Memo to Isiah Thomas: if you’re going to parlay your expiring contracts for players, the deals only look good if those players help your team. Just imagine what damage Thomas can cause next season, when he has about $60 million in dead weight to former Knicks Allan Houston, Shandon Anderson, Jerome Williams and end-of-the-string Knicks Rose and Maurice Taylor to work with.

The day before the Francis trade, Thomas, obviously forgetting the ship-be-sinkin’ days, condescendingly told the Knicks media that its fans had never been through a rebuilding phase, so they would have to learn to be patient. With the salary-cap strangle Francis adds, “learn to be patient” means “check back next generation.”

Exactly why was this Larry Brown’s dream coaching job again?

Brown should have known he was in trouble when, four days after signing a five-year, $50 million deal to coach New York, Thomas “won” the free-agent bidding for perpetually underperforming and out-of-shape Seattle center Jerome James with a five-year, $29 million deal.

As Davis left for Toronto, he told the New York Times that he didn’t feel Thomas and Brown were “on the same page.” In other news from Obviousville, Davis’ wife is acquiring a bit of a reputation as a loose cannon.

If Brown can somehow turn a team with the biggest collection of shooting guards since Checkpoint Charlie into a cohesive unit, then he will have, at 65, done the best coaching job of his career, better than coaching the Detroit Pistons to the 2004 title.

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Then again, you don’t ask a coach not known for his patience to hang on while his players slowly develop, especially not a coach ready to publicly berate any player who he feels isn’t up to snuff. Which these days is pretty much everybody. Rumors of a power struggle between Thomas and Brown abound in New York, but for now they’re stuck with each other.

These days Brown and Knicks fans are understanding exactly how Continental Basketball Association owners felt as they watched Thomas run that minor league into the ground under his ownership a few years back. There appears to be no rhyme nor reason, either in basketball or business, to what Thomas is doing. Thomas does one thing well — even back to his days as general manager of the Raptors, Thomas has shown to be an astute drafter, with Frye being the latest evidence. But then Thomas makes four other deals that blunt the effectiveness of his pick.

Having a lot of salary-cap flexibility does not guarantee a good team; the last time Orlando had the cap room the Hardaway deal will allow, it blew big money on the oft-injured Grant Hill and was otherwise never able to use it to be any better than mediocre.

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Still, let the record show that three years into the Knicks’ general manager’s job, Thomas has less-than-nothing to show for nine trades, two fired coaches, numerous free-agents signings, and a payroll that’s gone up $40 million.

If only the ship be sinkin’. Under Thomas, this Knicks ship is the Titanic. It’s sunk, it’s hit bottom, it appears impossible to raise, and it’s crammed with expensive baubles not doing anyone any good.

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