per WDFN. no link yet.

i'm completely shocked and blindsided by this news....

Yeah, just heard the same report on a Washington sports radio station.

This is going to be the best thing ever.

Oh, and here's the link:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2496106

LOL@DOLAN AND DAVIDSON.

Brown is going to get like 30 mill from 2 teams and all's he got to do is eat sleep and have sex.




And take care of his children.

I'd have sex with Mrs Brown for 30 mill.

(I miss the hit it or quit it thread.)

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2496106

(I miss the hit it or quit it thread.)

It was killed due to lack of participation.

I'll be the first here in this thread to say RE-HIRE LB!!!

Didn't we run out of women?

ummm i can't LOL@anybody this offseason. the playoffs were a worst case scenario. And the heat are LOL@us for awhile.[smilie=dissed.gif] [smilie=grumble.gif] [smilie=sayitaintso: [smilie=bullshit.gi: [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif]

I don't like LB, but I'd be all for having him back at this point. As long as the players would be good with it.

ummm i can't LOL@anybody this offseason. the playoffs were a worst case scenario. And the heat are LOL@us for awhile.[smilie=dissed.gif] [smilie=grumble.gif] [smilie=sayitaintso: [smilie=bullshit.gi: [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif]

You can always LOL@Raiders :)

ummm i can't LOL@anybody this offseason. the playoffs were a worst case scenario. And the heat are LOL@us for awhile.[smilie=dissed.gif] [smilie=grumble.gif] [smilie=sayitaintso: [smilie=bullshit.gi: [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif] [smilie=sad3.gif]

You can always LOL@Raiders :)
I'd prefer to laugh at the Lions. They have bigger history of futility. 50+ is bigger than 3 years.[smilie=burgerking.: [smilie=paca.gif]

Knicks say "We won't pay!"

Link (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/sports/basketball/22cnd-knicks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)


Knicks Fire Brown, Refusing to Pay Out Contract

By HOWARD BECK
Published: June 22, 2006

GREENBURGH, N.Y., June 22 — Larry Brown was fired by the Knicks this morning after just one, surprisingly tumultuous season as their head coach. And the team indicated that it did not plan to pay him the more than $40 million left on his contract.

Larry Brown watched a Knicks game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in April. The team stumbled to a 23-59 record in their only season under Brown as head coach.

Isiah Thomas, the team's president and general manager, was immediately named as Brown's replacement. James L. Dolan, the chairman of Madison Square Garden, made the decision just before 10 a.m., after a one-hour meeting with Brown, Thomas and Steve Mills, the Garden president.

The decision ends a strange and protracted drama that began in mid-April, when the Knicks concluded their first season under Brown with a 23-59 record, their worst in two decades. It ranked among the worst seasons in Brown's Hall-of-Fame career.

Yet Dolan's disenchantment went far beyond the poor results on the court, and he ultimately fired Brown for a number of other transgressions. The Knicks, contending that Brown violated several provisions of his contract, fired him "for cause," and thus do not intend to pay him the balance of his contract, in excess of $40 million.

Under terms of Brown's contract, a five-year deal, he can appeal the team's decision to withhold his pay. Commissioner David Stern will ultimately decide the issue.

The Knicks hired Brown, with considerable fanfare and optimism, last July. Although they kept expectations modest, team officials figured that Brown, who has won both an N.C.A.A. and N.B.A. championship, would reverse a half decade of failure. Instead, Brown exacerbated the franchise's misery, losing games by the dozen, alienating his players and engaging in a public war of words with Stephon Marbury, the team's star point guard.

Dolan wanted specific assurances from Brown that he would change his behavior, both publicly and privately. When Brown wavered, Dolan decided to fire him.

Neither Brown nor any team officials were available for comment. Dolan and Thomas issued a statement expressing their frustration.

"Larry has had a long and storied career," Dolan said in the statement. "We hired him last summer with the expectation that he would be with the Knicks for a long time. Sometimes, decisions work and sometimes they don't. After careful consideration, despite the best intentions from everyone involved, this current structure did not work for us last season and I did not think it was going to improve next season. I have great personal admiration for Larry, but have concluded that it is best for our franchise if we make this change."

Thomas, who assembled the Knicks' unwieldy roster over the last two and a half years, becomes the Knicks' fifth coach since January 2004. He previously coached the Indiana Pacers from 2000-03, compiling a 131-115 record.

I say...zeke will get more out of his players than LB. Not saying Zeke is a better coach than LB but for this group he prolly is.

But Zeke won't be good enough to save the ship. Its still the Titanic, imo.

I'm shocked that he would want to do this.

Shocked that Zeke is willing to coach them? I'm not.

It's a win-win situation.

If they suck it's expected. After all even LB couldn't help them win

If they play well and win a few games then Zeke will be hailed as brilliant.

Their is a serious downside for him if they do still suck though: He'll get fired!

Should be an interesting off-season and regular season for the Knicks.

And before anyone else jumps on the "Re-hire LB" bandwagon:

You must have really short memories.

can't we just hire LB for the playoffs? and let Flip take care of regular season :p

This is going to drag on forever.

Dolan has been trying to find a way out of paying this contract for months. This was basically a setup. They just waited for any sort of thing they could hang their hat on and are trying to say it was insubordination.

I'm no lawyer, but I'm pretty sure LB is going to get his $ at the end of the day.

Pharaoh...good point. They sucked last season so if they suck again, it can't be tied to Zekes coaching. But it can be tied to the players he brought in.

He'll do better with this group than LB did, but I doubt they'll be that much better.

LB will get some of his money but I bet he won't get it all.

GD - what scenario are you thinking of (insubordination?)

Pharaoh...good point. They sucked last season so if they suck again, it can't be tied to Zekes coaching. But it can be tied to the players he brought in.

He'll do better with this group than LB did, but I doubt they'll be that much better.
they'll be a playoff team. book it. and every fakeass knick fan who dissed zeke will help him pull his armani suit dress slacks zipper down.

stern gets to arbitrate? i'd think a lawsuit will follow... something about constitutional right to a jury. might not hold true for this kind of a civil suit.

but this just shows how stupid zeke is. giving up on LB essentially calls last year a complete failure. i think year 2, lb might have got them going. but everything they accomplished gets undone by this, and they dont even get a draft pick as compensation for their suckiness.

and zeke is making the same mistake millen made (somehow, it worked out for millen), he killed the focus of everyone's blame, and when he inevitably fails, he's the one that gets fired next. he should have waited atleast one more year for this move. but i do agree that he'll get more wins, but i dont know about playoffs.

GD - what scenario are you thinking of (insubordination?)

1.They told him not to talk to the media.
Wanna bet they have some evidence that he said somthing to a media member and they have it on tape? INSUBORDINATION!!

2. He left the draft camp a day early last week. INSUBORDINATION!!

They are going to use these ticky-tack "infractions" to try and void his $40 million contract, just watch.

And so they should.

Look at the fucking nightmare he caused in NY.

With all that talent he couldn't even contend for the playoffs? IMO he's lost his fucking mind and the time has come to retire.

His constant trashing of his own players is bad enough, but to continue to do it through the media while your "star" guard retorts is fucking stupid.

It was up to LB to STFU and deal with it internally. He can't do that. He couldn't do that here either. His inability to adjust his system to fit that roster is something I'll never understand.

He wanted Marbury to play off the ball, yet whined he didn't have a "true" PG! Big fucking deal! Francis, Crawford and/or Jalen can initiate the offense while Marbury comes off curls/screens and/or posts up.

It ain't that fucking hard to work out what to do with that team. LB just couldn't do it because it's not "the right way"

Fuck the right way! He's paid to put them in a position to win games. He failed to do that.

Dolan got tired of his act and they basically are choosing Marbury over Brown. It's really no surprise since Marbury is still their most popular player.

Obviously that team would be better off without his selfish shit but he's tough to deal and if he is gonna lead a locker room revolt then you have to remove the Coach.

NY certainly don't want Chicago to get a Top 5 pick in 2007, and that shit was possible if they kept LB and Marbury together.

It's porbably still possible, but I doubt it. Zeke put those guys together and he must have had some kind of idea what to do with. If not he's a fucking moron. I doubt he's a moron (short-sighted? Yes!)

http://www.yaysports.com/nba/images/isiah%20thomas%20333.png

stern gets to arbitrate? i'd think a lawsuit will follow... something about constitutional right to a jury. might not hold true for this kind of a civil suit.

You can contract away your right to a jury, in favor of arbitration. And that's what they did. They signed a contract stating that David Stern would arbitrate any financial dispute.

fwiw, mcoskey was on wdfn basically saying that Stern hated LB's antics and would probably try to screw him out of his money if at all possible.

I read the opposite somewhere (that he's upset with the Knicks for this fiasco, and is inclined to enforce the contract).