On Isiah Thomas

I have been mad about the Larry Brown firing forever but I am not in favor of all of the nasty anti-Isiah stuff going on with some fans, some NY sportswriters, and many national talk celebrities who have no skin in the game.

I happen to think Isiah is the real deal. I believe he's innocent in the Anucha Brown case and I think he's done an admirable job as GM and coach.

Many criticize his stoic demeanor on the bench during games. But to my way of thinking the coach needs to make noise during practice. Games are about execution, not yelling or theatrics.

If Isiah is flawed as a coach, I happen to think he is too attached to his players - it flaws his substitutions and sense of real-time situations. If a player is stinking it up, he may stick with that player far too long. He seems to be correcting that flaw as we speak.

He is also accused of assembling this team. He did and he did as good a job as could be expected. No GM wins them all. Isiah has transformed a talentless roster into a talented roster. But it is clearly a work in progress that has been interrupted by Dolan who tied Isiah's hands last summer during the Larry Brown fiasco. He's managing as best he can regardless of what the haters claim.

He's asked for a two week moratorium on the hate rhetoric and the cynics have attributed all kinds of evil motives to his request.

I think the request is an act of decency. It is Christmas season. Changes may be coming but rather than disrupt the holidays, he's asked for some calm.

The haters will rant and rave over all of this but there is no basketball messiah in the draft and rebuilding from scratch makes no sense. Now is the time, Isiah is the Coach, and we have to see them through to winning basketball.