The New York Knicks continued their descent into the very murkiest depths of awfulness last night by losing to the Pistons 98-86. That marks the 8th straight loss for the Knicks, and possibly the last Isiah Thomas will have to suffer as head coach of the team.

Yes, it actually looks like the Knicks are ready to pull the trigger on Isiah. Owner James Dolan has been mum in recent days on the subject of Thomas's future, leading many to believe Dolan is about to fire him. Insiders say Thomas may be let go before the Knicks' next game, Saturday at home against the Chicago Bulls.

My only question is, what took them so long? Everyone outside of James Dolan has known for months that Isiah is a flat-out rotten coach. And before that he was a rotten team president who filled the roster with mismatched malcontents. Only a complete fool would hand the reins of a team over to a guy like Stephon Marbury, then add a second selfish ass like Steve Francis (who they finally managed to get rid of). Those moves alone should've convinced Dolan that Isiah wasn't the guy.

Of course, jettisoning Isiah will only be the beginning for the Knicks. After that they'll have to figure out some way of fixing a roster loaded with over-paid turds. If it were me, I'd dump Marbury and Jamal Crawford as fast as possible. And I'd get rid of Nate Robinson just on the basis of his being an annoying little flea. And Quentin Richardson too. Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph are the only two decent players on that squad, but neither of them is a point guard obviously. That's what the Knicks need worse than anything - a floor general.

Whatever ends up happening, it will likely be years before the Knicks are repaired. That's assuming they find people to run the team who actually know what they're doing. At some point, I think the league has to step in. David Stern should have a talk with James Dolan's daddy Chuck, and convince him that James has to be replaced. Then maybe Stern should consider some more shenanigans ala the Patrick Ewing conspiracy. Fix the draft so the Knicks get the top pick. Or go to some team with a talented young player, like Portland, and promise them tons of money and future preferential treatment if they'd be willing to trade, say, Greg Oden to the Knicks.

Yeah, I know Oden is hurt, but that's okay cause the Knicks need a lot more work before they'd be ready to insert him anyway. You wouldn't want to retard his progress by forcing him to play with a bunch of losers. In a few years, you'd have a healthy, fully-developed Oden leading the Knicks to victory.

Or, you could just let the Knicks go on sucking. Which would make a lot of people happy, especially in Boston, the Gloating Capital of the World.

People out here in the hinterlands, aka the Midwest, can't make up our minds who to hate more - the New York jag-offs or the Boston jag-offs. For years it was clearly the New York ones, but now the Boston ones are overtaking them. The Pats and Red Sox were warm, fuzzy underdog stories for awhile, but now they win all the time - and add to that the resurgence of the Celtics, with former Midwesterner Kevin Garnett at the vanguard no less. New York teams are actually becoming objects of sympathy in the face of the Boston onslaught. The Knicks need to get in on some of that positive feeling. All the more reason to dump guys like Isiah and Stephon. And oh yeah - revoke Spike Lee's season tickets while they're at it. Can't stand that guy either.