News has surfaced today that the Knicks have taken out an insurance policy on Larry Brown’s contract, should health issues force him to quit. This means, of course, that on your chalkboard at home, under the column labeled “Smart Things Isiah Thomas Has Done,” you can mark a one.

A friend asked me yesterday if I thought that Larry’s recent health crisis was the beginning of the end of his time in New York. I said, perhaps naively, that no, I didn’t think he was quitting. For some reason, I can’t shake this fondness I have for Larry Brown. Maybe it’s because I just think so much of him as a coach, that I let it cloud my judgement elsewhere… but I don’t think he’s quitting in New York. I think it’s important to him to see it out, and not leave the franchise in the state it is right now.

And I’m going to go ahead and predict right now that the Knicks will make the playoffs next year. And the thing about that that makes me uncomfortable is not the amount of faith I have to have in Larry Brown, but the faith I have to have in Isiah Thomas. I have zero faith in Stephon Marbury, of course, but that should be fine… because he has to go, right? I mean, he has to. No decision in sports has ever been more clear.

If he isn’t moved or dropped or cut or somehow otherwise removed from the Knicks roster this off-season, it’s about the equivalent of a patient saying to a doctor, “Oh, what’s that? I have cancer, and it’s life threatening? Fuck, that’s terrible. Wait, but it’s treatable, and you can remove it right now? Hm. Ah, you know what? Fuck it. Let’s leave it there. I wanna take my chances with it.”

And I really believe that would be enough to vastly improve the Knicks and push them into contention for a playoff spot. It’s not just that he doesn’t get it on the court, it’s the attitude he brings, the distraction, the drama, plus the fact that his teammates seem to all kinda hate him, too… the Knicks can’t move on until they drop him.

Don’t worry about getting value for him in a trade, don’t worry about getting 50 cents on the dollar… 3 or 4 cents would be fine. A 3rd round draft pick would do. He just has to fucking go… even if you have to outright cut him. No one should have to explain this to Isiah Thomas.

I’m not saying Marbury is solely responsible for the Knicks on-court problems this year… just like 96% of it. I’ll give 2% to Eddy Curry’s work ethic, 1.5% to the inexperience of Channing Frye, and .5% to Steve Francis, just for being there.

Anyway… you know, when I started this post, I had no intention of even mentioning Stephon Marbury. I just wanted to say that I think Larry Brown will be back, and that yes, I think he is the right coach to improve the Knicks. But that’s how strongly I feel that the guy is a complete dickwad. My fingers typed this words, completely independent of my brain. It was involuntary. You’d be surprised at how often that happens. Anyway, yeah… I think Larry Brown will be back.

You know, it probably wasn’t easy for Louis DiTrapano. He was probably sitting around one night, thinking to himself, “Hm. What could I do to help improve my client Randy Moss’s image? I wish there was a way that I could contrast his behavior with someone else’s, so people would see that he’s not a bad guy.”

And then it hit him. He would get arrested with his wife for possession of crack.

That’s what happened yesterday in St. Petersburg, Florida. DiTrapano, his wife, and three other people were arrested at a hotel for possession of the rock after someone complained about a disturbance. Officers report finding evidence of crack in the rooms “and on DiTrapano’s person.”

That’s not good. I mean, there are a lot of agents out there to choose from. It seems like you could find one who isn’t a crackhead. Drew Rosenhaus, for all of his faults, probably does not smoke his breakfast. Master P, despite negotiating the worst contract in the history of sports, does not list crack among his favorite food groups. It just seems like there were better choices to be made here.

Anyway… I’m trying not to presume guilt. The three people he was arrested with have long drug histories, maybe it was all theirs. Or maybe Randy Moss hired Tyrone Biggums to be his agent. Best of luck to all involved.

Chest pound to the sancarloskid of The Sports Frog‘s Swamp, the finest message board of its kind.

Order some turquoise pants with a disproportionately large ass… Daunte Culpepper is now a Dolphin. The Fish have decided to give up a 2nd round pick for Culpepper after they couldn’t come to terms with Drew Brees.

I know I’ve been critical of Culpepper, but I really think this is going to work for the Fish. Daunte is reunited with Scott Linehan, his offensive coordinator for Minnesota when Culpepper was putting up huge numbers. I don’t know what they tried to do with him in Minnesota last year, but it didn’t work… he needs to get back to the old style. He’ll have a passable Randy Moss impersonator at WR in Chris Chambers… and the Dolphins could still be one of the teams to take a chance on Terrell Owens.

And now, it looks like Drew Brees is going to be Saintly… and hey, I wish him the best. I’ve liked Drew Brees since the Chargers drafted him. He works as hard as anyone in the league, he’s a good leader, and he’s a competitor. I’ll miss him, I’ll miss that weird birthmark, and I wish the Chargers would have kept him. I sound very gay.

But I just don’t see this working out well for him. I mean, he’s getting his money, so that’s good for him, but… it’s hard to see the Saints being a great team anytime soon. I could be wrong… if McAllister’s healthy, they’ve got good receivers, they can draft defense now (or trade down and acquire more picks), so the pieces are in place. But the whole situation still feels unstable. I was behind the Saints last year, and I will be even moreso now, but… I dunno. It just doesn’t seem like an ideal situation for free agents. I hope I’m wrong.

And there are rumblings that Drew’s shoulder was not as close to healthy as Team Brees would have you believe. Some say he might not even play this year… and the Saints just gave him a ton of guaranteed money. We’ll see.

There’s got to be more than this than we know. That’s what it has to be. I have heard rumors that the Knicks would flip Steve Francis as soon as today, and I’m thinking that has to be the case. I don’t even think Isiah Thomas is foolish enough to believe that a starting backcourt of Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury is a good idea.

So either Francis going to be shipped somewhere else by this afternoon, or they’re going to move him the summer as part of a larger package… I don’t know. What I’m doing here is not giving Isiah Thomas the benefit of the doubt. What I’m doing is refusing to believe that any one human being is that fucking ignorant. It’s a basic faith in humanity. I have to believe that no one could possibly think that playing Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis together is a viable, long-term solution for a basketball team. If I can’t believe that, then I’m not sure I want to be a part of humanity any longer.

And hey, don’t get me wrong… in the short term, the Knicks actually might get a little better. They will have more talent on the floor, and they can potentially become more difficult to guard. If they don’t pawn Francis off on someone else today, it will probably result in a few more wins for them. But they’re still not making the playoffs, and there’s still no nope of building a team around the pieces they have in place right now.

As for the Magic… this is brilliance. If, in five years, the Magic aren’t one of the league’s best teams, that probably means they hired Isiah Thomas as their general manager. In 5 years, Dwight Howard is likely to be one of the best 2 big men in the game. Jameer Nelson will be an excellent guard. And if Darko Milicic and Fran Vaseuz turn into anything at all, the Magic should have a great core. Plus, Penny’s expiring contract sets them up to be well under the cap in the summer of 2007 when there should be some quality players available.

I’ve seen people looking at this trade as the Magic getting almost nothing in return for Tracy McGrady… and I guess that’s true, but what did they expect, that Steve Francis going to win them a title? Why look at it like that? Just accept that trading for Steve Francis was dumb, be glad that the Knicks exist as the corrector of all league contract mistakes, and look at the future. Orlando’s in a great position, and that’s more than most of the mediocre teams in the league can say.