"Fire Isiah!" has been more popular than the wave in New York arenas lately, but to be honest, that really doesn't even have a good ring to it. "Fire Thomas" is so much easier to chant.But it's not as if New Yorkers ever made it easy anyway. Joe Torre, for example, the most successful manager in baseball for the last decade and a half got the ax after never missing the playoffs. Or what about Patrick Ewing, who despite being the offensive and defensive leader of 15 years of championship contenders, will forever be considered a loser.
New York is just used to everything coming so convenient. You pay for your burger, you get it in five minutes. You want a taxi, you just whistle. You want to pay a bill? Just go online. But it just doesn't happen like that all the time. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of New Yorkers. I'm sorry, but sports dynasties don't just happen. In fact they're about as rare as a problem-free Spears. Just because we may be in the midst of a virtual Boston kimura on all mainstream sports doesn't mean that NY is owed anything. And no, us New Yorkers aren't any more deserving than the people in Minnesota, no matter how much they want to tank.
In the past week I have seriously been asked the "Do you think Isiah should be fired?" question about 10 times. I'm a real Knicks fan. What do you expect me to say?
Isiah Thomas inherited a crappy situation and hate it or not, he made it better. As much as you like to reminisce about the Knicks of '94 and the Knicks of '99 you have to remember that Charles Oakley left a long time ago. And about the teams from 2001 on?
A friend once told me that these Knicks are just as bad or worse than the team pre-Isiah. Oh, really? The starting lineup of Charlie Ward, Allan Houston, Keith Van Horn, Kurt Thomas and Dikembe Mutombo. Within two years, 3/5 of that starting lineup was out of the league. But since they were lovable losers means they get a free pass? I remember I couldn't even upgrade that team in NBA 2K4, never mind in real life.
Yet Isiah took that situation, traded for draft picks and acquired a young team. Yeah, maybe Stephon's not the leader we thought he would be. But next year his expiring contract should be enticing enough for some team to trade for before he rides off, discount sneakers and all, into the Italian sunset. But other than that do you realize Eddy Curry is only 25? Zach Randolph is only 26. And lest we forget our 23-year-old budding star, David Lee. In fact, you could make a list of players Isiah discovered longer than Chris Bosh's neck. It's really not as bad as they make you believe on whichever New York tabloid you found on the subway.
The laughing stock of the NBA? Oh please... How different is this team from Minnesota? Or Seattle? Or the Bobcats? Or the Hawks? Are we so ignorant to see that even New Jersey, Indiana and Miami aren't the perennial powerhouses of the past and have slowly but surely spiraled down the tubes faster than last night's Chinese? I know I see it.
But it is this unwarranted pressure the New York media and fans put on these teams that kills their confidence and ultimately makes bad situations worse. This unwarranted pressure almost drove the MLB MVP, Alex Rodriguez packing for Anaheim. This unwarranted pressure forced Scott Layden's hand as he traded Patrick Ewing for 17 long-term contracts that we are still dealing with. This unwarranted pressure is keeping these very Knicks from performing or rallying since any support is drowned out by the boos that rain down as soon as they are down more than two points. This unwarranted pressure is the reason why we are about to kick out one of the best players and talent evaluators of our era because we haven't won a championship every year.
What has Isiah done any worse than the last seven years of predecessors? The only difference I noticed is that he assembled a team that had a fallback... In case of fire(sale) break glass and pull handle. Unlike the virtually untradable good guys we had in the Kurt Thomas era, we now have talented tradable assets.
I've heard "since Patrick Ewing" so
many times I'd swear they had a quota. Marcus Camby: The best defensive Knick since Patrick Ewing; Antonio McDyess: the best post up player since Patrick Ewing; Michael Sweetney: The first Georgetown big man drafted since Patrick Ewing... and so on. Well, guess what, New York. Patrick Ewing isn't walking back through those doors. You made sure of that.Fire Isiah, New York? How about you fire yourselves.
2 comments:
You know your right in New York we do expect everything to happen in the blink of an eye. Why do you think man invented drive through. People would rather wait in line than actually get out of their car even though it would be a lot quicker... and they wonder why half the population is over weight. But getting back to the point we expect too much right now from a young team. I think Isiah is doing a much better job than Larry Brown did. He was used to working with the Pistons who gave fast results and the Knicks, especially Marbury are a young rebellious team who think they know better. But you know what Isiah just needs time he has already improved his team a lot from last year. The rotation is a lot better and the team just needs to wake up and stop playing like a bunch of high school girls. Play some defense Knicks come on now!
Isiah should be fired end of story
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