Amazing as it seems, there are Dauphins springing out all over....
I chortled at debacle of Dorkweed Dolan and his amazing incompetence. Funny also that one of the worst managed teams in the NBA is also in the nations leading media market.
Howard Beck has the background story:
...Last Thursday, James L. Dolan, the Knicks' owner and the Madison Square Garden chairman, fired Coach Larry Brown after a disastrous, deflating and, at times, comical season. Thomas, the team president since December 2003, was named Brown's replacement.What Dolan did not announce then, but did yesterday in a meeting with reporters, is that Thomas's job — both of his jobs — are on the line. His deadline for making “significant progress” is next spring.
“This is his team, he made this bed,” Dolan said during an hourlong interview with reporters who regularly cover the team. “At this time next year, Isiah will be with us if we can all sit here and say that this team has made significant progress toward its goal of eventually becoming an N.B.A. championship team. If we can't say that, then Isiah will not be here. I say that with him right here.”
As Dolan made that pronouncement, Thomas sat emotionless, his arms in front of him. He lifted his hands close to his chin and interlocked his fingers. When he at last spoke, Thomas sounded more resolute than enthusiastic.
From Harvey Araton the set-up (and dauphin explanation) (Times Select Only)
“I'm not shying away from it,” Dolan said, when asked about widespread questions regarding his competence. “I understand people think that; they perceive that we're in a bad situation, and they have to look at ownership because ownership's responsible. And that's the job I took. And when I don't want it, eventually I won't take it. But right now I want it, still want the job, and still plan on doing the job.”A person who has held an executive position in the Cablevision empire recently told me that Dolan's father, Charles, gave him the Knicks and Rangers to run because he considered the sports teams and the Garden to be the company toy department, where the least potential damage could be done.
• But the father defended the son yesterday in a letter published in SportsMonday of The New York Times, calling him, in part, “unafraid in facing unpopular problems.”
Then again, those who have been the most unsparing in their critiques of James Dolan weren't invited to yesterday's interview. Too bad.
and from Richard Sandomir, the pay-off:
TV Sports: Debacle on 33rd Street as Dolan Protects Turf
While James L. Dolan might be more comfortable in a small group, he still owed it to fans to describe his anti-Brown case to a wider audience.Len Berman, the sports anchor for Channel 4, was displeased at being left out. “By excluding portions of the media,” he said, “it's telling fans to take a hike, which is what they've been doing for years with the teams they've put on the floor.”
...
“I felt uncomfortable,” Berman said after watching the interview. “You need to have a feel for things, to make your own conclusions, instead of being handed a tape.”He called the Garden's use of MSG as the only TV outlet a “socialist-style setup.” It was a bit like getting the state version of news from Vremya, Russia's (and the Soviet Union's) equivalent of the NBC Nightly News, while not letting reporters from other networks ask questions.
While the Garden cannot do without Knicks fans, it could do nicely without most members of the inquiring news media. Here's a plan to shield the Garden from pesky reporters: restrict their access by creating Manhattan's first official demilitarized zone, a 10-foot-high, 2,000-foot-long fence that would stretch from 31st to 33rd Streets and from Seventh to Eighth Avenues.
I asked a fencing consultant, Chuck Naegele of Clarks Summit, Pa., for a quote. For $300 a foot, or a mere $600,000, he said the Garden could buy micromesh fencing that would not allow small projectiles, like mini-digital tape recorders or notebooks, to be thrown through it. Nimbler reporters would be further repelled from unauthorized entrance into the Garden by layers of razor ribbon costing $300,000.
“That's really nasty stuff,” Naegele said.
Electrifying the fence and the building would be options, but the whole project (depending on the availability of alligators) may cost the Garden less than Dolan's $5.1 million in salary and bonus from Cablevision in 2005.There may be times when the Garden will invite some reporters to cover Knicks games and require them to wear ankle bracelets and be escorted by armed members of the Knicks' public-relations staff.
Too funny. Glad I've never been a Knick fan.
Tags: Basketball, /Knicks
