Isiah Thomas named head coach at Florida International

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This could be interesting.

Former Knicks president/coach/layer of waste Isiah Thomas has been named the next men’s head basketball coach at Florida International University in Miami, meaning your more cynical fans of NBA hoops will now dust off and recalibrate their Isiah-meters to try and predict how much damage he can do at the college level. The good news for FIU is that Zeke probably can’t make the Golden Panthers much worse than they already are. In theory, at least. FIU finished fifth in the Sun Belt’s six team Eastern Conference last season, losing 20 games for the third time in four years, and hasn’t been above .500 since a 16-14 campaign in ‘99-’00.

More positives: It’s unlikely Thomas will be able to swing trades for Eddy Curry, Stephon Marbury, and Zach Randolph from his new post.

I kid. A little. Sports is a world full of second chances, and third and fourth if the talent can support it.

For Thomas, a trip to FIU could be what he needs to regain some credibility as a basketball man. His NBA career would seem to be, if not entirely over, on hold until the very distant future. I certainly can’t think of any team currently brave enough to bring him into the fold, given the extent of the disaster in his last gig both upstairs (Donnie Walsh has worked hard to extricate the Knicks from the salary cap hell in which Thomas placed them, and there’s also the matter of the sexual harassment suit that cost the organization $11.6 million in a settlement, and much more in embarrassment) and on the sidelines (56 wins in two seasons coaching the Knicks).

He could, however, reinvent himself as a college coach. As a Hall of Fame player, Thomas still has some cachet. It’ll be interesting, though, to see if today’s recruits see him as the guy who led the Bad Boy Pistons to a pair of titles or the tabloid-feeding head of a failed Knicks franchise. If it’s the former, he’s got a chance. Said current Knicks President Donnie Walsh to ESPN.com, ‘If you really think about it, some of these kids that are coming out of AAU that are going to go to college for one year, that’s a pretty good sell. ‘Come down to Miami, spend a year with me.’ ‘

Could be. Except that’s where things can get tricky. Coaching at the college level is about far more than simply picking a winning strategy on the floor. When it comes to the arcane, the tax code has nothing on the rules and regulations of the NCAA. Thomas will need help with everything from recruiting in a violation-free manner to figuring out the right practice schedule.

Even guys with years of experience and good intentions screw this sort of thing up. Add in the occasionally shady world of recruiting the one-and-done’s Walsh references and it gets even trickier.

When the ‘09-’10 CBB season kicks off next fall, FIU will be in the headlines far more than they otherwise would have, which is precisely the point of hiring Thomas in the first place. The big question, of course, is if they’ll one day make them in March as Thomas guides the school to an NCAA berth. Or more importantly (for Thomas, at least) will the FIU job be a stepping stone to a larger college program?

I won’t believe it until I see it.

-- Brian Kamenetzky