Not if you ask Frank Isola, Knicks beat writer for the New York Daily News.
For the last two years, Isola has been effectively blackballed by the Knicks media relations department for his negative coverage of the team. (I'm guessing they also didn't appreciate his comments in the New York Observer story, "Life in Knicks Hell", one of the most entertaining features of the 2007-08 basketball season.)
I grant you, anyone's who's had to cover the Knicks since The Hedgehog took over probably needs a hug more than anything else. And I give Isola credit for covering an organization that has singled him out and then gone out of its way to make his job difficult.
Still, his coverage of the team has clearly gotten personal, and it's making him sound ridiculous. Let's break this one down, shall we?
Mike D'Antoni averaged 58 wins over his last four seasons with the Phoenix Suns and was the architect of one of the NBA's most exciting offensive teams.
Of course, he also had Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, and Shawn Marion executing his game plan. Now, he's presumably got Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph.
Really? The best news to come from the Knicks since they made the conference finals in 2000, and that's your lede? Why not just say what you really want to say? "The Knicks hired a new coach today, but they still suck. No matter what they do, they suck, and they will always suck. Their sucking is the sun and the moon, and inevitable as waves upon a shore."
Donnie Walsh's first and most important hire as Knicks president raises as many questions as it answers.
Yes, it raises questions like, "how the hell did an awful team like the Knicks get a great coach like Mike D'Antoni? Am I dreaming? Is it too late to get my season tickets back?"
Sure, no one really knows how the current personnel is going to handle the "Seven Seconds or Less" offense, but who cares? Does anyone really think there's a system out there that can fuse together all these wildly mismatched parts? Zach Randolph once put the "Jail" in "Jail Blazers" and he's not nearly the biggest liability on this team. Stephon Marbury is waiting to be called back to the Mother Ship and Eddy Curry has a heart defect that may or may not be caused by Curry's subsisting on a diet of cheesesteaks and fried Oreos. (I'll spare the criticism of Jerome James, Jared Jeffries, et al. It's not their fault someone wanted to give them all that money for being bad at basketball.)
But we're supposed to be worried about getting a coach that won't clash with their "styles"? Come on. This team is Chernobyl, and step 1 is decontamination. D'Antoni seems like a good start.
Walsh, who for two days denied that he was preparing to offer D'Antoni a contract, declined to comment. In fact, the Knicks would not even confirm D'Antoni's hiring, which was first reported early Saturday morning by SI.com...
Besides Walsh's credibility taking a hit, the Knicks president also is taking a risk on a coach whose up-tempo style works with only certain types of players.Point 1: see above. Definitely, let's not hire the guy who's averaged 58 wins over the past four years, because his style might not fit with the roster that's averaged 28 wins over the same period. Good thinking.
Point 2: Stop it, Frank. Just stop. No one cares about what you think about Donnie Walsh's credibility. This is what executives do when they haven't gotten a deal done yet; they feint. They obfuscate. They say stuff that's just not true. The idea that you were shocked, shocked!, that this could happen to you just makes you naive.
Beyond that, it's "inside-baseball" beat writer bullshit that fans don't care about. If you're pissed off that you were misled, find Walsh behind closed doors and tell him so. He's well-known throughout the NBA as being one of the most accessible executives to the media. I'm sure you can find him. But taking a personal dig in your story is petty. This section of your story began in the fifth paragraph. I can guarantee you that the fifth most-important thing to come out of the Mike D'Antoni hiring was not the erosion of Donnie Walsh's credibility with Frank Isola.
Also, D'Antoni has a reputation as coach who does not stress defense.
Also, D'Antoni has a reputation as a coach who's won 58 games a year in the past four years. (I know so, because it was the lede in Isola's story, before he started talking about what a questionable hiring this was.)
"I think it is a terrible match," said one rival head coach. "I don't get it. Two of the biggest problems with the Knicks are that they don't practice and they don't play defense. I don't know if that changes now."
The Knicks' biggest problem is that they are a completely mismatched group of malcontents who have no business playing together on the same team. Hiring a defensive coach does not make this any less true. For more information, contact L. Brown, Charlotte, N.C..
Mark Jackson was perceived to be the frontrunner for the job, but Walsh did not speak to Jackson after their initial interview two weeks ago. According to sources, however, Walsh led Jackson to believe that he was the leading candidate.
A source close to Avery Johnson claims that the former Mavericks head coach also was led to believe that he was the top candidate. On Friday, Walsh was involved in contract negotiations with Johnson's representatives.
In the cases of both Jackson and Johnson, it appears that Walsh was not forthcoming with either candidate. It also raises the possibility that Garden chairman James Dolan was involved in the decision-making process....It also raises the possibility that the Knicks didn't realize two weeks ago they would have a shot at Mike D'Antoni, who (and I can't stress this enough) averaged 58 WINS A YEAR OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS.
I don't know what Walsh told Jackson or Avery. I doubt Isola really knows. I suppose it "raises the possibility" that Isola's sources were the candidates' respective agents, each of whom now risk having their guy shut out of the coaching carousel this year. Presumably, they each would want to paint their man as being the Knicks' top, non-D'Antoni choice in order to preserve desirability among other teams. (Granted, I don't know any of this, but it's just as much a "possibility" as Isola's unsourced theory that Dolan was "involved in the decision-making process.")
When Walsh was hired, Dolan vowed that his new president would enjoy complete autonomy and yet Walsh's first move - removing Thomas from the bench but not firing him from the organization - had Dolan's fingerprints all over it.
Yes. Isiah is scouting Eskimo combo guards as we speak. I think we discussed this earlier.
A source close to D'Antoni was "shocked" that D'Antoni would agree to join the Knicks.
"The money is great, so maybe that's the reason he took it," said the source. "If I were advising Mike I would have told him not to take the job."
Finally, a part of this story I can get behind. I also was shocked that D'Antoni would agree to join the Knicks. If I were advising Mike, I also would have told him to resist the lure of The Hedgehog's Cablevision cash.
But I'm not advising Mike. I'm just a Knicks fan who's suffered through several of the most soul-crushing years that a basketball fan can experience. And now here come Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni, who may not bring back a championship but who can at least bring back respectability and a little excitement to rooting for this team.
Today was a great day for the Knicks. No matter what Frank Isola tells you.
No comments:
Post a Comment