- Incoming New York Knicks president Donnie Walsh may have just taken over in Manhattan, but one thing we know about him is that he has a firm grasp of the obvious. Walsh made the most blatantly obvious personnel decision in the history of sports, announcing late Friday afternoon that he was relieving Isaiah Thomas of his coaching duties. Gee, who would ever think to fire a coach who went 56-108 in two seasons at the helm? Oh, not to mention that the roster he rode to that stellar .341 winning percentage was a roster Thomas constructed himself. Walsh replaced Thomas as team president April 2 but wanted to wait until the season was over before making his decision on the coaching change official. Because that’s all it was, make no mistake. The instant he even thought about taking the job with the Knicks, Isaiah was fired. Dolan may have done him the courtesy of allowing Zeke to finish out the season, but it was a mere formality. When the Knicks finished a 23-59 season Wednesday, Thomas’ reign of incompetence reached its end with an appropriate milestone - his final team matching the franchise record for losses. This season was an especially ignominious one, with Thomas being found to have sexually harassed a former team employee, feuded with point guard Stephon Marbury and benched center Eddy Curry -- the players Thomas acquired in the two biggest of a number of moves that never panned out. Of course, Walsh isn’t exactly inspiring confidence that he has what it takes to turn the franchise around with comments like the following: “I can't tell you really where we failed,” Walsh said. “The bottom line is we haven't won, and the team didn't look like it was motivated to try to win.” I’m not a certified basketball genius or anything Donnie, but bringing in an entire roster of overpaid, overrated players with huge egos who all play the same position seems to be where you went wrong, along with a terrible coach. Nor is Walsh showing a lot of basketball smarts by saying he wants to keep Thomas around as part of the organization. “I think Isaiah remaining part of the franchise is good for the organization,” Walsh declared on a conference call. “I value Isaiah’s knowledge of the game and his opinions, so I will use him as a resource. Isaiah will be reporting to me. There will be nobody reporting to Isaiah.” Unless you’re using him as a resource by running decisions by him and then doing the exact opposite of what he says, that’s a terrible move. Walsh said he believed Thomas could contribute to making the Knicks a better franchise, but if that’s true then why has he failed to do so in multiple years as the team’s coach and top executive. He may be able to make the team better by mopping the floors or washing the uniforms, but even those things might be too tough for Zeke. Just because he’s still owed $18 million after receiving a long-term contract extension 13 months ago, don’t feel obliged to keep him around. Better to pay him that money for having nothing to do with your franchise than to pay him to be around and continue to poison the waters. Have fun with this one, Knicks fans, it should be a hell of a ride.
- I hate to be a voice of dissent here, but maybe I’m one of the few people in America whose hearts aren’t aflutter because of the pope visiting America. For Catholics, the pope holding mass in Washington, D.C. and New York and traveling around America is a huge happening, but for a non-Catholic like myself, not so much of a thrill. Actually, there are some people who hold the pope up as some sort of icon even though they’re not Catholic, almost as if he’s some deity or somehow better than the rest of us. Call me cynical, but I don’t have such a lofty view of the man in the funny hat who resides in the Vatican. Sure, he’s a religious leader, but he’s no better than you or I. Like us, the pope makes mistakes, he has told lies, he has said things he should not have said, he’s treated people in ways he shouldn’t treat them and being appointed to the highest office in the Catholic church doesn’t make him perfect or better than anyone else. So he can kiss as many babies and give as many flowery speeches as he wants, it just doesn’t make a difference to me. I would no more make the effort to attend mass at Yankee Stadium to see the pope than I would hop a space shuttle flight to the moon to see an astronaut wipe his nose.
- Since I don’t have an album that’s come out of late that I absolutely hare for my Albums to Avoid feature, instead I’ll cue you in to two great new albums out in the past two weeks from artists that are a little off the radar but still really good. I’ve been a fan of the band Tapes n’ Tapes since their 2005 album The Loon. That album showed a textured, diverse, deep and well-written sound that blended alternative rock with a variety of influences. The result was an album that was both fun to listen to and also made you think a little bit. Songs like “Just Drums” and “Manitoba” were favorites on that album, although the entire disc was solid from start to finish. On April 8, Tapes ‘n Tapes released their new album Walk It Out, which builds on the success of their previous work but doesn’t deviate from that sound to the point that it’s a totally different sound. Another great album that came out just this week, on April 15, is Konk, from one of the UK’s best indie rock groups the Kooks. Aside from having a funny-sounding name, the Kooks have great vocals, strong guitars and solid percussion. They’re not so polished and slick as to be mainstream and thus nauseating, but they do have some strong harmonies on this album as they did on 2006’s Inside In/Inside Out. That album had hits like “Naïve,” but Konk has a lot of strong, up-tempo songs that make it an even stronger effort. So there you go, two awesome new albums for the price of one (at least here, I can’t confirm you can actually buy both of them for the price of one), glad I could help…
- Just because Jose Canseco refuses to tell the truth unless it benefits him directly and in financial fashion doesn’t mean we won't find out the meaning behind his cryptic, double-talking words. After lying, er, trying to drum up interest in his new book “Vindicated” by alleging that he introduced New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez to a steroids dealer named “Max,” Canseco refused to give any details about who Max was, saying that “the time isn’t right.” In other words, no one was paying him to talk and it didn’t benefit him, so he wasn’t sharing. Now, we may have found out who Max is without Jose’s help. A man named Joseph Dion says he is the person identified in Jose Canseco's book as "Max," the person Canseco claims was a steroids dealer he introduced to Alex Rodriguez, according to Sports Illustrated. "That's gotta be me," Dion was quoted as saying during a Tuesday interview. The story Max/Dion is telling seems to confirm some minor details of Canseco’s allegations while refuting the most important part: the steroids connection. Dion said he did have a relationship with A-Rod, training him for four years when A-Rod was with Seattle. However, Dion denied Canseco's account in “Vindicated” that “Max” was a fan of steroids. “That's really, really funny because I am the one person that hates steroids,” Dion stated. “I'm against it 100 percent. And, A-Rod, at the time that I trained him -- and this I swear to God -- was 100 percent against steroids. He was one of the hardest working guys, and most natural guy, that I've met in my life. He hated steroids. We talked about it.” I’m leaning toward believing you, Max/Dion, but in the steroids era, circumstances have proven time and again that those who most vigilantly denounce ‘roids can turn out to be those who embrace them behind closed doors. So while Jose Canseco is the one I doubt in this situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if things swung the other way once all the facts are known. Predictably, Canseco did not return a telephone message seeking comment. Of course he didn’t, returning that phone call doesn’t get him more money. He is scheduled to meet Tuesday with federal investigators probing whether Roger Clemens lied during testimony to Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs, and the conversation might also include "Max." In “Vindicated,” Canseco made claims that he introduced Rodriguez, the New York Yankees' third baseman, to a steroid distributor that he only identified as “Max.” Canseco said the supplier later told him that A-Rod had “signed on.” And oh yeah, Canseco included an entire chapter in “Vindicated” about how he hates A-Rod because he believes Rodriguez hit on his wife and coveted her. Right, because that doesn’t cast any aspersions on your credibility either, Jose. What a piece of crap this guy is…….
- Where, oh where would we be if we went more than a day or two without a story of Tibetan monks and exiles being abused for protesting Chinese oppression in their country? Thankfully we don’t have to worry about that because with abusive, overbearing Communists like the Chinese, oppression, repression and daily abuses of human rights are a given. In fact, that influence has even spread to the Nepalese police, who this week detained more than 500 Tibetan exiles who had the audacity to stage a protest near the Chinese Embassy in Katmandu. As always, the opposition was led by Buddhist monks, whose red robes could definitely serve as a symbol of the continual bloodshed in this battle against the ruthless Chinese government. Policemen clad in blue camouflage chased down the monks and other dissidents, dragging many protestors along the ground to waiting trucks and vans. The captured protestors were than carted off to detention centers, just the latest victims in the struggle for freedom in Tibet. But go ahead W. administration, continue to insist that we should go ahead and attend the opening ceremonies at the Summer Olympics in Beijing and not do anything of significance to stand up to the Chinese. We’ve known all along that this administration was one without any brains, but now we’re finding that it has no balls either. This situation isn’t going to get resolved until China gets a unified message from the rest of the world that their treatment of Tibet is wholly unacceptable and that they need to release their Vulcan death grip on the country immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment