It all seems like a done deal at this point.  And I’m not talking about the rumors of Larry Brown being bought out of the remaining four years of his contract for $40 million turning into actual fact.  If you followed the Knicks, it was almost an inevitability like a Grant Hill injury.  No, I’m talking about something else, something every Knicks fan knows and I hope doesn’t pay for anymore.

The front office is as shaky as Trina’s (ahem) in one of her videos.

Seriously, with all of the mistakes the front office committed, (Jerome James anyone?), Larry Brown is going to be the fall guy?  I’ve even heard that one of the reasons why the front office is thinking about letting Brown go is because they can’t meet the personnel demands of Brown, such as getting a shot-blocker.  James was supposed to fulfill this role, but couldn’t do a lick to earn more than 9.2 minutes per game.  Some may say that Brown didn’t establish a rotation, which was a problem and I wouldn’t disagree, but seriously, no one was doing what they needed to do night-in and night-out to earn the playing time besides Jamal Crawford (no, that isn’t a long typo) and Channing Frye before he got injured.

But, when you’re given lemons, you either try to make lemonade OR, apparrently, have your dad take your pitcher of water and gallon of ice away from you.

Getting back to personnel moves.  A shotblocker… do the Knicks need one?  BIG-TIME.  Consider that not ONE Knick averaged over 0.8 rejects per contest and as a team averaged 3.3 blocks per night and it seems like a good idea to create a defensive presence down low and intimidate offensive players from coming down into the box.  Man, I miss the days of Patrick Ewing.  I’d even take back Joe Meriweather who averaged 1.8 stuffs in his only full season as a Knick in the 1979-1980 season! 

I think the Jerome James deal has been talked to death… in fact, to boredom.  How much is his contract worth, anyway?  Well, whatever the number is, it’s not bad for a one-week audition during the playoffs with the Seattle Supersonics.  Seriously, he got paid for showing up and actually doing his job for a WHOLE WEEK during the 2004-2005 NBA playoffs!!!  I wonder if that would work at my place of employment.  Only if Isaiah Thomas was my CEO.

And did they really need Steve Francis?  He’s a Stephon Marbury clone - a point guard that not only needs the ball in his hands all the time, but needs to shoot a very fair amount of time as well.  Check out something I had written before about this.

And speaking of Stephon Marbury, I have to say that if it wasn’t clear before, it should be clear now - Marbury is out for one person, and that’s STARbury.  Coming out of Lincoln High School, I was really hoping that he would continue the tradition of NYC point guards after Mark Jackson and he was on his way.  But, there was something missing.  He didn’t get along with Kevin Garnett in Minnesota, when he got traded from the New Jersey Nets to the Phoenix Suns for Jason Kidd, the Nets went off to being powerhouses in the NBA, and when he was traded from the Suns to the Knicks and Steve Nash took over point guard duties, well… you know about the back-to-back MVPs and division titles.  And to think, Marbury called himself the best point guard in the league.  He’s never been the best because he’s blinded by ego.

Whereas, while Brown is arguably egotistical himself (c’mon, he took the Knicks job thinking he could actually turn the franchise around), he has been the BEST coach at different periods in his career.

However this drama actually plays out, there are two things to know without a shadow of a doubt.

1) One person ultimately brought all of these chaotic and mismatched elements together, and he is the main person to blame and that’s the owner, James Dolan.
2) Brown will get his $40 million, Thomas will coach and continue to bank off of his glory days as a player, and Marbury will continue to be Starbury… so who loses in all of this?

The fans. 

If Brown walks and things remain status quo as far as personnel go, I’d release the team and not support them financially or emotionally.  Hopefully this will send a message to the Knicks organization and let them know that the fans are done with THIS deal.