The Roster: Worst in Sports History?
Intro: The Book of Isiah: Unraveling The Biggest Myth in Sports
Chapter 1: The Roster: Worst in Sports History?
Chapter 2: The Past: Rewriting Isiah’s Resume
Chapter 3: The Salary Cap Myth: Pure Media Madness
Chapter 4: The "Mistakes": Mountains from Mole Hills
Chapter 5: The Drafting Genius: Isiah the Prophet
Chapter 6: The Trades: Turning Weatherspoon Into Wine
Chapter 1
The Roster: Worst in Sports History?
Pop Quiz: Who has averaged the LEAST amount of points during the 2006-2007 NBA Season?
To paraphrase Charles Barkley, superb San Antonio GM R.C. Buford had Tim Duncan to build around, two-time GM of the year Bryan Collangelo had Chris Bosh and a #1 draft pick to build around… Isiah had Michael Doleac to build around. Thomas was left with no young budding talent, no major trade chips, and the most expensive roster in the NBA which ruled out any thought of rebuilding through free agency. By any fair assessment, the Knicks were, at MINIMUM, a 5 year turnaround project. By acting quickly and decisively dumping players before their trade stock completely plummeted Thomas has given Knicks fans a hopeful future within his first three years.
“Inherit the Windstorm” - Sizing up The Knicks 2003 Roster:
- Roster Review: Their only great player (Allan Houston) had a bad contract and worse knee which soon forced his retirement. In 2003, young players like Frank Williams, Maceij Lampe, and Mike Sweetney were all thought to have significant future potential, but Isiah quickly traded them all before the secret became public knowledge. Williams and Lampe are now out of the league, and Sweetney may join them any day now. Their only trade chips of any value were aging Kurt Thomas and Antonio McDyess, not exactly Kobe-enticers. The rest of the roster was a collection of overpaid and over-the-hill Howard Eisleys, Charlie Wards, and Shandon Andersons.
- Worse than an Expansion Franchise?: Yes. Much worse. Before the 2004 expansion Charlotte Bobcats ever played a single game, they had a far superior roster that included Emeka Okafor, Gerald Wallace, Jason Kapono, Brevin Knight, and Matt Carroll. Most were young budding talent acquired through the expansion draft. The Bobcats also had the lowest payroll, no expectations to win right away, and the freedom to lose big and stockpile draft picks without criticism.
- Worse than the 1999 Bulls?: No. About the same.Yes, you would have to go back to the year after Jordan, Pippen, and Rodman left the Bulls to find an equally horrific roster in the NBA. This team, led by Toni Kukoc in 1999, averaged under 20 victories for the next SIX seasons. Read that again please. Those years of misery enabled the Bulls to compile nine top 7 draft picks. It would be 7 seasons before the Bulls would taste the playoffs and 10 seasons before they could be considered title contenders (this coming year). After 3.5 years Isiah has already built an exciting young team that was on target to make the playoffs last year before their team was hit by injuries to three of its top five players. And while Bulls GM John Paxson has received plenty of journalistic praise, one also has to salivate at the thought of what Isiah Thomas would do with nine top 7 draft picks.
- Worst Roster in All of Sports?: Even though the COSELLOUT crack staff hasn’t put in the work, the guess here is a resounding YES! Go back to every basketball, baseball, football, and hockey team in 2003 and see if you can find a roster that has 60% of its team out-of-the league and not a single starter. Lets us know if we are wrong or even close to wrong.
[1] There are debatably one or two exceptions to the three starter rule (see Celtics with Paul Pierce, Mark Bount, and Mike James). Even in these debatable instances, there is a bona-fide all-star on that team as trade-bait.
[2] The only player from the 2003 roster to average more than 5 points per game in 2006-2007 is Antonio McDyess at 8.1 points.
Chapter 1: Thomas Tackles The Worst Roster in Sports
Chapter 2: Revisionist History: The Myth of Isiah’s Resume
Chapter 3: The Salary Cap Myth: The Most Misreported Story in Sports
Chapter 4: Mountains from Mole Hills: Thomas’s “Mistakes” in Perspective
Chapter 5: Isiah the Prophet: The Best Drafter in the NBA
Chapter 6: Turning Weatherspoon Into Wine: The Truth on the Thomas Trades
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Great job. Totally agree with chapter one. I had to comment even before jumping to the next chapter. I used to carry a copy of the Knicks roster that Isiah inherited in my wallet to silence the Isiah bashers. While in 2007 your points are valid, I think it even more amazing to see where the members of that roster were in 2005 a scant two years after Isiah took over. They were mostly scrubs or out of the league THEN. A roster THAT expensive, composed entirely of guys who were once OK (not greta, but OK) but were way overpaid and on their last legs, or young guys who had NO talent.
October 9th, 2007 at 8:53 pmWhen it comes to the knicks roster i will agree that Isiah Thomas has done a great job of making our roster younger by pulling off some outstanding trades and drafts. The problem with this formula is, even though our roster has become younger and more athletic, no player Isiah has brought in is either, a. a proven winner, see entire roster except Malik Rose, b. a legitamate score or c. any quality playoff experience. Until these draft picks are playoff tested or even in the league for a while we have no way of knowing how good they will be. The problem is that tryin to package these young players for a real difference maker will be impossible because these players have no playoff experience and the problem is that if they do develop playoff experience it will be with the knicks so why should we trade them at that point, interesting position we are in. Now while the players have become younger and more athletic we still dont have a player, with the rare exception of Crwford when he’s hot, who can take over a game a guarantee us a win. All we have is a bunch of over-paid, under achievers.
October 18th, 2007 at 2:20 pmFor all his moves Isiah still hasnt addressed the issue of adding a playoff tested veteran, Malik Rose is Playoff tested but never cracks the rotation so his experience is a non-issue. Everyone else added are 1st round maybe 1 win and done, that strategy will never get us into title contention. you need to know how to win in order to excecute and the collection of players added by Isiah thomas have no idea how to win games, as evidenced last season when we lost many games on last second shots and even more games from slow starts. On top of that Isiah still hasn’t addressed our glarin Defensive deficiencies, we have no defensive stoppers or any shot blockers which makes getting key stops which win games impossible. This is ashame considering Isiah comes from 2 organizations that stress defense which wins games. Indiana and detriot to not address this issue shows that Isiah, even though he is a great evaluator of young talent hasnt learned how to win in the NBA. So while the players assembled are better on paper than the roster he inherited it in no way equals wins which is all the fans want. Do you really think any New Yorker has a problem with payin a guy outlandish sums of money to play a game if he wins? I think not just look at the Yankees when they win no-one mentions the payroll, when they lose we hate it, because even though it isnt our money we care about wins and loses, bottom line
Another knock on Isiah is that for being such a tough player he treats his players with kid gloves, look at the Larry brown situation, Stephon Complains that he wAnts to be used like A.I. but you cant score like A.I. when Larry brown calls him on this Stephon runs to Isiah who effectively chooses Stephon a proven loser or Larry brown a proven winner at every level, doesn’t make sense. Now understand this the fans of the Knicks dont care about a player getting preferential treatment but you gotta put up instead of treating players with kid gloves he should expect excellence which is all the fans want. The knicks have never been the yankees, so buying players has never been our way and i dont expect that but i do expect that the players give their all and under Isiah the Knicks have underachieved. Would Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley ever have allowed players on their team to underachieve the way the Knicks have recently? I think Not Instead our Team is headed by both Isiah Thomas and Stephon Marbury who are happy with supposed to be nice players who never achieve their potential. this is not the ideal situation for our younger players to strive. So while we are younger it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re better