Breaking News, excerpted form the NYTimes
The Isiah Thomas era officially ended Friday, and a major Knicks rebuilding project is now underway.
Barton Silverman/The New York Times
Isiah Thomas had a .341 winning percentage as the Knicks coach.
N.B.A.
Donnie Walsh, who two weeks ago replaced Thomas as the team president, removed Thomas as head coach, but said he will remain with the team, but will have no title and no direct reports.
“I value Isiah’s knowledge of the game and his opinion,” said Walsh in a conference call Friday afternoon. “I will use him as a resource. He will be reporting to me.”
Walsh said that James L. Dolan, the Madison Square Garden chairman who stripped Thomas of the team presidency on April 2 in favor of Walsh, had no input in the decision.
Since being hired, Walsh, the Pacers president who hired Thomas to coach Indiana in 2000, had promised not to make a hasty decision on Thomas, but the outcome seemed inevitable in light of Thomas’s poor record.
Thomas posted a 56-108 record in two seasons as head coach. His.341 winning percentage ranks him among the bottom five coaches in franchise history. They went just 23-59 this season.
The Knicks opened the season with playoff aspirations after acquiring forward Zach Randolph last June, but they were quickly doused when Thomas clashed with Stephon Marbury, the starting point guard. Thomas threatened to remove Marbury from the starting lineup in early November, and Marbury responded by leaving the team for a day, skipping a game in Phoenix. When Marbury returned, Thomas let him play right away, over the objections of other players.
The team’s morale sunk, and their record along with it. The Knicks lost eight straight games, then hit an all-time low when they were routed 104-59 by the Boston Celtics on Nov. 29.
Thomas, who became team president in December 2003, never wanted to coach the team. But Dolan ordered him to the bench in June 2006, after firing Coach Larry Brown, who went 23-59 in his one season on the bench.
Under Thomas’s leadership, the Knicks’ payroll ballooned without any clear progress on the court. In his first season as president, the Knicks won 39 games and made the playoffs but were swept by the Nets in the first round. Over the last four seasons, the Knicks have won 33, 23, 33 and 23 games.
Thomas and the Garden were also found liable for sexual harassment last fall.
Anucha Browne Sanders, a former Knicks executive, sued Thomas for sexual harassment and received $11.5 million in damages.
Thomas’s reign was characterized by a series of risky moves for expensive, often aging players, from Penny Hardaway to Maurice Taylor to Jalen Rose to Steve Francis. He also gambled on Marbury, a former All-Star with a spotty record.
Mike Nizza contributed reporting: LINK
