You can't build a winner on the fly: another coach is gone, and the Knicks' endless search for the quick fix continues

Sporting News, The, Feb 4, 2005 by Sean Deveney

There is plenty of time for the Knicks. When you play in the pitiable Atlantic Division, you have until early April to put together your mad-dash play off run. In that light, the departure of Lenny Wilkens, who resigned last week, was well-timed. New York still has enough time and talent to regain its Madison Square mojo and win the division.

This is a sign of real progress since the December 2003 hiring of Isiah Thomas as president of basketball operations. Wondering why the Knicks are not winning a division they should be leading by four or five games is far better than wondering whether the team should go with Howard Eisley, Charlie Ward or Frank Williams at point guard, or whether Lavor Postell deserved more playing time. Such was the level of discussion under Scott Layden.

Thomas wants the Knicks to be better than should-be leaders of a sad-sack division and says he is trying to do something that so few in New York do--take the long-term view. As he told reporters in New York last week, "This is not something that is going to happen overnight."

Thomas is partly right. It's not going to happen overnight. But it's also not going to happen before, say, 2010. You can bet that Thomas will be long gone by then. One thing Thomas knows is when to abandon ship, especially one that he helped sink (ask the good folks of the Continental Basketball Association about that).

The Knicks have a few long-term problems, and the first came directly from Thomas--the backcourt. The team has more than $110 million invested in Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford through 2008-09, but there is little hope that this will develop into a winning combination. Both players are weak defensively and me-first offensively. They're excellent scorers, but neither is much of a playmaker.

Wilkens tried to tame Crawford's penchant for odd shots, but his lessons went nowhere. Marbury is a good pick-and-roll point guard and racks up assists because of it, but he does not make the players around him better.

Coaching is another problem. The Knicks job should be a hallowed post, yet the team is on its third coach in three years. The last two Knicks coaches have gone out with sub-.500 records, and there hardly is a pack of geniuses vying for the job.

Yet another problem is that the Atlantic Division won't be awful for long. The Nets will get back Richard Jefferson next season. The Celtics are sitting on a crop of exciting young players. Toronto has Chris Bosh, draft picks and the potential to clear cap space.

Which leads us to the Knicks' final problem: their plan. Thomas has gotten credit for fixing the Knicks on the fly, but fact is, any work he does in the future will have to be on the fly, too. There are no high-quality draft picks on the horizon because of the Knicks' middle-of-the-road status, and their overextended salary cap prohibits them from signing anyone important. The only way to run the team is by constantly trolling for deals.

The plan is this: Take the many bloated contracts (Penny Hardaway, Jerome Williams, Tim Thomas), wait until they're close to expiring and offer them to desperate teams looking for cap space. But that means the Knicks are counting on luck--on being able to find a team willing to give up talent for cap space and willing to accept the Knicks' junk for quality players. That's how they hoped to get Rasheed Wallace last season and Vince Carter this season. They're looking to get Jalen Rose in much the same way.

Such an approach guarantees the Knicks never will have cap room and never will rebuild with youth. Thomas says he is thinking long term, but there isn't much evidence of that.

speed reads

Carlos Arroyo was a big part of the Jazz's surprise 2003-04 season and was just as big a part of Utah's current disappointing season. He repeatedly committed two of Jerry Sloan's cardinal sins, which led to his trade to Detroit-he did not defend, and he took ill-advised shots outside the offense. Good luck to him if he does the same with Larry Brown.

Kudos to the Heat, which continues to be one of the most innovative and fan-friendly organizations. Last week, the team offered Skin Van Gundy to area coaches for a free 3-hour clinic at AmericanAirlines Arena.

The Cavaliers are battling for first place in the Central Division, but the team is too thin to keep it up. Now is the time to start thinking about the future, and that means trading Zydrunas Ilgauskas, a free agent this summer. Ilgauskas has value, but he is not the big man you would want with LeBron James, so the Cavaliers need to get something in return for him.

INSIDE DISH

When the Mavericks dumped PF Antoine Walker on the Hawks in August for G Jason Terry and PF Alan Henderson, it was widely assumed that Terry and/or Henderson would be used in another deal near the trading deadline. After all, the Mars had pulled a draft-day trade for PG Devin Harris and SG Jerry Stackhouse and signed G Marquis Daniels to a six-year contract, so it seemed that Terry did not have much of a place in the rotation. But Terry has forced his way into the starting lineup by being something he never was in Atlanta--the league's most efficient point guard. In 14 games after becoming a starter, Terry shot 59.0 percent from the field and 53.3 percent from the 3-point line. He averaged 15.1 points, 6.4 assists and just 1.9 turnovers in that span. Not coincidentally, Dallas was 11-3 in those games. * It was a wise move for Miami coach Stan Van Gundy to put PG Damon Jones into the starting lineup, but some of Jones' bad habits have been surfacing lately. Van Gundy is considering returning Jones to the bench as a result. Jones can make up for his weak defense with his shooting, but he went cold in January--shooting just 33.8 percent in the Heat's first 10 January games. Van Gundy would much rather see Jones just shape up, though, because the team has few options when it comes to finding a perimeter threat to balance the inside scoring of C Shaquille O'Neal and the slashing of SG Dwyane Wade. G/F Eddie Jones' shot has disappeared, and SFs Rasual Butler and Shandon Andersen have been ineffective on offense. Though some of G/F Dorell Wright's fellow high school rookies--SG J.R. Smith, G/F Josh Smith, PF Dwight Howard, PG Sebastian Telfair and PF AI Jefferson--have been able to contribute to their teams, it does not appear the Heat is ready to turn to Wright. * According to STATS Inc., if the winner of the Atlantic Division finishes with a sub-.500 record (entering the week, the 76ers led the Atlantic with an 18-21 record), it will mark the third time since the NBA went to an 82-game schedule in 1967-68 that a team won its division despite having a losing record. The 1971-72 Baltimore Bullets won the Central with a 38-44 mark, and the 1975-76 Bucks won the Midwest at 38-44. Neither team advanced in the playoffs, which is of interest to the Bulls, Pacers and Magic, who figure to be involved in the scrum for the sixth seed in the playoffs. The sixth seed will face the worst of the three Eastern Conference division champions, which is likely to be the Atlantic winner. * The Bulls reached .500 in January for the first time since Michael Jordan retired, thanks to a win on the road over the Pistons last week. Chicago had defeated Detroit on the road in December, and several players said the Pistons spent much of the first half telling the Bulls that win was a fluke--until Chicago outscored Detroit, 56-42, in the second half. As for finally being .500, the team was nonchalant. PF Tyson Chandler told reporters. "I thought it would be more joyous for me."