Per the NY Daily News…

The Daily News has learned that Donnie Walsh considered resigning after Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan made the controversial move to hire Thomas, but Walsh decided to continue running the team despite his objections to Thomas having a role in the front office.

“Donnie finds this entire thing distasteful,” said one NBA source. “He’s had second thoughts about staying but he wants to finish the job.”

olan’s insistence on giving Thomas the ambiguous title of consultant angered Walsh, who for two years has been trying to hire former St. John’s All-American Chris Mullin as general manager. Dolan has refused to sign off on hiring Mullin and clearly has designs on giving that position to Thomas, who also holds the title of head coach at Florida International University in Miami.

The News reported yesterday that Dolan advised Walsh to hire Thomas as his general manager two weeks ago. When Walsh refused, Dolan decided to make Thomas a consultant, a move that was universally panned by several of Dolan’s top executives, according to sources.

Besides Walsh and Knicks head coach Mike D’Antoni being against the move, Garden vice chairman Hank Ratner and Garden president Scott O’Neil voiced their displeasure but were overruled by Dolan, sources said.

As I wrote last week, Thomas’s GM talents are limited to college scouting and the draft. He performed pretty well in that area during his tenure as Knicks GM, but was a disaster in all other areas of the job. He was regularly fleeced in trades and was accused of sexually harassing a woman who worked for him.

To say that Dolan’s hiring of Thomas has been ‘universally panned’ is an understatement. Why the owner would bring Thomas back after such a terrible first stint is perplexing indeed.

Maybe the NBA will step in and save Dolan from himself. The league is looking into the details of Zeke’s deal, which may not be legal under the league’s rules, given his current job as head coach at FIU.

…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?

In the book, among other things, Earvin “Magic” Johnson accuses long-time friend Isiah Thomas of spreading rumors that he was gay and orchestrating a “freeze-out” of then-rookie Michael Jordan in the 1985 All-Star Game. (SI.com)

On the gay rumors…

“Isiah kept questioning people about it,” Magic says. “I couldn’t believe that. The one guy I thought I could count on had all these doubts. It was like he kicked me in the stomach.”

Thomas vehemently denied that he had gossiped behind Magic’s back, pointing out that he knew better than to engage in such hurtful talk.

“What most people don’t know is, before Magic had HIV, my brother had HIV,” Thomas said. “My brother died of HIV, AIDS, drug abuse. So I knew way more about the disease, because I was living with it in my house.”

Magic also admits in the book that he was part of a coalition of players that kept Thomas off the 1992 Olympic Team:

Magic also admits that he joined with Michael Jordan and other players in blackballing Thomas from the 1992 Olympic Dream Team, saying, “Isiah killed his own chances when it came to the Olympics. Nobody on that team wanted to play with him. … Michael didn’t want to play with him. Scottie [Pippen] wanted no part of him. Bird wasn’t pushing for him. Karl Malone didn’t want him. Who was saying, ‘We need this guy?’ Nobody.”

Magic co-wrote the book, When the Game Was Ours, with Larry Bird and Jackie MacMullan.

Isiah even has a take on Magic’s public friendship with Bird.

“Let’s be real. I’m not going to say the things Magic said in private about Larry, but I do know the public stance he’s taken [in becoming Bird’s friend],” Thomas said. “I know that’s not how he felt about Larry Bird. Magic hated Larry, and he tried to make other people hate Larry. Magic was no friend of Larry Bird’s during that time. And his Laker teammates will tell you that. And I’m sure they’ve got to be disgusted with the way he’s carried on with this whole me-and-Larry bull.”

Isiah insists that he led the charge to let Magic play in the 1992 All-Star Game, quelling fears within the Players Association about how HIV is transferred. He seems genuinely hurt by what Magic put in the book and thinks that his old friend is acting on some bad information.

This will be an interesting story to watch over the next few weeks.

In an effort to revive his career, Isiah Thomas has signed a five-year deal with Florida International University.

Thomas has been out of basketball since an unsuccessful five-year run as president of the New York Knicks, spending his last two seasons as coach before being fired in April 2008. He was 56-108 as Knicks coach and 187-223 overall, including a stint with the Indiana Pacers. Thomas still had two years and $12 million remaining on his Knicks contract after this season.

“Coming back to the college game has always been a dream of mine, and I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to go somewhere where we can build a basketball legacy together,” Thomas said in a statement. “A lot of people don’t know that FIU is one of the 25 largest universities in the country, with a tremendously strong alumni community standing behind us. Most important, I think we can get good players from across Florida and around the country to buy into our plan to make this a top-tier basketball program. I’m committed to growing something here, and strongly believe that over time, we’ll put a team on the floor that everyone at FIU can be proud of.”

It’s good to see Thomas focus on one of his strengths — coaching. For all of his trouble as general manager of the Knicks, he has a reputation for being a pretty good coach. At FIU, he’ll have an opportunity to grow in that area while utilizing his eye for talent in the recruiting game. Thomas was responsible for a few good draft picks while guiding the Knicks. It was the trades that he had trouble with.

A city’s reaction to becoming the permanent home of a professional sports expansion franchise isn’t all that different than that of a married couple that learns of an impending pregnancy – nervous excitement.

At the press conference, political leaders will slap each other on their back for their efforts in securing the franchise and take on the role of grandparents to the city’s newest acquisition. Oh, they promise to be there every step in the development of the franchise, but in reality, they will only show up at events covered by the media (i.e. opening night, first playoff appearance, and the celebration ceremony of a championship, etc.). And they will remind everyone within an ear’s distance about their role in giving the franchise life and an opportunity to succeed.

The owner and the fans take on the role of the expecting parents. Each will have a significant role in choosing team colors, mascot, and most importantly – the team’s nickname. A great article posted on mentalfloss.com list the top ten runner-up names of existing franchises.

Here is an example of a team’s name that fans almost cheered for:
The Toronto Tarantulas
Few team names seem quite as dated as the Toronto Raptors’. The team started play in 1995 with a mascot that was obviously a nod to Jurassic Park, which had destroyed box-office records a couple of years earlier. However, looking at the list of names the Toronto franchise could have chosen, the Raptors seems like a terrific choice. The other nine finalists were the Tarantulas, Beavers, Bobcats, Dragons, Grizzlies, Hogs, Scorpions, T-Rex, and Terriers. “The Hogs” makes sense since Toronto’s historic nickname is Hogtown, but it lacks a certain menace and would have been catastrophic when the team picked Oliver Miller in the expansion draft. The rest of the finalists, however, look largely like they were culled from a list of things 13-year-old boys think are awesome, so kudos on picking the Raptors name. (This decision might mark the last time a franchise under Isiah Thomas’ direction made a wise choice.)

The article reminded me of a time when my brother and I attended the NFL Experience at the 2003 Super Bowl in San Diego. A booth was selling t-shirts used in the football movie Any Given Sunday starring Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz. One shirt that caught my eye had George Washington as the mascot of the fictitious D.C. team. He had an intense, crazed look on his face that would have made Junior Seau cringe on the field. Well a purchase had to be made, and a revelation came to me after wearing the shirt in public a few times…a team’s name and their mascot must be attractive to the public for a franchise to be successful. People went ga-ga over my shirt even though it was completely fictitious and ridiculous, but it’s still better than wearing a tarantula on your chest.