The more things change …
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- December
- 30
It certainly seems like the Knicks have become increasingly confused by all of the lineup shuffling.
And you can add in angry.
“I don’t know what is going on,” Zach Randolph said of the struggling offense.
He’s not alone.
Right now, Isiah Thomas appears to be struggling to find a way to divide up minutes between Randolph, Eddy Curry and David Lee.
How about a trade?
Randolph got 38 minutes this afternoon despite starting out 3 for 16 from the field. Lee got 36 minutes despite spending 10 minutes idling on the bench after starting 3 for 3 from the field. Curry got 22 minutes and was clearly upset.
He last came off the bench Dec. 28, 2005 while getting back into shape after missing four games with a sprained ankle.
“I’m definitely not embracing (that role), but what can I do?� Curry said. “I have to go out there and use the minutes I have and try to be productive. And if I don’t play a lot of minutes, I don’t play a lot of minutes. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t sub myself into a game. I’m not going to go to him crying and whining. That’s not me.�
Unless he finds a way to make it work, Thomas is going to have to admit he made a mistake committing to this group.
• Check out Fred Jones’ plus/minus.
• Thomas dusted off Renaldo Balkman and Mardy Collins, but neither played did anything to make him find a couple of minutes for them in future games.
• Ben Gordon talked about what happens when a struggling organization fires a head coach. “I think anytime there’s change, it’s not necessarily bad,â€? he said. “Sometimes you need change to kind of get things stirred up and get to playing well again.”
• What happened to the protest? I went out to the marquee around 11:30 a.m. expecting to see a couple of disgruntled fans. Nobody was out there making a scene. There was just one guy carrying a sign, but he was advertising a fur coat sale.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 9:43 pm by Mike Dougherty.
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The Randolph trade killed Curry’s confidence, and with it, everything they built last season (until the injuries hit).
Dump the chucker.
Isiah Thomas is a moron. He has no concept of chemistry or building a team with guys who compliment eachother. Instead, he has Curry who does 1 thing well; SCORE, and then puts a nearly identical player plotting right next to him. Did he think they would both average 20+ points or something???
It’s like this; I like ice cream and it tastes good, but if I have too much of it then it’s eventually going to make me throw up and that’s exactly what the Curry/Randolph duo is making me do. We saw this coming from a mile away and Zach’s presence is also hurting David Lee’s game.
Mike, this has been on my mind for a while and I have no idea why nobody has asked Isiah…. a) why doesn’t Isiah send Chandler to the NBDL to play and develop his game instead of rotting on the bench and b) why can’t he find a few minutes for him somewhere, considering he’s so willing to experiment with the lineup and they get blown out so much. I just don’t get it.
david lee wasn’t far behind fred jones’s -21 with a -16 and zach the so called chucker and guy who ruins the chemsitry of this team was +1 when he was on the floor
Heres a NEW take: KEEP Isiah…make the bastard suffer coaching the worse record in the league. Have him “earn” his paycheck as the Knicks sink deeper and deeper and into the lottery. This way his reputation will sink even further and make him accountable for what he has created. Firing him would be too easy and exactly what he wants! His arrogance and misled confidence in himself to be able to manipulate others to his liking will be squashed when he has to stick around perhaps the worse season in KNICK HISTORY…now that will always stick with his legacy…he couldn’t hate anything more than that! Hopefully, the Dolans are on to that.
+/- stats are useless by the way.
“Heres a NEW take: KEEP Isiah…make the bastard suffer coaching the worse record in the league. Have him “earnâ€? his paycheck as the Knicks sink deeper and deeper and into the lottery.”
this appears to be what dolan has decided to with the knicks this season. either that or the guy is truly insane and cruel prolonging what seems to be the inevitable task of removing Isiah in his first year of that stupid contract exension from last season.
the ABS trial has been settled, therefore the Isiah appeal is no longer a reality. isiah is walking around the garden looking dejected, and dolan just lets all this slide. the knicks can’t buy a win. i don’t know if there is another brawl in store for the knicks, but something major is needed to turn things around.
Every trade Isiah Thomas had made has been a bust. Every single one of them!! At this point, the best thing you can hope for is that they continue to lose. Fire Isiah before the Draft and let’s start rebuilding with a top pick and new management.
If having Zach around can kill Curry’s confidence then do we really want him? If he’s that weak mentally how is he going to win games for us? Isish needs to win some support by benching the weaker players (Curry, Q-Rich) Curry’s skills are more suited to a 6th man where he can dominate a bench player, he doesn’t rebound or play defense. Based on his quotes he doesn’t understand that. If Isiah can’t make the tough choices then he should kick himself upstairs and bring in Bill Laimbeer to coach this team. I thought Rick Carlisle would be great for us but I can’t see the Bulls not hiring him after this season.
I like the keep Isiah around to eat his cooking.
I said this summer that the team sucks and would probably lose. I just didn’t think they would be this bad.
The difference tho is that Starburry doesn’t want to play for his coach. As bad a team player as he is, he does give a team a chance to win because he can score.
Zeke seems to be able to pick talent in the draft he just can’t trade worth a damn.
It is interesting the teams’ reactions to the lineup shift is the same when Larry Brown was doing the same thing with the sorry bunch of misfits his GM gave him. I am not defending Larry’s creep behind your back actions, but ultimately he was doing the right thing.
Beat the ego’s into the ground. Make them play D. Play those who get with the program and bench those that don’t. His problem was he lost the team when the star PG went to the GM and complained and got the love from management. That sent a signal to the rest of the team that they can blow off their coach.
What goes around comes around™