Hello, Knicks

Maybe more surprising than these events, however, is how the Knicks have handled them. A month after Browne Sanders filed a formal complaint to Madison Square Garden, Knicks owner James Dolan fired her from her $260,000-a-year job as a senior vice president for marketing.

After the guilty verdict, Thomas told the New York Times, “I’ve been through a terrible ordeal. I was falsely accused and wrongly found liable. That’s how I feel.”

In a rare move, NBA commissioner David Stern publicly criticized the Knicks’ handling of the situation shortly thereafter.

The trial “demonstrates that they’re not a model of intelligent management,” said Stern.

Dolan’s PR staff responded to the commissioner’s criticism with some apathy, but also a truism.

“We have high regard for the commissioner,” Dolan said. “Right now, what we can all agree on is that the best thing for the Knicks is to get on the court and win some basketball games.”

Winning isn’t something the 4-9 Knicks have done often this season, but New York has won two straight games. Back with the team, Marbury scored a season-high 28 points to help the Knicks beat the Utah Jazz 113-109 on Monday night.

But there was even controversy about how the Knicks handled a positive. Marbury was booed by the home fans, not a shocking development considering he abandoned the team a week earlier. The point guard criticized his home crowd.

“If people feel like they need to come here and do that, then that’s what they’re going to do,” Marbury told the media after being booed loudly in pre-game introductions and then throughout the game. “I don’t even think they know why they’re booing.”

Thomas acted as if the whole thing never happened.

“I thought Marbury was great,” Thomas told the media. “His leadership throughout the game, during the course of the game, his decision-making, his defense, his shot-making ability. Just from start to finish he was great.”

Dolan funds the second-highest payroll in the league ($88,877,161) for a team many think will not make the playoffs. Marbury makes $20,109,375 (Kevin Garnett makes $23,750,000). Quentin Richardson and Jamaal Crawford each make around $8 million. Dan Dickau is on the payroll.

But not all is bad with the Knicks. Whether a product of meticulous planning or good fortune, the Knicks have three of the best bench players in the league (David Lee, Nate Robinson, and Renaldo Balkman) at a combined salary of around $3.5 million. Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph are proven big men who can get 20 and 10 and give any team fits.

And this year’s payroll, as overloaded as it is, is a marked improvement from a year ago, when the Knicks employed Steve Francis with one of the league’s highest salaries to play the same position as Marbury and Crawford.

Which Knicks team shows up at the Garden to face the 11-2 Celtics is anybody’s guess. One thing’s for sure: it should be pretty entertaining.