Ever see someone make a really bad decision and wonder if perhaps they know something you don’t, that maybe their bad decision isn’t actually so bad but is really a master stroke of genius that is so revolutionary that you and everyone else on the planet are fools for not having thought of it yourselves?
Yeah, it's pretty neat when that happens. Just so you know, this is not what just took place with the Knicks’ hiring of Isiah Thomas to be their new President. Quite the contrary, my friends, this is one of those moves that not only looks bad, but truly is bad. And as George Costanza once said, “This thing is like an onion. The more layers you peel off, the more it stinks.”
In case you’re wondering, I have no personal vendetta against Isiah. I think he’s one of the greatest players of all time who just so happens to be a very corrosive personality and a gigantic dodo who clearly is not capable of running a championship basketball team. Look at his Pacers teams, year in and year out the most talented team in the Eastern Conference, yet perennial underachievers, only playing a shade above .500 for his three seasons as coach and losing in the first round of the playoffs all three seasons, compiling a 5-10 playoff record in doing so. Those teams were absolutely loaded with stars in a very watered-down East, and towards the end of Isiah's run in Indy they weren’t even playing hard for him. Or, in the case of Ron Artest, they were playing too hard -- last year Artest was the league's biggest maniac, and looked like a player with unlimited potential who was ruining his own career by letting his emotions too frequently get the best of him. In '02-'03, Artest was suspended for 12 games due to his wild outbursts (including three games for the complete obliteration of a TV camera) and amassed somewhere in the neighborhood of 71,000 technical fouls. Everyone in the basketball universe thought he was simply crazy, and maybe he was, but if there was any question as to whether or not Isiah Thomas drove him further into madness, consider that this season, Artest has not only been consistent and productive on the court, he has also been well behaved, only having been ejected once so far. The difference between last year and this? You guessed it. Isiah’s gone. Throughout Thomas' run as coach of the Pacers, there were stories about how Isiah thought it was a good motivational tactic to get Artest all fired up for games (deprive him of his medicine, if you will). That worked to some extent, but Isiah clearly took that strategy over the top, and Artest went absolutely bonkers. The Pacers' new coach, Rick Carlisle, though not much of a people person himself, clearly seems to have realized that Artest doesn’t need to be made any crazier than he already is to be one of the league’s best players.
If the Pacers' poor performance under Isiah coupled with Artest's sudden turn around the moment Thomas left isn't enough to convince you, remember that Isiah once single-handedly ran a very functional basketball league (the CBA) directly into the ground. Basically, the man has been a wizard when it comes to running things, provided he’s playing point guard and not trying to play God. As for the Knicks, you might think that getting rid of completely inept former President Scott Layden would be a victory in and of itself. Unfortunately, they hired the one guy who’s bad enough to be considered Layden’s peer. Nice work, Knicks.
