Well, the Steve Francis Era didn’t exactly start with a bang, did it? On Friday, “Fire Thomas” chants reverberated in the Garden as the the Knicks dropped to 3-20 against their rivals from across the Hudson since Jason Kidd arrived. Then on Saturday, the revamped Knicks backcourt held Washington guard Gilbert Arenas to 33 points in the first half and Stephon Marbury re-injured his shoulder.

And the hits just keep on coming. With New York facing a virtually automatic loss in San Antonio tonight, they will be proud owners of the league’s worst record if the Bobcats beat the Clippers in Los Angeles.

It’s clear the Knicks are a horrible team, but what’s less clear, at times, is why. The Knicks are living proof of the old maxim about winning all the battles but losing the war. Nearly any time a high-profile player has come on the trade or free-agent market, the Knicks have been heavily involved in the bidding, and more often than not they’ve “won.” If you just look at the personnel exchanged, it seems inconceivable that the Knicks could end up worse than they were when Isiah Thomas took over.

For instance, trading a bunch of slop to the Suns for Marbury seemed like a no-brainer, just as sending Penny Hardaway and Trevor Ariza to Orlando for Steve Francis is completely one-sided in terms of talent. Similarly, trading Othella Harrington and other scraps for Jamal Crawford, dealing Vin Baker and Moochie Norris for Maurice Taylor and a first-round pick that became David Lee, and swapping Antonio Davis for Jalen Rose and a no.1 all were to New York’s advantage.

Despite all these successes, the math hasn’t added up, for a few reasons. First, regardless of how much he’s spent, Thomas has never brought in a genuine superstar, either home grown or via trade. Without a Dirk Nowitzki to serve as the centerpiece, it hasn’t mattered how many millions he’s blown on what is essentially a supporting cast with nothing to support.

Second, and more important, is the concept economists call opportunity cost. Almost every Thomas trade has used up an opportunity the Knicks had to improve – either via expiring contracts, draft choices, or free agent money – but has done little to actually help the team. Even a team with the Knicks’ resources only has so many bullets in the holster, and if Thomas is firing round after round in an effort to get redundant power forwards and shoot-first point guards, it means he’ll eventually fire some blanks around the rest of the roster.

To see what I mean, let’s try this exercise. We’ll look at New York’s trades not from the Knicks’ side, but from the other team’s perspective. In nearly every case, the opposing general manager used the opportunity of a trade with Thomas as a catalyst to rebuild his team:

PHOENIX Suns general manager Bryan Colangelo won Executive of the Year last year, and is getting an offer to triple to his salary from Toronto. He should give Isiah a cut of the payments. By sending Marbury and Hardaway’s contracts to New York, the Suns went overnight from a near Knicks-like cap situation to having enough room to sign Steve Nash and Quentin Richardson as free agents. And when Richardson’s back started balking, Colangelo went to the well again to pry Kurt Thomas loose and stick New York with the final five years of Richardson’s deal.

SAN ANTONIO Thomas made the Suns contenders, but he made the Spurs champions. By sending Nazr Mohammed to the Spurs in a curious 2005 deadline deal for Malik Rose and a future no. 1, the Knicks gave San Antonio the missing piece in the middle it needed to hold off Detroit in last year’s Finals. Don’t think for a second the Spurs would have won with Rasho Nesterovic in the middle … or that Pistons GM Joe Dumars wasn’t a little peeved at his former backcourt mate for consummating such a trade.

MILWAUKEE A key reason the Bucks are back in playoff shape is because they were able to drop Tim Thomas’s contract on the Knicks and get the more productive Keith Van Horn in return. Because Van Horn, in turn, interested the Mavs, the Bucks were able to make a follow-up trade that got them under the salary cap this summer. With that money, the small market Bucks signed Bobby Simmons, kept Michael Redd and Dan Gadzuric, and are making a playoff run while keeping costs under control.

CHICAGO Isiah is talking about making a run at Kevin Garnett this summer, but thanks to his deals, the team with the real shot at Garnett is Chicago. Because Thomas is the one paying Jamal Crawford and Eddy Curry instead of the Bulls, Chicago has enough room under the cap this summer to comfortably fit Garnett’s contract – and perhaps that of free agent Peja Stojakovic as well. And because Thomas grossly overpaid in the Curry trade and failed to protect the first-round pick, Chicago can dangle a high lottery pick in front of Minnesota as part of the booty.

TORONTO and ORLANDO Two of the biggest players in free agency during the next two summers will be the Raptors and Magic. Care to guess why? In Toronto’s case, the Raptors gave the Knicks a first-round pick belonging to Denver as a bribe to take Jalen Rose’s contract, and now will be several million below the cap this summer. Similarly, taking Francis off the Magic’s hands now has Orlando looking at the most cap space of any team in an absolutely loaded 2007 free-agent market.

ATLANTA The one team that failed to cash in from Thomas’s largesse was Atlanta, who got snookered in the one legitimately positive trade of Isiah administration – acquiring Mohammed from the Hawks as a sidebar to the Van Horn trade. This deal immediately upgraded the center spot, and the Knicks didn’t even take on a bad contract to pull it off. In a related story, Hawks GM Billy Knight is likely to face the firing squad this summer.

So there you have it. If you’re a bad team or have bad contracts, it doesn’t matter. Just call up Isiah and all your dreams can come true. Even general managers with spotty track records – such as Colangelo before the Marbury trade and Chicago’s John Paxson – have resurrected their careers with a single phone call to Madison Square Garden. While Thomas has squandered opportunity after opportunity to re-shape the Knicks, he’s busily been handing Get out of Jail Free cards to half the league’s GMs. Despite seemingly “winning” all these battles, you might say he has a monopoly on losing the war.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast.