Just like nearly every other team opening training camp, the New York Knicks believe better days are ahead.

But after last season's misery, what else could they say?

``It can only go up,'' guard Jamal Crawford said

The Knicks gathered at their practice center Monday before flying to Charleston, S.C., for the opening of their first _ and possibly only _ camp under Isiah Thomas.

But as much as the Knicks desperately want to move on, they can't just yet. There is still some leftover business from the 23-59 season under Larry Brown.

Thomas said he expects to be in Charleston on Tuesday for the opening of camp, even as a hearing with NBA commissioner David Stern involving the Knicks and Brown extends into a second day. The Knicks refused to pay the remaining four years and some US$40 million on Brown's contract after firing him in June, and Stern will rule if Brown will get his money or not.

Players were repeatedly asked about Brown and his situation Monday. But that's what happens when almost all the news the team made last season involved things that happened off the court.

``When you play in New York, obviously good, bad or indifferent, things are going to be magnified, especially when it's from a negative standpoint,'' Jalen Rose said. ``That's what happened last year and it's going to have a rollover effect because a lot of people unfortunately that have pens and pads follow what other people write and say.''

It will fall largely to Thomas to get people talking positively again, and he may not have long to do it. When Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan fired Brown and made Thomas the coach along with his duties as team president, he warned that Thomas will be gone from both jobs if the Knicks don't show improvement this season.

``In terms of what is significant improvement, only Mr. Dolan will be able to judge that, and what he decides at the end of the day we'll all live by,'' Thomas said. ``My job is to make our players feel comfortable in operating under pressure, because pressure comes with what we do. It's a pressure-packed environment playing at this level and you're competing the way we have to go out and compete. That comes with the territory.''

The way the Knicks competed last season was clearly not good enough, and there are plenty of questions about how they are supposed to be much better when they didn't make any major player moves over the summer.

But the players think playing for Thomas will be enough of a change. Many struggled under Brown's inconsistent rotation patterns _ he used an NBA-high 42 different starting lineups.

``We know that there's going to be some consistency as far as who's playing,'' said point guard Stephon Marbury, who revealed that Tracy McGrady told him that when Houston was scouting the Knicks, the Rockets ``didn't know who was going to start.''

Of course, Marbury was the central figure in the other ugliness from Brown's tenure: the frequent player criticisms through the media. It angered Dolan, who has cited Brown's refusal to follow the Garden's media policy as one of his reasons for withholding the coach's salary.

Marbury expects Thomas to treat players' issues, ``individually, instead of being dealt with as a whole.''

``You can't treat everybody the same,'' Marbury said.

Thomas, who recently hired former Raptors GM Glen Grunwald as executive vice-president for basketball operations, said he wants to make the game fun again for the players, who are hoping the focus will soon be on basketball. Forward Channing Frye said that the 33-year-old Rose told him there were things about the 2005-06 season that he had never seen before in the NBA.

``Last time I checked, the Knicks weren't the only team watching the playoffs,'' Rose said. ``There were a lot of other teams watching the playoffs. It's just that we found ways to magnify our situation.''