Free agency opens up tomorrow, and the Knicks are rumored to be meeting with free agent Chris Duhon and his representation about coming to New York to run the show.
It should be noted that in recent years, Duhon has been punished several times for missing Bulls team practices.
The Knicks may look very different come November–if Walsh and D’Antoni have their say.
you can download the schedule here:
1d1_nba_sl_scheduleflyer_neww.pdf
The Knicks don’t play until July 14th, which is a Monday. Danilo Gallinari is expected to play in the summer league, and there are rumors that some of the Knicks veterans such as Eddy Curry and Nate Robinson will participate in some of the games.
To watch the games, you either have to have MSG or go to Vegas, although some of the games may eventually be looped through NBATV.
I wonder who will coach the games…
So, all BS politically correct answers aside, how long did the current Knicks regime know they wanted to draft Danilo Gallinari?
Did Mike D’Antoni and Donnie Walsh know they wanted Gallinari before they sent Isiah Thomas across the pond to scout in Europe?
Does Isiah deserve any credit should Gallinari become a NY favorite at any point down the road?
So take this guy Isiah Thomas, easily one of the 50 greatest players of all-time, but also easily the worst Knick in all my decades of being a Knick fan. Isiah Thomas deserved to be severed from the organization once and for all after dual 23-win and 33-win seasons as commander in chief of basketball operations in New York, but the team owner James Dolan made sure that did not happen.
I never wanted to see his face in Madison Square Garden ever again, but that is just me. There are those who absolutely love him, mercilessly defend him and despite being male would love to bare his child. Whatever.
In comes Walsh, who has already fired Isiah once in Indiana at the behest of Larry Bird, but has always said glowing things about Isiah while he was fowling things up something terrible in New York. You simply can not deny, the Knicks have been the laughing stock of the NBA the past four years under Thomas, and for that matter, the prior four years under Scott Layden.
James Dolan, the great businessman that he is, tells Walsh that Isiah must stay on in some capacity because he likes his good buddy Isiah so darn much he just can’t stand to think of the Knicks without first thinking of Isiah. To James Dolan, the one simplistic equation he will never get out of his one simplistic mind is:
Knicks + Isiah Thomas = NBA Championship
Somehow. Some way.
Hearing all this from the emperor Dolan, Walsh then brings in D’Antoni to coach, and very shortly thereafter, Isiah is sent to watch Gallinari play euroball as a scout. Most of the MSM thinks it is a wild goose chase Thomas has been sent on, because Isiah Thomas is well known to dislike European basketball players. Yet when draft day comes around, who do they get but one of the only Euros in the first round, and the only Euro in the lottery, Italy’s Danilo Gallinari.
Is this whole thing just some kind of Isiah Thomas public relations damage control? Is that what the Knicks have become to ownership, a means to reputation management for the one New York Knick that never was?
“Again, you haven’t been proud here since ‘73.”
Good idea Dolan, let’s keep that guy.
I have no problem with the pick of Gallinari, but i have a problem with articles now being published associating Gallinari’s name to Thomas’ name. If the draft pick turns out to be a success, Thomas will take credit for it and add it to his resume of “draft steals,” but if it ends up being a flop, then Walsh and D’Antoni will take the hit? Sounds like more public relations garbage to me.
You might say, why are you still writing about Isiah, and I couldn’t agree more. I’d love to forget about it. We should all have by now. We should all have years ago. The fact is, he’s still here with the Knicks, and by all accounts, he shouldn’t be, based on the track record.
Michael Redd and Bucks GM Larry Harris are both on the radar for Knicks President Donnie Walsh as the 2008 NBA Draft draws closer.
Just flipped on the tv and first thing i see is KG catching an alley on the break.
This is going to be a great series.
So many of the best players in the league are on these teams.
And you have one coach, a former New York Knick point guard during the Ewing days of the 90’s, preaching “Ubuntu” to his team during time outs and at halftime.
Ubuntu is something that transcends the game of basketball and I am happy to hear anyone say it aloud–even a Celtic.
I guess I care more about the outcome of this series than I thought.
Didn’t think I’d make it to the Earl “The Perl” Monroe signing this past weekend at J&R, but I did have some time free up at the last minute, so I hopped on a train downtown at the buzzer so to speak. By the time I got there, they were getting ready to leave and there was basically no line to see one of the guys responsible for last bringing the city of New York “the shiny stuff.” Never met the guy before, it was an honor to meet Knick royalty and he was down to earth and friendly.
I got to chat with him a bit too–should have recorded it so it could have been an interview for Knicksdefense, but then again there was a grumpy looking PR guy sitting right next to him that probably would have prohibited any type of audio/video recording.
First thing I said was good job with the sudden MSG commentating at the end of the season. He said thanks and that it was his first time calling Knick games and enjoyed it. I told him that the Knicks seemed to play better while he was there and he agreed (Pearl’s time as an MSG announcer basically paralleled Wilson Chandler’s emergence towards the end of the season). He does not know if MSG is going to ask him back to call more games next season as of yet. I can see a vacancy opening up, especially if Kenny Smith somehow becomes GM somewhere…
But then I asked Pearl if he thought Mike D and Donnie Walsh will be able to turn it around, and he said “they have to.” I kind of made a remark that anyone could do a better job than Isiah, and then, knowing this guy just got some paychecks from MSG, tried to cover my ass by saying, “well, it wasn’t all Isiah’s fault because they were also a mess when he got here,” but this is all he had to say about the Knicks’ recent failures under Isiah:
“Yeah, but those were all his guys.”
So it turns out I have something in common with Pearl, and from the other Knicks blogs I’ve read throughout the years, Clyde doesn’t think Isiah’s made the right moves in New York either.
I love J&R. I ended up buying a laptop a few minutes later. If it was a marketing ploy to get customers in the door it worked. I should have had him sign the laptop, but then I couldn’t return it in case I end up not liking it for some reason…
Over the past four years, it was my understanding that Isiah Thomas does not think too highly of European basketball players, so why did they recently put him on a plane to go over there and scout them?
From Wikipedia:
“After the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd picks are determined, the 4th-14th picks are assigned to teams based on weakness of record.”
Now for some hypothetical thinking aloud (online):
If I understand this correctly, lets say that none of the three teams with the worst records finishes with the top three picks (very unlikely, but mathematically still possible). After the three top picks are determined, you would then have 4, 5, and 6 going to Miami, Seattle and Minnesota, respectively. So with that in mind, the knicks could finish anywhere, except we know for a fact, that the Knicks will not get the #4 pick, or any picks between #’s 9-14.
That leaves the Knicks a possible pick at #’s 1-3, or 5-8, depending on our luck, which so far seems to be changing this summer.
The solution then?
[1,3][5,8]
But will our choice be part of the solution?
It’s all about the luck of the draw…
The New York Knicks will more than likely announce a new head coach prior to the NBA draft in June, and now that teams are getting knocked out of the box in the first round, certain coaches that were previously unavailable are now in the midst of becoming free agents. Who will be next to come in and sit down with Donnie Walsh at 2 Penn Plaza about next year’s Knicks team? If Walsh is smart, he’ll be able to balance interviewing multiple candidates, with being able to secure his first choice for the job, before anyone signs with another team.
It is difficult to predict exactly what the Knicks will look like next season. Are they going to run? Are they finally going to attempt to play defense? Much of this hinges on who you have suiting up in orange and blue, but a coach with a vision for the new New York Knicks will only benefit a franchise that has won just 56 games over the past two seasons.
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.
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