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Riley quit as Heat coach, the Bobcats just hired Larry Brown, and the New York Knicks are looking at Mike D’Antoni, Sam Mitchell, Flip Saunders and Avery Johnson, in addition to Mark Jackson.

This is obviously a bad foul because he reaches for the neck and not the ball, but it makes you wonder: you rarely hear the term “playoff foul” anymore, instead it has been replaced almost entirely with the “flagrant one” and “flagrant two” terminology.

Just sitting at home on a Sunday watching the NBA playoffs on TNT, the conversation in the Atlanta studio quickly shifted from LeBron James and the Cavs to Kenny Smith and the New York Knicks.

After several failed attempts, Ernie Johnson continued to try and pry some info out of Kenny Smith, “Will you confirm the newspaper report from Frank Isola that you will be meeting with Donnie Walsh this week?”

“It’s a good possibility,” Smith finally replied with a not so coy smile, after dancing around other related questions through semantics. Walsh probably knows by now, evasiveness can be a great benefit to any incumbent Knicks GM. Kenny Smith is another former point guard that has two NBA championship rings.

Charles Barkley chimed in predictably, “Hey, let me tell you something. The first thing you do if you [become] GM, go get Benny Hinn. Only God can help that team!”

“No coach, no GM…” Barkley rambled on.

The last time we did a video tribute it was in the preseason, for a Knick rookie named Demetris Nichols. When Nichols was cut by then head coach Isiah Thomas, we played the D-Nice video to say goodbye to the Knick that never was. Lets not forget Isiah Thomas the GM, had just traded away (or wasted, depending on how you word it) a now upcoming 2008 second round pick for the rights to Nichols. Some of Isiah’s greatest fans here at the time wished Nichols well selling insurance instead of a professional basketball career, a point of view which I always found simultaneously cruel and ignorant.

So this time, we’ll use a little PE to say farewell to Isiah as the coach and president of basketball operations, now that he has lost both jobs. Well, Isiah, you did your very best. You said you wanted to create a championship legacy in New York, but instead, your legacy in New York will always be 33-23-33-23, a voluminous bag of go to excuses and “again, you haven’t been proud here since ‘73. 19-73, that is.” On behalf of Don Chaney, Lenny Wilkins, Herb Williams, Larry Brown, and, lets not forget the players, or the fans, this one is for you.

This has little to do with the Knicks (yet) but this dunk simply can not be ignored.

Gilbert Arenas, be careful what you ask for, pal.

Here is a good review of the 2007-2008 Knicks. I’m basically so sick of the Knicks in their current incarnation that I can’t bring myself to write upon this season at this particular moment. Maybe later. There are plenty of links to the right of this page that have more season reviews, but for me, it all boils down to this:

33-23-33-23

No, that is not the combination to my knicks colored luggage. Those are the amount of games the knicks have won in each of their past four years, out of 82.

For whatever reason, some very sick and twisted individuals consider this to be good enough, but for this fan, it will not do. It is not much fun to watch your team be the laughing stock of the league for the past four years, especially when in the previous decade the team was so competitive.

So I look forward to the draft in hopes of a high pick.

And hopefully a better coach too because this team doesn’t want or know how to play defense. How many points did they give up to Indiana the other night, 135?

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In other news, I want to say thanks for nothing to Jim Dolan for pulling out of the Moynihan Station project at the last minute. He could have made up for the idiocy of destroying the old Penn Station for some garbage office space and a dark, cramped and sticky MSG, but instead will dump more of his misused money into gutting the garden and giving it a fresh coat of paint and some new seats. Now if you watch this propaganda by MSG, it will sound so much better, because let’s face it, it is propaganda, but it is my belief that the scrapped plans to build Moynihan and a new Madison Square Garden would have helped the city of New York far more in the long run. Just another blown opportunity by the Dolans to do the right thing at the right time. Their short-sightedness is reaching legendary status in record-breaking time.

Could this be the ultimate indicator that Jax will be hired by Donnie Walsh to coach the New York Knicks?

He quit on the air?! And Yes network had no idea? Sounds a bit odd like Riles faxing in his letter of resignation. Walsh Traded for Jackson back when his Pacer days began, plus I smell Jimmy Dolan in all this–you know he still has beef with Marv Albert after all this time.

I don’t expect Donnie Walsh to take too long to announce Isiah’s fate, whether he stays on the Knicks or goes. It really looks like he is going though. Especially the way they depicted Isiah on MSG last night. It was almost like a eulogy, the way Breen, Clyde and Pearl spoke of him during his tenure the past four-plus years. And then they’d zoom into a close up of Isiah, then cut immediately to Donnie Walsh who was sipping on a Coke from the stands–he looks mighty comfortable for a guy who just got off the plane.

Could Mark Jackson be the next legendary point guard to try and get through to Marbury? Ol’ Donnie Walsh knows the answer to that burning question and more…

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I remember when they used to list the eastern conference teams on the left hand side, and the west on the right. I also remember when the Knicks used to make the playoffs, although that was years ago. Can’t believe Golden State didn’t make the cut, they won 48 games, but 8th place went to 50-game winning Denver. Here is how 2008 has shaken down. Can’t wait for the NBA action–it’s fan-tastic. Cavs-Wizards–hurt ‘em LeBron!

Just wanted to say thank you to all the people who have voiced their support for this knicks blog in recent days. I’m not going anywhere, I’ve just been taking care of business and also recently had the pleasure of visiting Baltimore for a few days (seems like a great city), which has kept me away from the computer.

Knick rookie Wilson Chandler’s injury seems to be just a sprain, or so they say. An MRI was performed today and Dr. Lisa’s people have announced that there is no tear or ligament damage, which is obviously a good thing for the young athlete.

It was a big concern of mine a month and a half ago that Isiah would play Chandler and Morris too much after months and months of inactivity, I hope that this most recent injury to a young player Isiah drafted isn’t as bad as Mardy Collins’ or even Channing Frye’s respective injuries.

I guess Ed Drossman has season tickets to the Knicks games, he must have enjoyed all the free food and drink last night during Isiah’s swan song. I actually had a dream I was there last night (could have been there in reality, but I chose not to) but I am glad I wasn’t, because it wasn’t much of a basketball game in terms of competition. For the sake of ping pong balls, however, I’m glad they lost; also Nate did hit quite a few rainbow outside shots, but overall, not much to see other than that.

These days in Knickland, we have relatively little to look forward to in upcoming weeks. At a time when 16 teams’ fans are eagerly anticipating their first round matches, for knicks fans, there is the draft, hopefully that will work out (remember that the Rockets won 28 games when they landed that first pick in the lottery used to nab Yao Ming) and also Donnie Walsh’s upcoming announcement on Isiah Thomas’ fate, which could come literally hours after the last game of the season is played.

The playoffs are going to be very interesting this season. I heard someone say last night that any of the 8 teams that are going to make it in the West each have a legit chance of winning it all. And then in the East, you’ve got cocky, outspoken Gilbert Arenas publically asking for LeBron and the Cavs in the the first round–I hope Arenas gets what he asks for in this case, and then some…

A good summer for the Knicks would be the landing of Artest and D. Rose in orange and blue, a bad summer would be the 8th pick and another contract extension for Isiah, while a great summer would have Jim Dolan suddenly deciding to sell the team to a competent owner.

For now, I’ll settle with Walsh taking 95% of Isiah Thomas’ power. It is a start!

by Walt “Clyde” Frazier

Page 150

KEYS TO SUCCESS

1. SETTING GOALS

2. CONFIDENCE

3. UTILIZATION OF TIME

4. MOTIVATION

5. WORK ETHIC

6. COMMUNICATION

7. TEAMWORK

8. LUCK

9. WORSHIP

 

Just unbelievable. Mardy collins hasn’t made that shot in two years!

Big thanks to Isiah Thomas’ Pistons pride for sabotaging the knicks’ draft chances in a few weeks.

just when I thought we had something to look forward to in the draft.

I know that some people think there is some kind of honor that can be restored in the last 5 games of a 56-loss season, but this game was only useful to me if we lost.

We didn’t do the right thing tonight.

Two wins in a row? Now of all times? If we win the next game, that will be the SEASON HIGH win streak; unfortunately it will come at the worst time for the future of this franchise since we are supposed to be losing like we have done all season.

Isiah Thomas said after the game “it was a great night for the pistons franchise.”

It wasn’t so great for New York’s franchise.

Said Thomas, “I’m a Piston, but I work for the Knicks right now.”

Whatever happened to the usual, “I’ll keep that in-house at this time”?

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***Update***

new Isiah Thomas quotes:

“I’m extremely confident that, you know, we will get to the top as a Knick organization. We will deliver something that one day everyone will be proud of,” said coach Thomas.

Coach Thomas then added, “Again, you haven’t been proud here since ‘73. 19-73, that would be. So, you know, we got our work cut out and I intend to stick it through and stick it out.”

04/09/08

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