Isiah Thomas Conference Call With Media - June 29, 2007

On the style of play the Knicks will have next season...
Thomas: We’re a power team and we win games by pounding it inside and going to the foul line and rebounding the basketball. We improved in this area. Also, points in the paint, we also improved in the rebounding category. We do a good job of defending the paint. We didn’t do as good of a job of defending the three-point line as we will did this year. There’s no mistake about the type of team that we’re trying to build. We’re a power, athletic team and we put the ball inside and we want the ball in the paint.

More on the style of play the Knicks will have next season...
Thomas: We have three point shooters who can knock down threes. Offensively we’ll have a well balanced attack, and the thing we have to do a better job on is on the defensive side. We have to improve on the three-point line, which we will be better at.

On Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph...
Thomas: It’s safe to say the ball will be in either Eddy Curry or Zach Randolph’s hands almost every time down court. We’ll throw the ball inside and either it will be in Eddy’s hand on one side or it will be Zach’s hand on the other. The thing that’s also intriguing about Zach is he can step out and he has a great mid-range game so he can hit the fifteen to eighteen foot shot, and pass out of double teams. | Isiah Audio

On Zach Randolph...
Thomas: We identified at the end of the season that our major need was the power forward spot. We need someone to play alongside Eddy. Several names have been mentioned already and they’re still with other teams. He’s a young player. He’s twenty-five years old and his stats are comparable to the other guys and we looked at him as a player that really had the skill set to compliment Eddy in a major way. His mid-range game, his posting ability and the fact that he rebounds the basketball as well as he does is a plus. He really compliments what we’re trying to do and the style we’re trying to have. | Isiah Audio

Thomas: At the end of the season we knew Zach would be available. He was being talked about as one of the guys who could be available and we did our homework and stayed on top of it and did our background search and everything else as we do with all players we’re going after. Everything that we heard, everything we saw made him one of the guys we wanted to go after.

On getting James Dolan's approval for the trade...
Thomas: We have to run by and sell everything to our owner. Everything that we do we run past Jim Dolan and we have to get it okayed from him before we can go and do anything. So, he was definitely in the loop.

On Zach Randolph and New York...
Thomas: He’ll definitely be under the microscope. We all are here. That’s just New York. I don’t think that the issues he’s run into in Portland will be issues here. We’ll try to avoid those issues here.

On salary cap implications of the trade...
Thomas: The payroll situation definitely went into my thinking, because I still think that a lot of players in this league are traded for, not necessarily allowed to walk away for free. The player that we have now is a young player and I think as time progresses we have a player now as opposed to having him three to four years from now. We have an opportunity to better ourselves and be good right now. I do think the better players in this league want to play with other good players and play for good teams. No player decides to move or wants to leave one place where the cupboard is bear and go to another where the cupboard is bear. You really need players to attract other players. | Isiah Audio

On Steve Francis...
Thomas: We’ve tried to help Steve Francis to be happy and productive by making this move and allowing him to go somewhere he can assume a different role. With both Marbury and Francis it was a very crowded backcourt and I think Francis is still a high level talent and can still be a great player in this league. He was great in accepting the role that he had here even though it was a lesser role than he was accustomed to. I thought the way he handled himself with his teammates and with me was extremely professional in an extremely difficult situation. I thought he handled it as best he could and even when all the guys were hurt and he was playing injured for us at end of the season, I appreciate the job that he did.

On team defense...
Thomas: I think Zach is a prideful defender right now and I think, as a team, we’ll get better as a defensive unit. Again, because I think we’ll defend the three-point line better than last year. We don’t necessarily give up a tremendous amount of points in the paint. We usually outscore teams in the paint, but we got hurt last year defensively because of the three point line. I’m not necessarily looking to improve our interior defense as much as I am trying to improve the defense on the three-point line. We have to get better on the perimeter. That’s where we had problems last year. | Isiah Audio

More on team defense...
Thomas: We have to work at becoming better as a three-point defensive team. We’ve just have to work at it and get better at it and that’s the bottom line. We just have to get better at defending and guarding the three-point line and we will. That’s an area that we will spend a lot of time focusing and concentrating on and defensively we will be better at guarding the three-point line. I thought we shut down the paint, we shut down the guys inside, but the three ball hurt us and I’ll take the blame for it, and we’ll do a better job.

On Wilson Chandler...
Thomas: Before Wilson Chandler was picked, it’s safe to say we had very good knowledge of the player that we were drafting. We have very good contacts at DePaul University, and that area of Chicago I’m very familiar with. We were plugged into him for a long time. He’s a guy that we targeted and wanted, and lucky for us he was there.

Thomas: Chandler’s young, he just turned twenty years old. He has tremendous athleticism, he has a good feel for the game, he has a pro shot, a pro body. We have the luxury in this draft to kind of move him along slowly with the way Renaldo has come on and his development. Wilson, it will be tough for him to crack the lineup but you never know, you never know.

On the inclusion of Demetris Nichols in the trade with Portland...
Thomas: We swapped second round picks in order to get Demetris Nichols and they’ll get our second round pick next year. Nichols was a guy, that with the players that we have now and the type of post play we have, that can flat out shoot the basketball and he can shoot it from a great distance. His play improved greatly every year in college. I thought he showed himself well in Orlando and we worked him out and we saw some things that we didn’t get to see while he was at Syracuse. I think he’s a guy where, hopefully, he can stick. He definitely has a chance, and we’ll give him every opportunity to succeed.