Monday, August 09, 2010

Luck of the Hoosier?

Well, it’s happened again. Isiah Thomas has been hired by the New York Knicks. Take a moment, and yes we haven’t Hot Tub Time Machined back a few years. Thomas, who is presently the head coach at FIU, has been hired as a consultant for the Knicks by his former boss James Dolan. This story has so many angles, I’m not sure where to start. Maybe right here:

- The last time Zeke worked for the Knicks it cost them $11.6M for Anucha Browne Sanders. No she doesn’t play for the Liberty, she just happened to be someone that Zeke sexually harassed.

- Zeke gave out several terrible cap limiting deals that further hurt the organization: Eddy Curry, Jerome James, and Jared Jeffries come to mind.

- As a coach for the Knicks they ended up firing him because the team was terrible under him and at one point they told him to not even speak with Knicks players.

I guess my biggest question is how does this happen? Zeke has only been able to do one thing and that is find talent. So how does he go from being lambasted out of NY and then right back into NY on a cushy deal? Some people say that Zeke was instrumental behind the scenes with getting A’mare Stoudamire to come to NY in the off season ($100M would have done that) even though his pitch to LBJ didn’t work. Maybe he found a way to look good to Dolan again and thus this signing. With the present GM, Donnie Walsh, possibly heading off into the sunset in 2 years, has Zeke been promised the GM position again? For New York fans, I hope not.

The next biggest thing is where is the NCAA? With this position Zeke is allowed to recruit for FIU and the Knicks, all in one fell swoop? Who is he representing when he walks in the door? This could mean higher recruits might find their way to FIU knowing that Zeke has a pipeline, that all of us can see, directly to the NBA. This reeks of something unfair and I’m waiting for David Stern or the NCAA to nix this whole thing. If this passes the muster, I imagine that the Lakers will be reaching out to (insert your favorite college basketball coach) Coach K for a similar kind of engagement. The possibilities would be endless.

What’s your take on this move? Does it make sense? How did HE get a job with the Knicks again?