never gotten THAT bad. His indictment is fair but in his case, if it wasn’t for bad luck he’d had no luck at all.

1)His initial and signature move: Marbury should have played like someone somewhat grateful for the opportunity Zeke gave him and showed us Knick fans something other than an overpaid, classless, arrogant, loser with diminishing skills. None of us thought he could ever play that horrid.

2)The other guys that Isiah brought here: Aside from the draftee’s who truly excelled (Chandler/Lee…sorry Nate dunk contest trophy’s mean nothing)How is it that all of you managed to collectively play worse than anybody could have expected you all to. I mean aside from Curry’s 06-07 campaign (which had Isiah looking pretty good for a sec) and the pleasant surprise that Q-Rich could actually play some good defense and sort of be a leader, every single dude Isiah brought in via trade or free agency flat out BOMBED horribly.

3) The Media: The press had it out for him way before he stepped foot on 33rd street. It always made me laugh when they killed him for the CBA going under lol like anyone could have prevented that. Mark Berman and Frank Isola went to town on him daily.

4) Miss Saunders (“that *****”) lord knows she prob blew a lot of things out of proportion, not that I’m justifying here…just saying, if he was gm of a successful Knick team he’s prob getting away with a pimp slap and a lewd act at the MSG X-Mas party, no problem…and she still has a cushy job. Fact is, he was ripe for the picking at that point…unexpected self inflicted tough break Isiah, but a tough break reagrdless. Clearly he was on a roll at that point, no stopping him.

5) The aftermath…The reason all of us are shocked he’s still has a job and a title here in NY. How in gods name did this guy come out of this smelling nothing like a rose, but yet a flower of some sort nonetheless??? how lol? He is a survivor thats how. You have to give him that and nobody can say he hasn’t paid the price for all the losing, becuase he did. He took the media pounding like a champ and never let them turn his fake smile upside down once.

Truth is I like Zeke, since I was a kid, and I always will…as a player. While he should without a doubt take the blame for all his decision making as an executive, he got dealt prob the worse hand you could possibly get dealt…and we already had doubts the day he stepped foot in the garden. It was like a perfect storm of failure that I don’t think any of us thought could get as bad as it eventually did.

I’ll always curse him for how he left my Knicks, but I respect the man because he came through the fire and didn’t crawl under a rock like so many thought he would. I firmly believe he understands the passion of us Knick fans very well, and he could only be a true asset to a real elite PG like a Paul, should we get him down the line. I understand peoples frustrations with him, but its time to move on guys.

This is NYC, this is where people get these type second chances. And not for nothing, don’t be surprised if Zeke actually succeeds in the end…he’s kinda good at the whole winning thing.

Thanks Old Knick for being one of the few voices of reason & common sense in this Hateful & Venomous fire storm. It is just crazy how some rewrite history and edit facts only to stoke the flames of hate in certain people! It is very ugly that some can be so hateful and blind. BTW they just started censoring me from telling the truth on here.

I like your reading of this.

To me this is a bald-faced attempt to bolster up Isaiah’s image and nothing more, a personal favor.

Hopefully we can get some talent scouting out of it.

However it’s a bit distressing that Dolan cares about Isaiah’s image at the expense of the Knicks’ image.

“But, while troubling, this is not the end of the world or even necessarily bad news. It’s the same job he’s had, and I do think players look up to him and he’s a decent guy to have just in recruiting and maybe some talent scouting”

Ah but it is a bigger deal than just being “bad news”. It shows that the organization will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. From bad draft after bad draft, to trading all of our draft picks, to not committing to defense by the head coach, to keep IT around it is like a vicious cycle. Every time it seems like we take a step forward we take two back. This move was a real slap in the face to the fans. There was no reason for this.

I like the moves we made this summer. I like our flexibility going forward. Hopefully we will not keep making the same mistakes.

I said the same thing yesterday, just it not so many words.

“People always ask, why would someone do this for Isiah? Here’s an answer….maybe he’s actually a nice guy.”

I don’t necessarily think IT made sexual advances to ABS however I did follow that trial pretty closely. The one lesson I learned is that IT is not a “nice guy”.

I stick up for IT all the time, but he does not deserve another shot with the Knicks. His management skills here were deplorable. The way some of the female employees were treated were despicable. And he was the team president . . .totally unacceptable.

“It’s funny how majority of posters dog out Zeke on this blog, and I wonder about their own character based on what’s being posted day after day! Sounds hypocritical! They know who they are that I’m talking about”

None of the posters on this blog were the team president of the Knicks. Their is a major difference.

And the Knicks organization’s reputation is not “gossip”. It is a huge factor in whether major FAs will sign here. Just ask the Clippers or Bulls.

Some people may despise IT for racial reasons and obviously that is wrong.

I like IT the person and player. I have said numerous times that people should watch the Mary Thomas story before they judge him.

But he was horrible for the organization and its image. who, other than James Dolan, would give a person another shot who had made the kind of mistakes IT made.

This is probably ITs fourth or fifth chance. Not his second.

When I talk about IT being horrible for the Knicks that is strictly from a basketball perspective not as a person although the facts from the trial indicate he was not a “nice person.” He was a horrible team executive and made horrible basketball decisions.

A revolving door of coaches (Cheaney, Wilkins, Brown, himself and I believe Herb Williams) in just four years.

He gave out some of the worst contracts in league history in which he outbid himself (Curry, Jerome James, Jarred Jeffries) not to mention the ones he took on (Marbury, Hardaway, Zach Randolph).

The out of control payroll.

The complete incompetence of our medical staff (it was NY Mets bad).

The almost complete lack of a long term plan with the roster.

But worst of all was the atmosphere of sexual harrasment and the insane environment he let exist at the Garden.

He was better than Layden, but that is not saying much. I really don’t understand how it benefits the Knicks in any way to keep him other than to continue to create bad press and sentiment amongst the Knicks fan base.

Is the sky falling, no, but this is a real indication that the organization is not moving forward as fast as it should either. No accountability remains a major theme at the Garden.

Beyond the odious subtext surrounding this Dolan inspired resurrection the most unfortunate aspect is that the Knicks aren’t hiring, in any capacity, some very talented GM’s that are available and looking for work.

If you were going to really focus on winning and not a personal side show of rehabilitation you would think that lining up Donnie’s successor-in-waiting would be a priority.

Walsh is running the Knicks at half the cost that Isiah rang up but still he seems to be unable to hire who he wants. Glen Grunwald? Zeke Thomas? Alan Houston? Other than D’Antoni has he hired anyone? Is he working as a mentor or a GM?

Warkenstein, Pritchard, etc…there is first round organizational talent out there and we keep hiring Dolan’s friends. Pathetic. In a word.

The NCAA has not objected.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/sports/basketball/07knicks.html

Typically clueless Jim Dolan move. Isiahs’ time here was an unmitigated disaster there is no way around it. The guy did a terrible job. If you want to rehabilitate the guys’ image just give him a job a where he can do the least damage and don’t publicize it. What good does it do to put Isiahs’ name out there in the press? It’s not like all of a sudden teams are going to forget the damage this guy did to the Knick organization and hire him right away.

I am done. Donnie Walsh has patiently and methodically worked to undo the worst salary cap mess in professional sports history. So what does Jim Dolan do? Hire the man back.

What’s next Jim? Let’s see if Scott Layden is available to give him a second at the GM role.

I am holding an NBA team “lottery” in the next few days. I am randomly picking the next team I will root for until Isaiah leaves the Knicks (please note the Celtics, Lakers, Heat, Timberwolves, Clipps, and Grizzlies will not be included in my lottery).

Someone please take this team from Jim Dolan and restore the Knicks to a place of respect!

My question is what has IT won? I was never a fan of his as a player, I liked Jordan and the Bulls during that time period. When he came to the Knicks as an exec. I was like huh? But gave him a chance and once the strange signings, the Dolan press police, Don Chaney being led out like some criminal, Larry Brown, Marbury, Curry and omg Jerome freaking James and that’s just to name a few. The thing is with IT Dolan never felt he did anything wrong in the Sanders case. I’m not saying that half the stuff Sanders said IT did was true but it is what it is and that brought a black eye to the Knicks and the NBA. Because of this David Stern had to step in a request that IT be let go. Dolan did so begrudgingly. If the case didn’t happen he would be like Glen Sather. Loyal to Dolan you will always have a lifetime job win or lose. My thing is that IT knows he has Dolans ear and rightfully so uses this to his advantage. I ain’t mad but after erasing the IT era what happened it came back with the man that symbolizes it. Their maybe a hint of racism I totally agree but just speaking on bball terms it and I promise will make Stern furious that even if IT was a quote and quote consultant why make it public. I wonder if anyone of y’all were millionare superstars would you want to go if you were a free agent to the Clippers, Nets, or the Knicks when IT was running it? I mean nobody wants to come to the Knicks now and IT was gone from the scene. But to sum it up it boils down to Dolan and as long as he is running the team we will never be great.

Oh when I say won I mean as an a exec/coach.

it’s amazing how many people are blowing this story out of proportion

Not a big deal IMO.

I don’t think it’s a wise decision but it’s not the end of the world either.

Sir you miss my point! People had made bad decisions probably as worst than Zeke did working for an organization that allowed them a second chance is what I was referring to! So don’t get it twisted Mr. Knickforlife!

Lordez gomez…enough said, that says it all! lmao

Seriously though, we all know he actually is pretty good at drafting. He supposedly has a good rep amongst the players. For me, as long as he isn’t making trades or dishing out contracts, I don’t have a problem with it.

Sometimes, people do need a 2nd chance. And if some of you are basing this on the sexual harassment case then you shouldn’t be allowed to comment at all. There are always two sides to a story and how many times do we see news like that? People with a lot of money trying to get it extorted from them. Sometimes you can prove it and sometimes you can’t. Just look at Rick Pitino.

Oh yeah, remember Kobe Bryant and what he was accused of?

And great point about that unattractive woman who said he wanted her. I mean being realistic guys something stinks about that. Isiah is charming and has money. Do u really think he has to chase and harass this woman??

That’s a ridiculous argument! you got to be kidding! These sort of things happen all the time. And people are amazed afterwards asking themselves “how could he with that woman!”

wake up.

What I dont understand is why the Knicks had to announce Isaiah as a consultant. They are already paying him and why create this PR nightmare.

“it’s amazing how many people are blowing this story out of proportion”

I think it should be! I think the message should be loud and clear before the next shoe drops and we start seeing IT back in some capacity of power.

This is the Dolan’s knicks we are dealing with. You never know what the man might do next. If the fan base does not let him right away how they feel about IT in no uncertain way, god knows what happens next!

he might not listen anyway, but we should certainly try.

I have no particular feeling regarding IT but why doesn’t he screw up some other franchise for a change. May I suggest his old one DET. why don’t they hire him. Why us?

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/68566/20100807/knick_insiders_thomas_not_returning_as_gm/

not candidate to be next gm

Anyone who doesn’t believe this is step 1 in Thomas returning to power at MSG is just being naive. It may take a year or two, but it’s inevitable. When it does happen is when I cancel my season tickets. And for those who are claiming race has anything to do with how people feel about him, just look at the Knicks record while Thomas was in charge. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with results, period.

Nice guy? Isiah is far from a nice guy. Its disgusting how he treated the female employees at MSG. He is an egomaniac who treated those in lower positions than him like s**t. Its sickening how people give guys like Isiah free passes just because he was good at basketball. The sexual harassment lawsuit along should keep him away from MSG for good. Don’t even try to play this off as not a big deal. It makes you come off as ignorant. Just like the pathetic excuse of an organization thats is the New York Knicks. Forget all of the terrible basketball decisions Isiah made. This signing is awful for so many other reasons. Its a slap in the face to all of us loyal Knicks fans that had to watch that loser run the franchise into the ground for years. Just when it looked like the Knicks had finally turned the page for good, this news comes out. It goes against every move the Knicks have made for the last two years. They are seriously going to hire a guy who’s mistakes they have been trying to fix for the last two years?!

+1

+1000000

It would be asinine to believe Magoo is being strong armed here!! Isiah and Magoo are good friends so if your going to speculate then base it on the facts that he is not only friends with the owner but very good friends with donnie!!

Nonsense! He is going to consult on what he is irrefutably good at and that is talent evaluation during drafts and as a conduit with FA’s. If it makes you feel better at not to say race has nothing to do with it then fine but that does not make it true. When you lay things out and take in the facts as well as review the despicable hate full and venomous things that are said about him then I think it is clear race is an underlining factor.

That is the media more then anyone! For example on the wheel house when this so called story broke I could not even count how many insults where said about him and to top it off they said Layden was a better GM!!! If thats not rewriting history to clean off the white GM and trying to stick his crap on to the black one then what is?

I am done with this non story but in closing racism is poison and really is no good for anyone and also “Let he without sin cast the first stone!”

i dont think this will go anywhere…isiah image is ruined and dolan wants to throw isiah on the uptown train as the franchise attempts to regain its once proud image. He just doing the guy a favor and to be honest, isiah has a great eye for drafting talent. However, his role is a consultant and that its. Anything else is a regression of the entire franchise. But in the end we talking about James Dolan and this is a classic example of his inept ability to move forward with life. Glen sather is another example…