Since most of you think of me as a basketball personality, you probably think I’m going to talk about the dismissal of my colleague Elgin Baylor from his long-time position as the leader of the Los Angeles Clippers front office. You would be wrong. First of all, the Clippers will always be a joke no matter who they hire, so firing Elgin Baylor is like throwing the Tar Baby into the briar patch. No offense, of course. Also, just as I like to think that I transcend basketball both as a player and as an executive, I want to jump that particular shark and talk about a sports firing that strikes me near and dear to my heart. I am speaking, of course, about the former Detroit Lions general manager Matt Millen , since I used to be a player in that city and I have also been fired.

When I think of Matt Millen being forced to step down after eight seasons, I think of my former coach at Indiana University, Bobby Knight , and how he was forced out because of his confrontational personality. Maybe Coach Knight’s chair-throwing and throat-choking and provocative racial confrontations didn’t go over with the play-it-safe types that ran the university. But as a young man, and speaking for most of the young men he coached, he set an example that I am still trying to live up to, even today. He installed in me a code of conduct that I’ve tried to install everywhere I’ve gone, especially when I became the president and coach of the New York Knicks.  And I’d like to think that the results speak for themselves.

Now everyone knows about the FIRE MATT MILLEN rallies and protests that happened because of the Lions’ poor record and lack of playoff success. But you have to really look at what state the team was in before he arrived and after he left to really know how well he did. I think, given the situation, he did his job as well as he could. When Millen arrived on the 2001 scene , he was stuck with an old group of players and without a Hall of Famer like Barry Sanders or (in my case) Reggie Miller. He needed to make some drastic changes in order to compete in the competitive football marketplace. That none of his stars from that team are on the current team says a lot about Millen’s love of change and youth.

Also, he knew exactly what he wanted and he went out and got it, which is something that is very important to understand when you’re in the front office. People that think his drafting of wide receivers in the first round for four out of five years is some kind of weakness doesn’t understand what it’s like in sports. You want to work from a position of strength and depth when you make a team, and there’s no better way to ensure that your team will be strong and deep than to build up at one position. This is the same reason I drafted both Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady despite them being the same position and being cousins that held major grudges against each other. It is also why I traded for Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph despite both having reputations for being selfish players and never taking home leftovers from the Cheesecake Factory . I knew what I wanted, and I got what I wanted. After you do your job of acquiring players, it’s out of your hands (even if you’re the head coach), and it’s up to the players to figure out what they want. Blaming Matt Millen because the players he drafted didn’t want it bad enough is like blaming a butterfly in Africa for causing Hurricane Katrina.

In a lot of ways, Matt Millen was a "maverick" of the NFL, just as John McCain and Sarah Palin are "mavericks" in the presidential election happening in November. If Millen was just another front office suit, he would follow the same winning blueprint that everyone else tries to follow. Instead, Millen followed his own path, and as they say in poetry, it made all the difference in the world. Sometimes, results aren’t as important in staying true to what you believe in. When I purchased the Continental Basketball Association for $5 million, I rejected the NBA’s offer to purchase the league for $11 million because I stayed true to what I believe in. And even though the league collapsed and became bankrupt, I stayed with those beliefs as long as I could. After all, both Matt and I wouldn’t be where we are today if we decided to stop following our hearts and what we believed.

In the end, I think that Matt Millen’s worst enemy was not the fans but the media. After all, the Ford family were on the record numerous times saying that Millen was doing a great job running the Lions, and who would know better what’s working than the owners? I think the national media saw an opportunity, with the Lions’ 0-4 start, to flex their muscle and force the ownership to make a change they didn’t want to make. And it’s a shame. Right now, the Lions team has a young nucleus of wide receivers, and an underrated quarterback in John Kitna, and a defense that allows less than 32 points per game. They are sure to win lots of games sometime in the near future. And when that happens, I hope that all you fans out there that wanted Matt Millen fired remember to thank the man that made it all possible.

The first round draft picks former New York Knicks President of Basketball Operations Isiah Thomas gave up as part of the Eddy Curry trade were used to select LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah.