Money For Nothing....

Former New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas has been banned from having any contact with members of the team as part of his reassignment agreement with team president Donnie Walsh, the New York Daily News reported, citing a team source.

Walsh, who replaced Thomas as the Knicks' president, fired him as coach last week after Thomas went 56-108 leading the team, including this season's 23-59 disaster, the franchise's seventh straight losing season. He has been reassigned as an advisor to the team.

According to the report, there is concern that Thomas, if allowed to have any contact with the team, could either willingly or unwillingly undermine its new coach. Thomas acquired all the players on the current Knicks roster as team president.

The exact nature of Isiah's advisor role has not been described yet. Considering the 56-108 record he led the team to, it seems he is only qualified to teach them how to aquire overpaid underachievers. He is not allowed to have any communication with the players, so perhaps he will be prevented from tainting them with bad advice.

Presumably the gag order is in place to prevent Isiah from conspiring with players to undermine the new administration. Do the Knicks really think a player will show that sort of loyalty for a guy who led the team to total disaster? How can any player in the NBA feel that Thomas is a positive influence on a team? The numbers don't lie... Isiah Thomas might have been a great player, but he is a disaster in the front office and at courtside.

The bigger question is this: Why not just remove him outright from the organization? What good comes from keeping him around right now? There must be some form of extortion or blackmail going on. There is simply no other reason to keep him on the payroll.

Right now Thomas has the greatest job in the world. He is getting paid an insane amount of money to do nothing. All he has to do is keep his mouth shut and stay away from the team. The Knicks could have saved themselves a lot of heartache if they had simply given him this deal the first day he arrived in New York.