The Knicks Outpaced.

“‘It’s tough to go out this way,’ coach Mike Woodson said. ‘I didn’t make it happen for us and that’s what’s disappointing.'” Well, that’s that then. After the most promising season in a decade, the Knicks go down in six to the Pacers in the second round, not even getting a chance to trade blows with the reigning champion Miami Heat.

Well, we went out earlier than hoped, but I still feel pretty good about this season. For one, even though we had at least two key players — J.R. Smith and Jason Kidd — go ice-cold this series, the Knicks still contended against a big, physical team that may well give the Heat serious problems. (It likely didn’t help that both Melo and JR played hurt.)

For another, I like Mike Woodson as a coach, but his decision-making in this series was…not good. Chris Copeland should have gotten more run — a 3-shooting big man is exactly what was needed to offset the Hibbert factor — and Smith, Kidd, and Amare should all have been benched earlier on. Similarly, I know Steve Novak is a defensive liability, but he should’ve gotten a few of those minutes too. If he gets hot and makes a few threes, it spreads the floor, forces the Pacers to guard the perimeter, and allows Felton, Melo et al to penetrate. It was worth a try, given that JR was throwing up more bricks than the Stonecutters in the first few games.

In any case, Mike Vaccaro’s analogy of the Knicks being an 18 on a blackjack table is a pretty good one. The Knicks are a talented jump-shooting team, and, on the bright side, Iman Shumpert is clearly evolving into a high-impact player. But we need either a consistent second scorer or some sort of inside presence — preferably both — to really contend moving forward. Tyson Chandler is a defensive anchor, but his offense is all tip-ins and Felton alley-oops, and Marcus Camby, Kenyon Martin, and the recently departed Kurt Thomas are all aging in dog years at this point.

Which brings us back to the Amare question — Can he be the player he once was, while co-existing with Melo? — The spacing never looked right when they were both healthy on the floor the past two years. To be continued, next November.

Back in the Game!

It’s been forty long years and we’re starvin’: So I didn’t do the usual annual NBA playoff picks this year, partly because I don’t have much knowledgeable to say about matchups like Denver v. Golden State and Atlanta v. Indiana, and mainly because, more than even most years, my bracket would be clouded over in fandom and I don’t want to bring the jinx. Suffice to say that I’m greatly enjoying the Knicks’ first year of serious playoff contention in fourteen years — basically the entire life of GitM(!)

Even with 2012-2013’s scoring leader (Carmelo Anthony), the six man of the year (J.R. Smith) and a gaggle of seasoned, savvy veterans (Chandler, Kidd, K-Mart, Camby) on our squad, the 2013 NBA Championship clearly remains Miami’s to lose. Still, here’s hoping we at least get a chance to take on the reigning Heat in the Eastern Conference finals. So far, so good — The Knicks go into Boston, a team that swept us two years ago (albeit with Rondo), having defended our home floor for the first time since 2000. Say go New York go New York go…

Keeping an Eye on the Ball.

“It sure sounds like a fair place for two hostile opponents to meet. Half the basketball-related income goes to the owners, half the basketball-related income goes to the players and millions of pro basketball fans celebrate their first victory of the season in the form of, you know, a season. But in the end, there’s nothing fair about awarding 50 percent of BRI to the people who amount to 100 percent of the reason there’s any BRI in the first place.“

This, this, a thousand times this. As talks continue and games disappear, Ian O’Connor summarizes the central issue of the NBA lockout: the owners bring no value to the table — they’re basically leeches on the system. “LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose — they don’t play in the NBA. They are the NBA. The entire league. The workforce and the product. The owners? They’re just along for the ride.“

Now, the better owners, I think — Mark Cuban, say — understand this. They get that an NBA team is a luxury asset that makes most of its money when it it sold, not as a day-to-day enterprise. And they have a good time playing the owner game and getting to hang around with basketball players.

As an aggregate, however, the NBA owners here are the problem. They’ve been lying about their financial straits, and then trying to pin the “downturn” on their employees. Just because the employees are reasonably well-compensated in this instance doesn’t change the fact that this is classic bait-and-switch behavior by management.

If there’s a reason the NBA is doing poorly at the moment — which, again, is an open question due to all the accounting shenanigans — it’s because unemployment is at 9% and poverty is at 15%. We did not get here because Eddy Curry ate his way to the bottom of a ridiculous contract. Besides, it is not Curry’s fault that somebody wants to pay him $100 million a year for riding the bench anyway. It is the fault of whoever paid him – cough, James Dolan — that exorbitant price. So now, owners want to be bailed out by the powers-that-be for their own terrible business decisions? We’ve seen this movie before. Classic corporate-socialism at work.

I expect the players will probably fold in the end, since, like labor in most situations these days, they don’t have much leverage. But, however it all pans out, let’s remember: The players have the skill set. They create the product. There is no product without the players. In an perect world, the owners should give players a generous share of the revenues (since they’re 100% of the value of the operation), and then be happy they get to own a basketball team. Now, let’s play ball.

Update: “One is, historically, you’ve seen franchises appreciate in value and that appreciation has more than outstripped any cash-flow losses that you’ve had…Secondly, it’s a lot of fun to own an NBA franchise…[B]y and large, NBA franchise ownership has been a good investment. You can’t base long-run projections on how you did in the biggest financial downturn of the last 50 years. On that basis, there are no good investments out there.“

Karl Malone’s gonna play the way Karl Malone can. And Kevin Murphy’s gonna sort out this lockout like Kevin Murphy do.

Lockout Time Again.

“As we slink toward the brink of an NBA lockout — if you have a doomsday clock in the family room, five minutes ’til should do the trick — we ought to look at the latest proposals to get a sort of ‘state of the negotiations.’ And while I’d love to be the one who does that, I simply can’t get over how insane the league’s recent major proposal is. That proposal would cap player salary at $2 billion a year…What the $2 billion cap does is re-route all future growth of the league’s revenue straight to the owners’ pocketbooks.“

With an NBA lockout looming tomorrow, SBNation‘s Tom Ziller explains what, exactly, the owners are trying to achieve. (Hint: It’s management’s usual approach to labor.) “There definitely need to be some tweaks, perhaps to contract length…Instead, the league wants to end the reasonable percentage-based split of revenues with players — who are actually the labor and the product in the industry — and ‘guarantee’ $2 billion a year in salary and benefits.“

In very related news, as the NBA owners claim large losses (and yet don’t show their books), Deadspin‘s Tommy Cragg dissects how sport teams usually hide profits through a weird tax quirk that defines players as depreciable assets. “Every year, taxpayers hand the plutocrats who own sports franchises a fat pile of money for no other reason than that one of those plutocrats, many years ago, convinced the IRS that his franchise is basically a herd of cattle.“

Gratz to the “Mavaliers.”

“‘This is a true team,’ Carlisle said. ‘This is an old bunch. We don’t run fast or jump high. These guys had each other’s backs. We played the right way. We trusted the pass. This is a phenomenal thing for the city of Dallas.’“

Way to shield the hated Heat…Proving once again I know nothing about basketball, the Dallas Mavericks win the 2011 NBA title over the team America — and especially Cleveland — (rightfully) loves to hate, the Wade-Bosh-James Miami Heat. Congrats!

As for my picking Dallas to lose in the first round to Portland, clearly I never factored for (1) Dirk being even more unbelievable than usual, (2) Tyson Chandler giving Dallas a legitimate defensive anchor, (3) J.J. Barea weirdly slicing through the Heat D at will, (4) Jason Terry actually hitting a lot of the ill-advised shots he puts up, and (5) LeBron disappearing once again in the clutch. In the end, it’s starting to seem like the Knicks dodged a bullet last summer, and no mistake.

Fan-Tastic 2011.

Since it’s that particular Saturday morning in April again, time for this year’s NBA playoff picks. (Note: accuracy of picks may well be impacted by the return of the Knickerbockers after seven years of ignominy.) Here we go…

[2000|2001|2002|2003|2004|2005|2006|2007|2008|2009|2010]
The East

Chicago Bulls (1) v. Indiana Pacers (8): What a difference a year makes. This time in 2010, Cleveland was the Court of King James and the Eastern powerhouse everyone was watching, while Chicago was the lowly 8-seed that everyone expected would just be happy to be there. Now, Cleveland is fighting it out with Minnesota for lottery balls, and it’s Derrick Rose’s multifaceted Chicago Bulls with the targets on their back. As in the past several years, the Eastern Conference 8-seed is an iffy squad — Indiana went 37-45 and are coming in on a 2-game losing streak — so I don’t expect Chicago to be tested here. Chicago in 4.

Miami Heat (2) v. Philadelphia 76ers (7): This was looking like a return to the Knicks-Heat series of old before New York went on a late-season streak and the Celts faded down the stretch. Anyways, the Heatles (Wade, LeBron, and Bosh — does that make Mike Miller Ringo?) have been a combustible squad all season, and, after watching LeBron mentally check out of the Boston series last year, I have much less faith in his multi-ring playoff potential than I used to. Still, they were designed with the post-season in mind, and the Sixers are only slightly better than Indiana. Gonna have to go Miami in 5.

Boston Celtics (3) v. New York Knicks (6): Hey, look, it’s the Knickerbockers! Now, all the smart money has the Celtics in this match-up, and my head tells me that’s probably true. In fact, they’ll probably take the Knicks in five or six — New York is still a work in progress, and we’re really one more star and 2-3 more role players away from really contending. Still, after an ugly March, Amare and Melo seemed to be finding their groove in the last few weeks of the season, while Boston — a team I’d root for in most other situations — has looked haggard and ornery ever since they traded Kendrick Perkins away at the deadline. And, hey, it’s been seven years, so why not say New York in 7.

Orlando Magic (4) v. Atlanta Hawks (5): Like the Mavericks in the West, Orlando is a team built around a force of nature (Dirk Nowitzki, Dwight Howard) that I’m starting to think is never going to put it together. That being said, they’re facing a team they swept last year, and one who has been struggling (10-17) since the All-Star break. Orlando in 5.

The West

San Antonio Spurs (1) v. Memphis Grizzlies (8): Much credit to the Spurs — Their transition has been extraordinary. Even as Tim Duncan’s era of dominance fades, the Spurs have been consistent all season and even managed to win the West. I don’t see them having much trouble with the Grizzlies. San Antonio in 5.

Los Angeles Lakers (2) v. New Orleans Hornets (7): Ironically, this is the first season in a long time where I might have rooted for the Lakers. Should they manage to make it to the Finals versus Cleveland, sure, I’d root for Phil Jackson to get his twelfth ring. But, like Boston, they have been showing their age down the stretch, and Bynum being hurt — again — doesn’t help matters. They’ll beat Chris Paul and the Hornets, but I’m thinking they won’t make it to June this year. Los Angeles in 6.

Dallas Mavericks (3) v. Portland Trailblazers (6): As I said in the Orlando section, I have my doubts that they’re serious contenders anymore. Unfortunately for Dirk, who’s a consistently impressive and gutty player, I’m starting to think he’s going to end up like Barkley or Ewing, a star without a ring. Especially when they’re facing a young, hungry, and dangerous Trailblazers squad, the team nobody wanted in the first round. Portland in 6.

Oklahoma City Thunder (4) v. Denver Nuggets (5): With a legitimate second option in Russell Westbrook and a playoff veteran manning the paint in Kendrick Perkins, it seems about time for Kevin Durant’s OKC to make the leap. Still, after watching Gallinari, Felton, et al play for the first half of the season, I have a soft spot for “Knicks West.” Denver in 7.

The Rest

Chicago Bulls (1) v. Orlando Magic (5): One would think Orlando might have a slight advantage here because they’re a playoff-tested team. Unfortunately, they’ve failed most of those tests. Meanwhile, the Bulls enjoy the benefit of a great and hungry coach in longtime-assistant Tom Thibodeau, a superstar floor general in Rose, a dangerous set of second and third options (Boozer, Deng, Noah), and guys who know their roles all the way down the bench. (For example, Brian Scalabrine will happily wave a towel, Kurt Thomas will pay 10 minutes, flagrantly foul Howard, and scowl, etc. etc.) Chicago in 6.

Miami Heat (2) v. New York Knicks (6): See, this is what being a Homer gets you. Now I have the Knicks outperforming the first round only to play the hated Heat in the second. And damned if I’m going to pick Miami — particularly this Miami team, the most easily dislikable since the Mourning-Hardaway outfits of the late-90’s — to beat New York, even if, you know, that probably makes a lot more sense. New York in 7.

San Antonio Spurs (1) v. Denver Nuggets (5): Like I said, I like this Denver team — but they’re gunners. If the shots aren’t falling, they are going to stink up the joint. And when you move deeper into the playoffs and the tension builds, those rims will start to clank more often than not. Plus, I have a feeling, even if the Spurs are built on speed attack these days, that Gregg Popovitch will figure out how to close Denver down with not much trouble. San Antonio in 5.

Los Angeles Lakers (2) v. Portland Trailblazers (6): WIth or without Bynum, I suspect Kobe has the killer instinct to put LA on his back and get them past the Blazers (or, at the very least, he’ll yell at Pau Gasol until he does it.) Still, LA may win this season, but Portland is going to tire them out, and that’s going to be a factor in the next round. Los Angeles in 6.

EAST FINALS: Chicago Bulls (1) v. New York Knicks (6): Ok, I think here’s where reality sets in. Even if New York makes it this far, they will have had to knock off two of the three main contenders from the East. Meanwhile, Chicago has had a pretty easy road of it — nobody’s really imagining Indiana or Orlando to go anywhere deep. Plus, let’s face it, the Knicks have a lot of exposed holes still…like Denver, they rely on offense and offense only. But wait ’til next year — Chris Paul will look great in the blue-and-orange. Chicago in 6.

WEST FINALS: San Antonio Spurs (1) v. Los Angeles Lakers (2): You again, I see — The two best teams of the last decade meet for yet another go-round in the Western Conference finals. And, this year, Tim Duncan has more fresh legs on his side than Kobe. San Antonio in 7.

FINALS: Chicago Bulls (1) v. San Antonio Spurs (1): Ok, they’re both one-seeds, but a lot of you have the Heat and/or Lakers here, right? Anyways, it’s hard to bet against Gregg Popovitch and Tim Duncan in the NBA Finals. But it’s also hard not to like this Bulls team, who are both well-rounded and deep. I’ll keep it real for the East and say Chicago in 7.

So, looking back on this, I actually find myself rooting for the Bulls and the Lakers at various points. Strange times we live in, strange times. Anyway, Game 1 is starting right about now, so let’s go to it! The NBA, it’s faaaan-tastic.

The Coming of Carmelo.

“‘Wow, just had the craziest 12 hours of my career,’ Anthony said on his Twitter account last night.” That late-night booyah! sound you heard the other night? That was Knickerbocker Nation reacting to the happy news that, after a half-season of crossed fingers at the Garden, the impressively over-performing Amar’e Stoudamire will get some much-needed help in Carmelo Anthony (not to mention veteran Chauncey Billups, who will take over for Raymond Felton at the point…at least until Chris Paul can get free…)

To make this dynamic duo happen, we had to give up Felton, streaky scorers Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler, 7-foot prospect Timofey Mozgov, X-factor-gone-bust Anthony Randolph, the ghost of Eddy Curry, some future draft picks and some cash…For the record, I am totally ok with all of this.

As ESPN’s Ian O’Connor writes, “This is a great deal for the Knicks, a greater moment for their fan base…[I]t’s one of the best trades this team has made since Eddie Donovan acquired Dave DeBusschere in 1968.” Let’s hope events bear out this sportswriterly exaggeration — The Carmelo Era at MSG begins tonight at 7:30.

Isiah in the Wilderness.

“Isiah believes that, with or without James, he will someday help the Knicks win their first NBA title since 1973. ‘want to be on the float and I want to get my ring,” Thomas said.‘” Now here’s a comeback I definitely don’t support. Former GM and coach Isiah Thomas pleads to ESPN for a return to the New York Knickerbockers.

No offense to Isiah, and I know the GOP just retook the House and all, but, really, have we forgotten the Bad Old Days already? Fortunately, I’m thinking Knicks fans have longer memories than most midterm voters.

Welcome to the Amar’e Era.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,’ Stoudemire said of opening night. ‘The time is finally here. I can’t wait.‘” Start spreading the news: The new-look Knickerbockers kick off the season today across the border against the Bosh-less Toronto Raptors. “‘The fans are ready just as well as we are,’ Stoudemire said.“

True, that. Still, even after the Amar’e signing, the Knicks are looking like a seventh or eighth seed at best at the moment. And with potential X-factor Anthony Randolph starting the season hobbled, Gallinari and Felton playing inconsistently in the pre-season, and Stanford second-rounder Landry Fields starting at SG, I fear it’s not going to take too many games before we’re all just waiting for Melo all season.

(But, hey, at least right now we have a better record than the hated 0-1 Heat, who looked terrible last night against the Celtics. Booyah.)

Cleveland has no King. Cleveland needs no King.

“In this fall — this is very tough — in this fall I am taking my talents to South Beach and play with the Miami Heat. I feel like this is going to give me the best opportunity to win and to win for multiple years.” With that, Lebron James — a King of Cleveland no longer — publicly announced he’s signing with the Heat.

Oof, what a sorry spectacle. Over the years, I’ve been on the receiving end of break-ups that were probably worse-handled than what LeBron did to Cleveland — on national TV! — last week…but only just barely. And, while I know I was rooting for a LeBron–to–NYK trade in the past, it’s hard not to feel at this point that the Knickerbockers may have dodged a basketball bullet here. Between the 2010 playoffs and the sorta-sad deference to D-Wade, it seems like James isn’t really wired to carry a team to a championship, and all talk of him as the next Michael Jordan now sounds ridiculous — That honor is now pretty clearly bestowed on, much as I hate to say it, Kobe Bryant.

The upshot, as a Knicks fan: If not necessarily game-changers on their own, Amar’e Stoudamire, Anthony Randolph, and Raymond Felton are promising additions to our squad, more promising than anything we’ve seen since the dog days of Isiah (Never again!) And count me in on the plan for an Amar’e-Melo-CP3 triumvirate in Gotham by next year or 2012. Hey, at least Melo has actually won something…