Source: Knicks fire Layden, hire Isiah Thomas

["Belanger, Roger" <Roger.Belanger@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hopefully he guides them liked he guided Ind. In the playoffs last year!!!




NEW YORK (AP) -- Scott Layden was fired Monday as president of the New York
Knicks and Isiah Thomas was hired to replace him, a source told The
Associated Press.

The move comes after New York missed the playoffs the past two seasons with
a roster largely assembled by Layden. The Knicks are 10-18 this season, and
recent speculation centered on coach Don Chaney possibly losing his job.


 
Instead, the odd man out is Layden, who replaced Ernie Grunfeld in the
summer of 1999 after the Knicks were coming off an appearance in the NBA
Finals.

The team scheduled an afternoon news conference but would not specify what
was being announced. An Eastern Conference official who spoke on condition
of anonymity confirmed Layden was out and Thomas in.

Thomas has been out of the NBA since being fired over the summer by the
Indiana Pacers, where he was the coach for three seasons.

"I want to stay in coaching," Thomas told the AP last month. "I enjoy it. I
had a great deal of success helping shape and mold young people, making the
playoffs with the youngest team to do it in 25 years. I got bit by the bug.

"I'll wait for my next opportunity," he said. "I wouldn't rule out college,
but I prefer the pro game."

Thomas' first task with the Knicks will be evaluating a roster with the
league's highest payroll and ascertaining whether any of those massive
contracts can be moved in a trade.

Layden's last major move was the four-team deal that sent Latrell Sprewell
to Minnesota and brought Keith Van Horn to New York. The deal has looked
tilted in the Timberwolves' favor over the first two months of the season as
Sprewell has averaged 17.2 points for Minnesota while Van Horn has
struggled, averaging 14.8 points and getting benched for the fourth quarter
of several recent games.

Prior to the Van Horn trade, Layden's biggest move came on draft night in
2002, when he sent Marcus Camby, Mark Jackson and the Knicks' lottery pick
to Denver for Antonio McDyess.

McDyess fractured his kneecap in an exhibition game and missed the entire
2002-03 season, finally returning 11 games ago.

With the Knicks losing regularly while failing to draw the sellout crowds
that were a staple during the 1990s, Layden became a lightning rod for
criticism. The anti-Layden feeling was so strong in New York that when
LeBron James was selected with the overall No. 1 pick in the draft last
June, commissioner David Stern's announcement of the selection was drowned
out by a loud chant of "Fire Layden."

James Dolan, chairman of the team's corporate owner, Cablevision, notified
Layden of the move late Monday morning, the AP's source said.

Layden did not answer a call placed to his cell phone.


Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


Roger S. Belanger
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