According a report in Monday's Newark-Star Ledger, James Dolan has given Isiah Thomas a vote of confidence, telling the team that Thomas didn’t have “anything to worry about right now”.

 I can’t say that I’m surprised.  Unlike Larry Brown, Thomas has been the consummate “company man”.  He doesn’t talk negatively about his players or the organization which may rank higher on Dolan’s good employee criteria than actual performance (see Marv Albert).   To Thomas’ credit, there has also been on-court improvement as the Knicks have already surpassed last season’s win total.

 However, I still don’t believe the Isiah Thomas will turn the Knicks into a long term winner or deserved this vote of confidence.  Let’s not forget that the Knicks are currently seven games below .500 in maybe the worst division in all of sports.  There is still dead weight throughout the roster, namely Steve Francis, Jerome James, Jared Jeffries and Kelvin Cato. And while the Knicks will finish with a better record than last season and possibly make the playoffs, I think this “progress” is fools gold.  This team just went from atrocious to really bad.  Despite their “improvement” still turns the ball over too much (16 turnovers per game, last in the league) and doesn’t pass it enough (19 assists per game, 26th in the league). They are horrible on defense (22nd in scoring defense) and lack a franchise player. Besides that things are looking great.  You can probably make a pretty good case that the Knicks are higher in the Atlantic division standings this season because Allen Iverson was traded out west, Richard Jefferson has been hurt off and on all season and the Celtics are throwing games.

Am I saying that Isiah should have turned this team into the Suns in half a season? Not at all but at the same time it's a little early to think he's the answer as a coach and that this team is on the right track.  Isiah isn’t doing anything great, he’s just being graded on a curve.