one thing sure, my Madison Square Garden boycott isn't ending anytime soon.
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update: a pointblank column from Daily News sportswriter Mike Lupica (one of the regulars i read)
A Flagrant Foul by MSG boss
Dolan listens to toady Isiah & makes Larry latest scapegoat for dismal Knicks
It is not surprising that James Dolan, the rich man's son who owns Madison Square Garden, the worst single caretaker in the history of the place, now tries to use the full force of Cablevision money and Cablevision lawyers to harass the outgoing coach of the Knicks, Larry Brown. There are at least two lawsuits that say women get harassed in Dolan's Garden all the time. Why should Brown be any different?
James Dolan finally fires Brown, a great coach who had a real bad year coaching the Knicks. Dolan does not fire Isiah Thomas, the incompetent general manager who spent $125 million on a Knicks' team that won 23 games last year, an all-time world's record sum for incompetence in the NBA.
Thomas has absolutely no résumé that does not involve either dribbling or shooting a basketball. But now he not only gets to keep his current job, he gets another one:
Coaching the Knicks.
It is truly wonderful. Only in an operation run by a lump like Dolan does a job performance like Thomas' rate what is in effect a promotion. Somehow, though, he has convinced Dolan that only he, Isiah Thomas, really wants the Knicks to win. It is the best lie of all from Thomas, which is saying something.
"There'll be a day when I have my full say," Brown said yesterday, sitting with an iced tea in front of him. He had already been advised not to say very much in public yesterday about his meeting with Dolan and Thomas and Steve Mills, who somehow has the title of Garden president.
But he was still amazed, even more amazed than angry or hurt, at what he had heard from Dolan and Thomas at the meeting, in the weird parallel Knick world in which the owner of the place and the Knicks general manager currently exist.
"I don't think today's an appropriate time to comment on everything that's gone on," Brown said. "But I'm just gonna say this: Nobody gets to say that I came to New York, and to the Garden, and didn't want to win."
You can talk about what a lousy job Brown did. He sure has. You can be as thick as Dolan and actually believe the lies he has been fed by Thomas about how it was Brown who really tried to sink the franchise. And after all that you look at the three of them - Dolan, Thomas, Brown - and have to understand that only Brown has any kind of résumé at his present job. Or what was his job until Dolan and Thomas fired him yesterday.
Now James Dolan, the Son of Cablevision, will do everything in his power to beat Brown out of as much of the $40 million he has left on his contract as he can. Why? Because Dolan is desperate not to be the owner who paid a coach a total of $50 million for 23 victories, that's why.
When all you are is Cablevision money, money produced by Charles Dolan, the real father of the company, you eventually have to show that you actually care about throwing it around. It is still pretty funny: Dolan would rather keep paying some of the stiffs Thomas brought to the Knicks rather than his Hall of Fame coach. Maybe he thinks this makes him look tough in front of Dad.
"I'm not taking the blame!" Isiah Thomas said all season to Brown, then would go out and tell the media that the opposite was true, that everybody had to do better, himself included. He is as two-faced as anybody to ever hold sports jobs as big as the ones he now holds on to for dear life. (amen! - grifter)
Once the season went south, once he realized he could not do what he promised Brown he would do and move some of these stiffs, there was only one job for the man whose job it is to hire the right talent for the Knicks: save his own sorry self.
He finally did that yesterday. At least Isiah Thomas wins something this season.
Everything is Brown's fault, Thomas tells Dolan, who would believe Thomas if he told him Seventh Ave. ran north. It was Brown who sabotaged all these brilliant deals he, Thomas, was trying to make. Like all the brilliant deals of the past. Always, there is always just enough truth to what Thomas says to make it believable, especially to a sucker like Dolan.
Behind the scenes, whispering to reporters, Thomas goes on and on about Brown dealing with the media. We now hear about all these media rules and media gag orders that the Knicks have imposed in their increasingly paranoid world. But at the exact same time these Garden phonies worry about Brown giving nothing answers to reporters who stop him at traffic lights outside the Knicks training center, these same people are working the phones to get Thomas' version of the story out there.
They talk about media rules at the Garden and have a network there that doesn't allow its announcers to even mention sexual-harassment charges made by a former employee against Thomas.
So now Dolan will lawyer up Larry Brown the way he has tried to lawyer up Anucha Browne Sanders, the woman who filed those charges. Dolan's brilliant solution on that one? Fire the woman, trust Thomas. How much has that decision cost Cablevision already, just in terms of public relations? There is no way of telling, and no way of getting Dolan to care. It's Dad's money.
They will try to lawyer up Brown the way they have lawyered up the young woman, Courtney Prince, who used to be captain of the Rangers City Skaters, another woman who has accused Dolan's male employees of sexually harassing her.
Whatever happens from here, Larry Brown is better off without these bums. He still ought to let them know he'll see them at the courthouse. Thomas, who can't win at the Garden, has somehow convinced James Dolan, the Son of Cablevision, he can at least win there.
i'm actually rooting for the Knicks to fail, so Thomas can finally get canned and be banned from holding another job ever. but then again, you never know with Mr. Dolan. at least George Steinbrenner's Yankees
now if Thomas' Knicks suddenly start winning ... nahhhh, they have to win at least 2 championships convincingly before i'll even start respecting him.
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