New York Knicks Basketball Team

Only 568 more shopping days until LeBronmas. What ill wind was it that blew the Cleveland Cavaliers into New York four days after the Knicks unloaded enough salary to sign LeBron James and any other star he designates in 2010? New York being New York, the result was the first . . . LeBronstock!) Knicks fans cheered James as if he were already theirs. The media went gaga.

Born in poverty, raised by a mother who chased the gangs off her doorstep with a shotgun, protected by big brothers, even as they succumbed to the drug culture.... And those were the good old days? The plight of Isiah Thomas, coach and president of the Knicks, is so overwhelming, he sometimes compares it to his escape from Chicago's West Side. It's so wild, it makes sense only to him and his few sympathizers.

Having embarrassed themselves in every other way, the New York Knicks, the NBA's flagship franchise that plays 20 blocks from the league office, broke new ground Tuesday when a jury found against them in a sensational sexual harassment suit. Madison Square Garden, the Knicks' parent company, was ordered to pay $11.6 million, including $3 million from CEO James Dolan, to a female former team executive.

A new, embarrassing day for the Knicks Just when you think the Knicks can't embarrass themselves further, the sun comes up again. Informed he would be benched, Stephon Marbury jumped the team and is now the latest candidate for one of its famous multimillion-dollar buyouts. Who else goes remains to be seen. Yahoo.com's Johnny Ludden reported that Marbury's teammates voted not to take him back but Coach Isiah Thomas did, anyway.

"I know what I'm needing And I don't want to waste more time, I'm in a New York state of mind" -- Billy Joel, "New York State of Mind" Unfortunately, for the local NBA team, it's more like a police state of mind. This was a bad week even for the Knicks, with teammates voting not to take Stephon Marbury back after he jumped the team, Coach Isiah Thomas overriding them, the team quitting on Thomas and Madison Square Garden ringing with chants of "Fire Isiah!"

Larry Brown has left another team under unusual circumstances, although this time he has no landing pad in sight. Brown, hailed as the savior of the New York Knicks when he was hired as coach last summer, was fired Thursday when the team pulled the plug on an experiment that went awry almost from the start. Isiah Thomas, the team's president and general manager, who has been criticized for many of the Knicks' problems in recent years, was selected as Brown's replacement.

It looks as if the big winner of the NBA off-season was the captain of the dysfunctional New York Knicks, who wasn't even invited to play for Team USA in the World Championships. Yes, Stephon Marbury, whose Knicks were eliminated from playoff consideration sometime around Christmas, who last was seen wearing an American basketball uniform at the disastrous 2004 Olympics, spent the summer scoring image points and making fans while hawking shoes. It's all because of a number.

Just what he needed, another longshot. Isiah Thomas, whose whole life has been a longshot, came to Gotham to save the day, but he has been here almost 15 months and the natives are getting restless. Last season, when he revived the Knicks, ESPN the Magazine put him on its cover with his prize acquisition, Stephon Marbury, and the headline, "Can Steph and Isiah Save the East?" Unfortunately for them, that was last season. This season they resumed their long march to nowhere.

They were sitting in the car, Lolita Ariza and her son Trevor, the talented if occasionally erratic UCLA basketball player who had just finished his first season as a Bruin. Minutes earlier, both had told Coach Ben Howland that Trevor would be returning for his sophomore season. But just that fast the plan had changed. Against the advice of seemingly everyone, Trevor was adamant that he wanted to make himself available for the NBA draft.

Larry Brown may burn bridges wherever he goes, but he always makes it safely to the other side -- and someone's always there to greet him. Only nine days removed from a messy split with the Detroit Pistons, their owner taking a verbal swipe at him while showing him the door, the well-traveled Brown will be introduced today as coach of the New York Knicks.