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**Truknicksfan** · 07-01-2006, 08:42 PM

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July 1, 2006, 9:05 PM EDT

It wasn't that long ago that Isiah Thomas was being hailed as one of the brightest young coaching minds in basketball.

The man who now has one year to fix the Knicks was the Eastern Conference All-Star coach in 2003 after his Pacers started 34-15.

Columnists in the Midwest were plugging him for Coach of the Year honors. He was widely praised for finding a way to blend old players such as Reggie Miller with new ones such as Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest.

And then it all unraveled.

Miller's ankle went gimpy, O'Neal's stepfather shot himself in the head, Jamaal Tinsley's mother died of cancer and Artest started going for the league's flagrant-foul record. The Pacers went 14-19 down the stretch, lost in the first round of the playoffs and hired Thomas' nemesis, Larry Bird, as team president. Six months after the All-Star Game, Thomas was out of a job.

The story of Thomas' only other stint as a head coach merits close examination now that he is taking over a fractured and mutinous Knicks squad from Larry Brown. What can Knicks fans expect from Thomas? What kind of basketball will he try to get the Knicks to play? Can he fix the horrible team chemistry? Will he succeed where Hall of Famer Brown failed? The answers to these questions depend on to whom you talk.

"I liked playing for Isiah, we had some personality clashes," Artest said in a phone interview last week. "I wanted to be the man, Reggie wanted to be the man, Jermaine wanted to be the man and Isiah wanted to be the man. We clashed."

Miller, by contrast, has had nothing but good things to say about Thomas. And O'Neal still considers him almost a father figure.

One area most observers do agree on is that Thomas is very good at working with young players, something that wasn't exactly Brown's forte. Knicks rookies Nate Robinson, David Lee and Channing Frye at times seemed to lose their confidence playing under Brown last season, and it will be interesting to see where Thomas can take them.

"Isiah is further along as a coach than some people in New York think he is," Pacers CEO Donnie Walsh said. "He's very creative offensively. I think he can develop the kids. We were a young team, and he was a good coach for us. He obviously gets a lot of respect from players because of who he is; he's kind of a heroic figure to them and he knows how to use that."

Though not as troubled as the current Knicks, the Pacers were going through a major shakeup when Thomas took over in 2000-2001. The franchise decided to dismantle the group that went to the Eastern Conference finals. Miller, one of the few pieces who stuck around, thought Thomas did a decent job in what could have been a difficult situation.

"He is very prepared and hands on when it comes to practice preparations as well as game-time decisions," Miller, now a TNT analyst, said via e-mail last week. "He is very thorough and paid very close attention to detail. [He had] well- conditioned players."

Suffice it to say the Knicks have a few players in need of some conditioning, with big men Eddy Curry and Jerome James leading the list. Thomas said last week that he expects James to get back to the level he was at two seasons ago when he helped take Seattle to the playoffs.

Conditioning also is important because Thomas might try to get this team to play a more up-tempo, Phoenix Suns style. The Knicks played well against running teams last season, and Thomas' teams ran the last two years in Indiana. Thomas, however, said he isn't so much concerned about pushing the pace as he is about finding a style that takes best advantage of the talent on his team.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/ny-sps...orts-headlines

I would like to see this team alteast try a suns style for a little while. People have to remeber though, to run like the suns you have to get stops and turnovers with good defense. It hard to run after a basket has been made. So it still boils down to defense. It always boils down to defense. I really hope Zeke can bring us to the promise land.

Benis007 · 07-01-2006, 09:02 PM

i dunno what to say.

as an outsider looking in i woulda rather given the reigns to larry brown, but what do i know.

we'll see, only time will tell. all i can think about is the shock of the ESPN panel when isiah made his 1st pick in this years draft.

**USSKittyHawk** · 07-01-2006, 09:12 PM

This what I see in terms of improvement. I feel Frye, Curry and Nate are going to thrive under Thomas. It's his managment decision making I can't stand. Just imagine if he would have never pulled that deal to get Steph what would this franchise look like. I love Steph, but we shouldn't have pulled the trigger on that deal. We need a Chris Paul type of player to run the point. It's too late to dwell on it, but he has an itchy trigger finger and that is his downfall.

**Gotham2krazy** · 07-01-2006, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kitty

This what I see in terms of improvement. I feel Frye, Curry and Nate are going to thrive under Thomas. It's his managment decision making I can't stand. Just imagine if he would have never pulled that deal to get Steph what would this franchise look like. I love Steph, but we shouldn't have pulled the trigger on that deal. We need a Chris Paul type of player to run the point. It's too late to dwell on it, but he has an itchy trigger finger and that is his downfall.

Well we have Mardy Collins now, I hope he is our savior and he better wind up better than Aaron McKie.

**0oh_S0o_FreSh!!** · 07-01-2006, 10:21 PM

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