The theme of this past week is “disgraceful.” Sometimes I watch games or even teams off the field and don’t understand what I’m seeing or hearing. Professional athletes are paid millions and millions of dollars and the sports industry pulls in billions in annual revenue throughout the country. The events surrounding the Knicks this past week have been bizarre and more importantly, pathetic. Marbury is one of the highest paid players in the league and has not been playing to his potential this season. He has not played to his potential his entire career for that matter so the decision made by Isiah Thomas to bench him after 5 games was shocking and foolish. I guess Isiah was trying to light a fire under Marbury. If that was his hope it was a success. Marbury was so angry that he left the team (what professional athlete just leaves the team?) and headed back to NY like a child. In the meantime, Isiah Thomas polled the team to see whether or not they thought Marbury should be allowed to play the following night when he found time to rejoin his teammates. The poll’s results were overwhelming in that just about everyone voted for Isiah to sit Marbury the entire game. In response, Isiah did not start Marbury but played him for about 35 minutes during the game vs. the Clippers that night.
The Knicks are now home from a 4 game west coast trip where of course they lost all 4 games as part of a 6 game losing streak. For the record, since Isiah got his contract extension last year the Knicks are a measly 6-22. To make matter just a bit worse, Isiah was upset with his team and kicked them all out of practice yesterday. In all my years following sports I have never heard of a scenario where a coach was so angry that he kicked the ENTIRE TEAM out of practice. I’ve heard of practicing longer hours, or giving the team less time off, or even doing more running and tougher drills. Thankfully Isiah allowed them to come back rather quickly and moved on but just the thought of this is absurd.
