Have NBA's Knicks Lost the Knack for Success?

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

The New York Knicks. The team has a high-profile coach, a well known brand name and Forbes Magazine just named them the NBA's most valuable franchise. The team may also be on their way to a seventh consecutive losing season.

NPR's Mike Pesca reports.

MIKE PESCA: Some sports teams reflect their cities. The Pittsburgh Steelers always seem to have a hardworking ethic. The L.A. Lakers usually play with a plenty of flash. The most celebrated Knicks teams were intellectual like their city. Those were the Woody Allen Knicks of the '60s and '70s. Later, the teams were gritty like New Yorkers, those with the Spike Lee Knicks of the '80s and '90s. Today's Knicks, well, let's just say Lindsay Lohan was recently spotted at a home game.

After a recent loss to the Phoenix Suns, Knicks fans like Miles Farbmen(ph) were calling for the ouster of coach Isiah Thomas.

Mr. MILES FARBMEN (New York Knicks Fan): He's in a position now where it's spiraling. Unless they start winning, he's going to have to be fired.

PESCA: Patrick John Pierre(ph) tried to get a fire-Isiah chant going during the game but was met with a crowd too dispirited to respond.

Mr. PATRICK JOHN PIERRE (New York Knicks Fan): I agree with the fire Isiah. I was trying to lead it for my row and get a wave going of the fire-Isiah chant. At that point, I think, the shock and the paralysis that the blowout put us in - no one could stand up, they all put their jackets on their way home.

PESCA: There is evidence that Thomas, once a great player, has assembled a team that is talented but rudderless. A recent 45-point loss to the Celtics shocked even the players, like forward David Lee.

You thought you'd never lost by that much.

Mr. DAVID LEE (New York Knicks Forward): You know, thinking about it, never - I never have, on any level. Even when I used to, like, play up in AAU(ph) ball, I've never lost - you lose by 30 but never 50, or 45, whatever what it was. And that's one of those ones you can almost just throw a game tape out.

PESCA: Of course, there are only so many times a team can toss the game film before the garbage begins to pile up. In these situations, it is up to a team's owner to take action. There is little indication that Knicks owner, Cablevision billionaire James Dolan, is ready to fire his coach.

Frank Isola covers the Knicks for The Daily News.

Mr. FRANK ISOLA (Knicks Beat Writer, The Daily News): Jim Dolan is a contrarian so I think the more that the fans and the media screams for it, I think he's going to do the opposite. He almost becomes stubborn about it.

PESCA: Dolan's calculation might have something to do with courts other than basketball. This summer, Thomas and the Knicks were found to have sexually harassed a female executive and the organization was ordered to pay over $11 million.

Geoffrey Rapp, an associate professor of law at the University of Toledo, says that a Knicks appeal of the harassment ruling could be hurt if they fired Thomas.

Professor GEOFFREY RAPP (Law, University of Toledo): If he's been terminated on terms he found objectionable, then he wouldn't give testimony that necessarily was most favorable to his former employer.

PESCA: And Thomas, before the season began, vowed that he would be assisting the Knicks in their legal case.

Mr. ISIAH THOMAS (New York Knicks Coach): I will appeal this and I remain confident in the man that I am and what I stand for and the family that I have.

PESCA: This is what a home game should sound like.

Unidentified Man: Here's Vince Carter.

PESCA: It was a Nets home game two nights ago. The Knicks, as visitors, heard boos but things were actually less hostile than what they usually face at home as fan Nick Leveroni(ph) noted.

Mr. NICK LEVERONI (New York Knicks Fan): Yeah, watching on TV, definitely can hear the boos more at the Garden than here.

PESCA: And guess what? In front of this less hostile crowd, the Knicks won -their first road victory of the year. But the season only a few weeks old, anything could happen. Isiah Thomas could be vindicated. The recent computer projection that gave the team a less than two percent chance of making the playoffs could be proved wrong. And Knicks fans could replace chants of fire-Isiah with sorry-Isiah, though you don't need a computer to tell you the odds of that happening.

Mike Pesca, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.