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Knickerblocker
Dolan dismisses Stern over Garden mess
Mitch Lawrence
Daily News

David Stern can't force James Dolan to sell the Knicks or make him clean
up
his franchise. As depressing a thought as that is, those are simply not
within the scope of the NBA commissioner's job.

But there's no law that says that Stern can't occasionally call Dolan
with
some helpful suggestions on how to get out of the mess that is the
Knicks.
And apparently that is exactly what Stern has been doing for the last
five
months, as much as he tries to downplay his concern about the sorry
state of
the franchise in his own backyard. Rest assured, Stern and other league
officials are fed up with the way the Knicks are being run, not to
mention
how the media has a field day depicting Dolan and his minions as
incompetents.

Not that Stern's advice is being heeded. When he recommended that Dolan
look
into hiring Suns outgoing CEO Jerry Colangelo to come in and take over
the
entire Garden operation - a la Bob Gutkowski and later Dave Checketts in
the
90's - Dolan reportedly erupted by questioning how anyone could
second-guess
his ability to run the Knicks.

Dolan's response couldn't have been well-received by Stern, who has
tried to
exert his influence on the Garden's CEO in the past, with varying
degrees of
success. During the final months of the Scott Layden regime, when the
Knicks
were showing zero progress and Layden's stonewalling tactics with the
media
were the butt of jokes, Stern met with Dolan over lunch. At the meeting,
he
told Dolan that he needed to change the face of his franchise.
Eventually,
Dolan did, firing Layden and bringing in Isiah Thomas.

Now, in light of the Knicks and Larry Brown looking to part ways after
only
10 months, Stern is back on the case.

But lately, Dolan has been dismissive of recommendations coming from the
commissioner or anyone outside of the Garden. Not long after Dolan shot
down
the idea of turning the operation over to Colangelo - a Stern favorite
who
founded and built the Suns into an elite franchise - the Garden chief
was
approached about firing Thomas and replacing him with Kiki Vandeweghe,
the
former Nuggets GM and ex-Knick. Because of Denver's success during
Vandeweghe's five-year tenure, during which he took over a lottery team
and
built it into a playoff team with a pretty decent future, he is widely
regarded as one of the better young executives. But Dolan would have
none of
it.

Stern plans to keep up the pressure, even if he tries hard to make it
appear
that he's barely concerned about the doings at the Garden. When he meets
the
media and is grilled on Dolan's franchise, Stern issues a few standard
remarks. He always states that the Knicks are merely one of 30 teams and
that all leagues have teams that are run well and some that are run
poorly.
Further pressed, he'll state that it's not imperative for the league to
have
a successful franchise in New York.

When he stopped over at the Meadowlands for a Nets-Indiana first-round
playoff game several weeks ago, he was bombarded with questions about
the
Knicks' disgraceful 23-win season and Brown's performance.

Ever the diplomat, Stern reminded everyone that when league took off in
the
'80s, "We had L.A. and Boston playing all the time in June. Then we had
Chicago winning titles. And we had even greater success."

More questions followed, but he wouldn't cave.

"There are 28 teams that wish the New York teams nothing but ill," he
said.
"I put my Knick fandom behind me when I became commissioner. But if I
were
to guess, it takes a season or so (for Larry Brown) to let people know
how
he likes to play and my guess is that they'll be getting some more
players
that would like to play the same way. And my guess is that the Knicks
will
be substantially improved next year."

But his public stance and his view expressed behind closed doors are
totally
opposite, according to those who are familiar with his scathing candor.

"David knows it's really bad to have a premier franchise, playing in the
media capital of the world and playing in one of the marquee venues in
the
world, Madison Square Garden, and it's the laughing-stock of his
league,"
said one such source. "He's trying to get Dolan to make changes, but
Dolan
thinks Isiah is a genius. He's the only person in the world who thinks
that."

 

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