there is some hope for knick fans... some, very little though.
espn.com has a poll titled "who deserves the most blame for the knicks troubles?"
the national results read as followed...
larry brown- 6%
isiah thomas- 56%
james dolan- 3%
scott layden- 3%
the players- 32%
in new york, the polls changed a bit...
larry brown- 5%
isiah thomas- 56%
james dolan- 8%
scott layden- 5%
the players- 25%
so there is hope... 8% of knick fans (based in new york) have a fucking clue.
that list should be in the following order...
1. james dolan
2. tie- isiah thomas/scott layden
3. don cheney and antonio mcdyess' other knee
4. allan houston's contract
5. larry brown
6. the players
7. patrick ewing & dave checkets
dolan obviously deserves the most blame, because he drove checkets and grunfeld away... and he was ruining the rangers as well before the lockout and salary cap saved them.
there is no difference between isiah thomas and scott layden. layden traded for terrible players with bad contracts, isiah traded for more talented players, but traded for guys who all played the same position, most of whom have attitude problems. layden would consistantly trade away the knicks draft picks... i.e. the 9th pick in the draft & marcus camby for antonio mcdyess...
mcdyess was coming off knee surgery when the knicks traded for him... so it was a huge risk. but he was playing like the man beast that he used to be before the injury during his first preseason with the knicks. the explosiveness was back. i remember watching him tool up tim duncan in a preseason game, and despite not liking the trade from the start, i had to be giddy with the potential... and then don cheney left him in the 4th quarter of a meaningless preseason blowout against, ironicly enough, stephon marbury's phoenix suns, he comes down after a dunk and breaks his other knee cap... not the one that was hurt originaly, but the other one. and just like that the knicks season is over... and this ultimately leads to layden being fired, isiah being brought in, the marbury trade, etc etc etc.
i loved watching allan houston play. his jump shot was so silky smooth, it was a joy to watch. the day before st. patrick's day in 2003 i got 4 free tickets to the knicks-bucks game, called up some friends, had some beverages and off to the garden expecting to see a horrific game, but hey... tickets were free. turned out to be a great game, lots of offense, both teams in the 100s, and houston dropped 50 points. it was amazing to watch. but the fact is that layden gave him about 30 million more than anyone else was offering. not houston's fault, but it killed the knicks cap none the less.
larry brown deserves some blame. he's getting 10 million dollars a year... he actually has some talent here, as issue ridden as the talent might be... but he's getting absolutely nothing out of them. and he refuses to play the rookies enough, and he refuses to demand that they pump the ball into eddy curry more often, so that maybe we can actually see if the guy we traded adam morrison for will ever be worth it.
finally, the very first domino that fell was the patrick ewing trade. ewing had one year left on his contract when he asked to be traded. if checkets (who was really in control despite scott layden being the GM at the time) had simply called ewing's bluff and kept him instead of trading him, 16 million dollars would have come off the cap the next offseason, allowing the knicks to go out and sign chris webber, or any other free agent available at the time. but checkets agreed to his request and traded ewing, and the knicks 2001 1st round pick, for glen rice and luc longley. the rest is history.
