The Knicks made a pretty sizable splash when they plucked former Suns forward Amare Stoudemire and re-uinted him with head coach Mike D'Antoni.
While they hoped the acquisition of a big name like Stoudemire — one James himself has said he'd like to play with — would lure in one of the "Big Three," Stoudemire by himself is a pretty strong foundation.
According to reports, the Knicks are about to lock up free-agent point guard Raymond Felton to a deal. Felton's speed and vision would be a welcome edition to an offense that likes to get out and run.
Not only that, they had a pretty solid draft when they picked up Andy Rautins and Landry Fields. Knicks fans who follow the Big East closely obviously know Rautins who established a name for himself as a sharpshooter at Syracuse. Fields played in an established Pac-10 system at Stanford and could be a scoring option in the future for the Knickerbockers.
Even in losing star forward David Lee to the Warriors, the Knicks were able to acquire Anthony Randolph and Ronny Turiaf as part of a sign-and-trade deal.
The future looks bright. Or, at least, it was looking bright — until the Isiah Thomas rumors surfaced.
ESPN.com's Chris Broussard — he of the 'LeBron is going to Miami' scoop– is reporting that the Knicks are toying with the idea of bringing Thomas back to fill their currently vacant general manager position saying that he would be a candidate for the job.
Thomas of course is no stranger to the New York organization. He was hired in late 2003 as team president. He developed a knack of spending a lot of money on players that didn't exactly generate a lot of wins. He also spent time as the head coach, an experiment that didn't go any better.
The Knicks spent the Thomas era in the bottom of both the Atlantic Division and the Eastern Conference. While Thomas inherited a bad team, he certainly didn't do anything to inspire confidence in the fans and the Knicks are only now getting themselves out his mess.
They've struggled to re-build and separate themselves from the big-money contracts that Thomas was known for giving out but an offseason like this one has given the organization hope.
So why would they set themselves back almost a whole decade by hiring the man who quite possibly could be the reason for their past struggles?
Current Knicks president Donnie Walsh worked with Thomas in Indiana and had some success. In Broussard's article on ESPN.com Walsh defended Thomas and said his time in New York was better than many say it was.
While that may be true, the most important question to ask is: do the fans remember it that way?
Because for the first time in awhile, Knicks fans are excited about basketball in New York. Re-hiring Thomas may undo all the good the organization has done recently and keep the Knicks in the same place they've been for awhile staring up at the rest of the league.
