Could Colangelo rescue sad-sack Knicks?
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Tony Ronzone, the Pistons' director of basketball operations and chief international scout, knows a guy who could rescue the New York Knicks.
"Jerry Colangelo," Ronzone said.
Colangelo, who built the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks into championship-caliber franchises, is presently building Team USA back to gold medal status. Ronzone was hired by Colangelo as an assistant coach and scout for the Tournament of Americas championship last summer.
"I think that (cleaning up the mess that is the Knicks) is the kind of challenge Jerry loves," Ronzone said.
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Interestingly, the New York Daily News, in a story that ran Sunday, also named Colangelo as a possible savior.
"Colangelo has told friends that he would welcome the chance to come to the Garden, even more than going home to Chicago," the report said. "Colangelo thinks that if he can turn around the laughingstock Knicks and build them into a championship team, it would be his crowning achievement."
Certainly Colangelo would carry a ringing endorsement from commissioner David Stern. Colangelo has always been a valuable ally and sounding board for Stern.
But for Colangelo to go to the Knicks, he would have to be asked. He would also have to have total control over the basketball operations. But, to date, as the Daily News article pointed out, Knicks owner James Dolan isn't exactly sending out any distress signals, even though his team continues to be an industry joke.
The Daily News, using an unnamed source, said that Dolan continues to ignore recommendations from the league on how to improve the team.
"Right now," the source told the paper, "Dolan is looking at things through a different lens than everyone else. He's not thinking about giving up control."
And Stern can't make him. Stern, as commissioner, works for the owners. He cannot fire an owner.
Looks like the circus, which rolls into Auburn Hills on Wednesday, will carry on for a while.
What about Isiah?
The New York media are saying Isiah Thomas could get fired at any moment, except that nobody knows who his replacement would be.
The Stephon Marbury episode certainly didn't help stabilize Thomas' situation. In fact, it might have cost him the support of his players -- which he had always managed to maintain until now. There is even a segment of the team who, judging from the anonymous quotes that keep seeping into news reports, view Thomas as a guy trying to get himself fired.
First of all, punches were exchanged between Thomas and Marbury on that flight from New York to Phoenix last week. Three different people, two of whom were on the flight, confirmed that.
Marbury left the team for a couple of days, saying he was granted permission. Whether Thomas saying, "If you don't like the fact that I benched you, then you can leave," constitutes permission will be up to a league arbitrator to figure out. But Marbury's teammates didn't buy it.
They voted not to welcome Marbury back when he rejoined the team in Los Angeles. Thomas ignored that vote and played Marbury 35 minutes the night he returned.
The players, understandably, were beyond irritated.
"We'll deal with it," Jamal Crawford said. "I'm not going to get into it."
Something is going to have to give here. Marbury is coming off the bench, his playing time the last two games has been reduced. He's been quiet so far, but that's not likely to last. Point-guard starved teams like Cleveland and Miami are waiting to see if the Knicks buyout Marbury's $40 million contract, but team reports Sunday said they weren't going to do that.
He's not impossible to trade, but just about.
In the meantime, Thomas and Marbury will try to forge some sort of uneasy truce.
"I've played with people I don't like," Thomas said. "I've won with people I don't like. We're a professional basketball team and my job is to try to win the basketball game. However I feel about a person, that doesn't matter. We're trying to win. Whatever happened in the past is in the past and we move forward."
