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.
Category: Sports
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.
Stop Me Before I Trade Again.
Steve Francis? Kenyon Martin? Lamar Odom? Reggie Evans and Danny Fortson? With the season a wash, the Knicks seem hell-bent on making at least one more panic trade. I get the sense this will all end very badly.
Airball.
Oof. Having lost 9 games in a row and 15 of the last 16, the 14-36 Knickerbockers are now the worst team in franchise history after 50 games. Was it really only a month ago, after that six-game winning streak, that I was trying to climb aboard the Larry Brown bandwagon? I think I may have broken it.
Cards and Guards.
In the movie bin, Ali G goes up against NASCAR racer Will Ferrell (and sidekick John C. Reilly) in the Anchorman-ish new trailer for Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and In the Line of Fire meets The Fugitive in this preview of The Sentinel, with Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, and Eva Longoria. I might catch the first one, if the summer is sweltering enough.
A Rose in the Garden.
The Knicks make a panic trade in procuring Jalen Rose and a draft pick (Denver’s) for the expiring contract of Antonio Davis. Hmmm. Rose is a talented player on the offensive end, but he brings little to the table that we don’t already have in Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford. And that contract…ugh. Somebody should tell Isiah the first rule in getting out of a hole: Stop digging.
Steelers’ Reels / Capt. Cromwell.
Another Superbowl has come and gone (Congrats to the Steelers, some of the calls notwithstanding), and — while I personallly preferred the FedEx cavemen and Hummer monsters — some new movie ads were scattered throughout the game, including new looks at V for Vendetta, MI:III, Poseidon, and Pirates of the Caribbean. (And, also in movie news, the increasingly over-stuffed Spiderman 3 picks up another marquee name with James Cromwell as Capt. Stacy, Gwen’s father.)
Nothing but Net.
See what you’ve wrought, Kobe? Local prospect Epiphanny Prince puts up 113 points in a high school game. (Final score: 137-32.) “‘It’s an amazing thing when an individual does that,’ NBA star LeBron James said when told about Prince’s performance. ‘I don’t know who she is, but maybe we’ll see her in the WNBA. For that matter, the NBA.‘” Doesn’t sound like the other team was all that competitive…But, heck, I’m sure we could find a spot for her on this current Knicks squad.