Marburied Hopes.

“‘Isiah has to start me,’ Marbury fumed, according to the source. ‘I’ve got so much (stuff) on Isiah and he knows it. He thinks he can (get) me. But I’ll (get) him first. You have no idea what I know.‘” (Some choice suggestions on what Starbury knows in the comment thread here: I like “It was Isiah’s call to cancel Arrested Development” and “Isiah does not care about black people.“) Yep, the once-promising 2007-2008 Knickerbockers imploded early this year, with our overpaid, underachieving, untradeable “star” point guard Stephon Marbury leaving the team in a huff over coming off the bench — at the start of a tough four game road trip — and now threatening to expose Isiah Thomas’s dirty laundry (as if we didn’t get enough of that with this past summer’s sexual harrassment case.) How will the saga of the Traveling Marbury pan out? Will Stephon be handled with care or sent to the end of the line? Either way, I expect the Knicks to stay moribund so long as this PG, this GM, and this owner are running the show at the Garden. (NY Daily News and Deadspin links sent to me via Ben of The Oak, who also birddogged a great find last week with these graphical representations of hip-hop.) Update: The prodigal Knick returns to a loss in LA, but something’s still rotten at MSG.

Hardball | Hardwood.

“‘Whether it’s fair or not fair, the fact of the matter is that my colleague from New York, Senator Clinton, there are 50 percent of the American public that say they’re not going to vote for her. I’m not saying anything that people don’t know already. I don’t necessarily like it, but those are the facts,’ Dodd said.” Edwards, Obama, and Dodd (finally) release the hounds at last night’s Democratic debate in Philadelphia. Said Edwards: “I mean, another perspective on why the Republicans keep talking about Senator Clinton is, Senator, they may actually want to run against you, and that’s the reason they keep bringing you up.” (Update: Edwards’ Youtube team pounces on the politics of parsing.)To be honest, I DVR’ed the debate and haven’t watched it yet, partly because I’m rather dispirited about the whole process (among other things) these days, and partly because the NBA’s opening-night double-header was on TNT…which means, if nothing else, there should be something on TV most nights from now until June. (The Knicks start Friday.)

Hou II in the Orange and Blue?

“I’ve seen the Garden in some of its best moments, and I truly believe that this team is on the verge of experiencing that again.” Allen Houston returns to the New York Knicks, two years after retiring with a bad knee. Well, ok. Houston was always pretty one-dimensional as a player — he’s a shooter, and not much else (I’d rather have Sprewell back, to be honest.) But when he’s on, he’s on, and the (2-0!) Knicks will need someone to spread the floor from outside in any case, with both Curry and Randolph clogging up the paint. Houston’s no silver bullet for this squad, and he might not make the roster anyway, but let’s hope it works out. “‘If he’s the Allan Houston we know, we haven’t seen him in a while, but if he’s that good a player, we want good players,’ said Thomas.” Update: Scratch that…aborted at the launchpad. “With the season opening less than two weeks away, I think it is best for the team to move on without me.” Sigh…not what you’d call a feel-good story.

Isiah 11.6.

“‘What I did here, I did for every working woman in America,’ said Browne Sanders, who came out of the courtroom beaming. ‘And that includes everyone who gets up and goes to work in the morning..” The NBA’s nightmare off-season continues with (just as during the regular season) a loss for the Knicks: A jury finds MSG, owner James Dolan, and Knicks coach Isiah Thomas guilty of sexual harassment and liable for $11.6 million in damages. The occasional Post headline screaming at me from the local deli notwithstanding, I haven’t been following all the twists and turns of this ugly case, other than that I heard Stephon Marbury somehow got caught up in it too for having consensual sex with a Garden employee. Regardless, this is a total embarrassment for the NBA and for New York basketball, and one hopes Commissioner Stern will crack down hard on Dolan & co. if MSG doesn’t clean house, and soon.

Donaghy Don’ts.

Speaking of the death penalty, it’s a good thing David Stern wasn’t prosecuting this case…Crooked NBA ref Tim Donaghy pleads guilty to two felony charges, and now faces a maximum of 25 years in prison. “Donaghy provided recommendations, called ‘picks,’ to co-conspirators about what team they should bet on, said U.S. District Court Judge Carol Bagley Amon. If he was correct, they paid him. The picks included information about games that Donaghy officiated, the government said.” But did he actually fix those games? That’s still an open question…

Beantown and Da Kid?

Lone Timberwolf Kevin Garnett to end up in Boston? (Marc Stein explains the math.) An Allen-Garnett-Pierce starting trifecta for the Celtics might just make Boston the team to beat in the East…for about a season and half. But, I guess the thinking is they weren’t going anywhere anyway, so why not roll the dice on an all-or-nothing championship bid, while the Atlantic remains definitively dismal? Still, it reminds me of the ultimately failed Barkley-Olajuwon-Drexler experiment in Houston. Update: Sportsguy loves the deal, and also cites the Houston precedent. Update 2: It is accomplished — KG is now the Beast of the East. (Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph better up their D…)

Say it ain’t so, Tim.

So, as you may have heard this past week, and as you may long have expected if you’re a fellow pro basketball fan, it turns out several NBA games might well have been fixed by a crooked, desperate ref with mob connections, one Tim Donaghy. I run hot and cold on ESPN Sportsguy Bill Simmons, but his take on this growing scandal thus far is pretty solid: “When news of the scandal broke on Friday…every diehard NBA fan had the same reaction. They weren’t thinking, ‘I can’t believe it!’ or ‘Oh my God, how could this happen?’ They were thinking, ‘Which one was it?’” (Yeah, I did that.) Also, consider this: “Tim Donaghy didn’t just violate the integrity of the league and rig some games. There’s a good chance he altered the course of the 2007 championship.” Sigh…this is not good. Update: Commissioner Stern weighs in.

Court Vision.

Also concerning the NBA (and along the lines of this post last year), friend and colleague Ben of The Oak sent along this noteworthy article on which basketball players are contributing to what 2008 candidates. Supporting fan of the game Barack Obama: NY Knick Stephon Marbury, Shane Battier, Billy King, and Baron Davis. For Edwards (in the past): Charles Barkley, Mike D’Antoni, and Travis Best. For Clinton: many NBA owners, including Paul Allen and the Maloofs. For Mitt Romney: Celtic exec Danny Ainge. For the Dems in general: The Commish, David Stern.

Oden Days | Zach to the Future?

As expected, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant went 1 and 2 respectively at last night’s 2007 NBA Draft. Bigger news on the local scene, however, was the Knicks acquiring Portland’s talented, troubled PF Zach Randolph in exchange for sophomore SF Channing Frye (a good player, but he slumped considerably last year) and veteran “superstar” PG Steve Francis (a wildly overpaid underachiever with an awful, bloated contract — I can’t believe Portland took him, frankly.) All in all, I’m pretty happy with this trade. Randolph’s clearly a bit of a loon, and a cluttered Randolph-Curry frontcourt makes about as much sense as the Marbury-Francis backcourt — it’s a fantasy team line-up with no sense for team chemistry. How are Marbury, Crawford, or Robinson going to drive into the paint with both Curry and Randolph drawing double-teams in the low post, and no real shooters to spread the floor? Still, losing Francis was addition by subtraction, and, while’s Randolph’s contract is also pretty hefty ($61 million over 4 years) at the very least, Randolph is still young. (The move was definitely better than the Celtics’ obvious panic-trade for Ray Allen. I love Jesus Shuttlesworth, but shooting guards over 30 — particularly those who just had two ankle surgeries — age in dog years, and he, like Pierce, has a tendency to disappear sometimes.)

Isiah Hearts Kobe.

Spurred by Kobe Bryant’s recent on-again, off-again trade demands (predicted by Ray Allen several years early), Knicks GM and coach Isiah Thomas starts dreaming of a major shake-up in the Knickerbocker lineup. Oof, I really hope Bryant doesn’t end up in New York (not that it’s very likely anyway.) Despite his immense talent, he is easily my least favorite player in the league, and I’d have a hard time rooting for my Knicks with him jacking up shots all the time for the orange-and-blue.