Category: NBA

Another Season Nixed.

“Across nearly 50 years, the coaches of the best Knicks teams — Joe Lapchick, Red Holzman, Hubie Brown, Pat Riley, Jeff Van Gundy — sucked every ounce of talent and effort from their troops. They didn’t always win it all, but they emptied the tank in the attempt. When they lost, they lost without disgrace. Even when the Knicks were truly bad, the scent of those years didn’t rival the unbearable stench of this one.” With the Knickerbocker freefall continuing apace, ESPN’s Ken Shouler lays the blame squarely on Larry Brown. Well, when you’re 19-54, there’s a lot of blame to go around.

Latrell AWOL.

“Inside the sprawling yellow brick home with the massive wooden jungle gym in the backyard resides the best basketball player in the world without a job, an athlete who could help some team win an NBA championship three months from now if it could just get a reading on whether he’s willing and/or able to set aside his shame and lace ’em up for the first time since the Minnesota Timberwolves played their final game last season.” ESPN’s Chris Sheridan tries to ascertain what’s up with Latrell Sprewell these days. I’d take Sprewell back in a New York minute over the ungainly gaggle of underachieving shoot-first guards Isiah’s assembled for the Knicks. If nothing else, Spree left it out on the floor most every night.

Frye’s to go.

Yes, sports fans, it can get worse. The woeful 19-47 Knicks lose rookie Channing Frye for the rest of the season to a ligament sprain in his left knee. Since New York was already way out of contention for the playoffs, playing the rookies (Frye, slam-dunk winner Nate Robinson, David Lee) would’ve been the only positive aspect of the remaining games. Sigh…now, it’ll just be Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury endlessly jawing at Larry Brown.

Say it ain’t so, Joe…and Clyde, and Jerome…

(Like I needed to another reason to think less of A-Rod.) By way of my friend Mark, here’s an interesting list of campaign contributions made by sports figures since 1978. Some of the bigger Democratic donors include Hank Aaron, Andre Agassi, Michael Jordan, Robert Kraft, Alonzo Mourning, Bud Selig, Dean Smith, and David Stern. As for athletes buttressing the GOP, they include several football (Troy Aikman, Bobby Bowden, Mike Ditka, Peyton Manning, Roger Staubach) and racing (Mario Andretti, Brian and Bill France, Jeff Gordon, Dale Jarrett, Richard Petty) stars, along with Jerome Bettis, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, Lute Olson, Rafael Palmeiro, A-Rod, and Marge Schott.

Plutocracy Foyled.

“A player who has the ability to make it to the NBA can come from anywhere…In very much the same way, politics should give all of our gifted and talented citizens an equal chance to compete to serve in political life.” Wow, you learn something new every day. Before entering the NBA, Golden State Warriors center Adonal Foyle began an organization called Democracy Matters, dedicated to getting college students more involved in the fight for campaign finance reform. You can read Foyle’s speech about the connection between the NBA and the issue here. (By way of his adopted brother at Crooked Timber.)

Thems Kinfolk!

Kevin Bacon Game alert: The TNT midnight movie after Thursday’s NBA marquee match-up of Dallas versus San Antonio — it’s on in the background right now — is Next of Kin (1989), a rednecks-versus-the-mob Patrick Swayze vehicle that’s surprisingly chock-full of stars. Husband to Helen Hunt and brother to Cletus-ish psycho Liam Neeson, Swayze’s a cop out to discover who killed his other brother, Bill Paxton. And whodunnit? Mob thugs Adam Baldwin and Ben Stiller in the opening moments, both of whom report to mafiosi Andreas Katsulas (R.I.P.) and Del Close. Swayze notwithstanding, I wonder if this is on any of their resumes these days.

Garden Quagmire.

“And so the Knicks press on into a future roughly as promising as the fate of Iraq. In the near-term, it’s hard to foresee anything but a slide further into anarchy. And no one — not Brown, not Thomas, and not Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan, who marched into the team’s locker room on Tuesday night and demanded that they start winning (now, there’s a strategy!) — seems to have a plausible exit strategy.” Slate‘s Michael Crowley laments the demise of the New York Knickerbockers under GM Isiah Thomas. Update: Dolan: “Stay the course.” Sound familiar?

St. Francis of Assisti?

As expected, the Knicks have pushed the panic button, acquiring Steve Francis for Trevor Ariza and Penny Hardaway’s contract. Well, we’re not giving up much other than cap flexibility (I like Ariza — he’s a hustle player — but he also makes bad decisions, and hasn’t been gelling under Larry Brown.) Still, how is a backcourt of Marbury and Francis (backed up by Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson) going to work? They’re like five iterations of the same offensively talented, defensively deficient player (5.5 if you count Quentin Richardson), and every one of them needs the ball in their hands to be productive. At any rate, there’s a good bet that the Knicks haven’t finished yet, with Crawford for Theo Ratliff or Darius Miles a distinct possibility. “Crawford even polled the team’s beat writers after Wednesday morning’s shootaround to ask them where they believed he would be headed.“

Six Feet Over.

Little Man Nate? Not hardly. All of 5’9″ going on 5’7″, Nate Robinson of the New York Knicks won the Slam Dunk competition last night, with an impressive repertoire that included dunking over 1986 champion Spud Webb. (Yes, Sports Fans, I just managed to use the words “Knicks” and “won” in the same sentence.) Update: “Both Dolan and Bush are sons of powerful men, more products of name than actual qualifications. Both were pretty much appointed to their present jobs in the first place, Dolan by Dad, President Bush by Justice Scalia. Dolan has the Madison Square Garden network, Bush has Fox News.” Veteran sports columnist Mike Lupica compares the Dubya and (Knicks owner) Dolan regimes.