<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><span class="georgia md" id="bodytext"> Commissioner David Stern could not escape the sorry plight of the Knicks at his All-Star Game media session in 2006. The team was not winning, its payroll was bulging, and its coach and owner had just been named in a sexual harassment lawsuit.</p> "Does it concern you," a reporter asked, "that the so-called marquee franchise in the NBA has proceeded to be a circus?"</p> "You don't have to be subtle," Stern fired back. "You can ask a direct question."</p> Media members laughed as he continued on.</p> "With respect to the allegations," Stern said, "they are just that, and I don't think it's fair ... to deal with them as though they are fact."</p> The facts are in nearly two years later, and somehow, the Knicks' circus has gotten even loonier. Their 2-7 record is nearly identical to the Warriors' 2-6 mark, but tonight's opponents could not be headed down more different paths.</p> The Warriors have won their last two games, and, judging by Monday's light-heartened practice in New York, are riding high with Stephen Jackson back and their offense and defense in order.</p> The Knicks have lost six straight, their last by 32 points, and their summer of scandal has degraded into a fall filled with fisticuffs and malcontents.</p> Former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders' lawsuit ended in October with a jury finding Madison Square Garden - including Knicks owner James Dolan and coach Isiah Thomas - guilty of sexual harassment.</p> Dolan was ordered to pay $11.6 million in damages, a figure incomprehensible to most teams but status quo for an organization that has acquired overpaid players like Jerome James, Maurice Taylor, Malik Rose and Jamal Crawford under Thomas' tenure.</p> Now the most expensive of Thomas' recruits, $20 million man Stephon Marbury, is engaged in a truth-or-dare showdown with his coach that shows no sign of relenting.</p> One minute, Marbury was with the team in Phoenix. The next, he was back in New York without permission. Two days later, he was again with the team in Los Angeles. That same night, he was officially demoted because of his poor play.</p> All this, after a summer in which the married Marbury admitted having sex with a team intern and gave a rambling, incoherent interview to a local television station.</p> What does Stern think of his marquee franchise now?</p> "They're not a model of intelligent management," he told ESPN.</p> <span class="georgia md" id="bodytext"> Dolan, who has been Thomas' biggest supporter, will decide who survives the Knicks' multi-layered fiasco. It could be Marbury, Thomas, or MSG president Steve Mills. It could be all or none.</p> In the meantime, the basketball worsens. The Knicks have not won a playoff game since Thomas was signed as president in December 2003. They are 6-22 since he signed a four-year contract extension in March.</p> They were pummeled on their just-completed West Coast road trip, and the toughest questions after their first practice back were ducked Monday. Marbury left before reporters were allowed in, and Thomas refused to clarify his star's status.</p> The Warriors, for all their season-opening struggles, have stumbled upon a team in far worse shape.</p> </span></div></p> Source: SFGate</p> </span></p>
