…as a ‘consultant.’

Um, ok.

Per Marc Berman:

Knicks are about to announce Isiah Thomas will be named a part-time consultant to club but keeps his job at FIU. Weird.

This isn’t all that surprising after the Knicks enlisted Thomas in a last-ditch pitch to LeBron a few weeks ago. I don’t know why you would trot out (arguably, thanks to Kevin McHale) the worst GM of the aughts to try to convince one of the league’s best players that your team is headed in the right direction. If anything, wouldn’t you want to convince him that he has nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the franchise?

For all of his faults, Thomas did draft pretty well while GM of the Knicks.

Here’s a look:

2004: Trevor Ariza (#43 overall)
2005: Channing Frye (#8), David Lee (#30)
2006: Renaldo Balkman (#20), Mardy Collins (#29)
2007: Wilson Chandler (#23)

That’s not a bad run considering he only had one pick in the #8. It’s not easy to find rotation players in the late first round (or second round) and he was 3-for-5 in that area, picking an All-Star (Lee) and two starter-quality swingmen (Ariza and Chandler).

I could see a team putting him in charge of scouting or the draft, but I’d keep him out of all trade discussions.

As for the fact that he’s going to keep his coaching job at FIU — WTF? Coaching a Division I basketball team is a full time job, and he’s going to be working part time for the Knicks?