Isiah's Legacy + College Football

Prior to tonight's Knicks game vs. the Kings Isiah met with the media to discuss the pathetic train wreck that is his team. One comment jumped out.....Isiah said he wanted to leave a legacy behind - he felt that there are players on the current roster who might win a championship (in NY) and that he would win a championship in NY as well. Walt Frazier said it best during the game: "the Knicks needs to make the playoffs before that happens, they need to have a .500 or better record before that happens......and to do all that, they need to win a few games. Stop talking about a championship until that happens."

Sadly, Isiah Thomas (the President) recently made the brilliant decision of keeping Isiah Thomas the coach. On any other team if the players are not doing as expected the guy who brought in those players needs to go or the guy who coaches them needs to go. Isiah decided that neither should go and on top of all that, stated that there are no trades in the works. I do not want another trade....I'd rather ride out this bad season and see what happens next year with a new coach. Another addition like Jeffries, Jerome James, or even Randolph would be counter-productive towards the ultimate goal.

Speaking or Randolph, his box score tonight was almost as bad as it gets: 5 points on 2-5 shooting, 1-2 from the foul line, 3 rebounds, 1 assist and 4 turnovers in 16:49 minutes. What stood out the most was that NBA.com keeps a stat of the team's +/- while a particular player is in the game. During the 16:49 that Randolph was on the court, the Knicks were a whopping -27 (yes, negative 27) in point differential. Randolph is a nice player on a crappy team when he gets the ball 20+ times and takes almost just as many shots as he has touches. He rarely passes and when he does, it likely is to the wrong team. He has poor shot selection and is frequently out of control. Not to mention his defense is not something to be proud of. Unfortunately the Knicks are stuck with him for the time being but the bench looks like a nice place for him to be.

As a side note, I've been watching a lot of college football this week. On New Year's Day I watched football - while doing other things as well (eating!) - from 11:30 AM until after midnight and I am by no means a college football fan. Of the 4 games that I watched only 1 was competitive while the other 3 were complete blowouts. While I've never really given much thought to the BCS system, I have to agree that not having a playoff system in this league is one of the dumbest things in sports. I know there are financial reasons why this won't happen for a while but with the exception of the National Championship game, the other games are exhibition games that do not even feature top matchups. For example, Hawaii was absolutely no competition for Georgia as Georgia's defensive line completely dominated the game. Illinios also had no chance going up against USC who is arguably one of the best teams in the country. The NCAA basketball tournament is so great even for someone like me who does not follow college basketball that much. The games are meaningful and the competition is as good as it gets when we get into the later rounds. Lastly on these games, the worst part of it all is that the matchups are chosen by commitees with the help of computers rather than teams actually playing for the rights to play in certain games.

Stay tuned for an NFL Playoffs preview later this week as the postseason kicks off Saturday afternoon!