I can guess which direction things will head in this week’s edition.
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The Talented Mr. Rieber
I’ve never wanted all of my blog posts to just be media critiques but its just so obvious that with few exceptions, most of the Knicks press is either unimaginative or unoriginal, and I do think someone, somewhere should call them out (I am happy that I’m not the only one). Today Anthony Rieber analogized Donnie Walsh’s plan to an architect rebuilding a house.
He structured his story by first making the analogy, then pointing out that the current state of the Knicks resembles “an empty shell of a house” that will next be rebuilt to look nicer than it did before, and that if Walsh’s plan doesn’t work “then we’ll know that Donnie the Decorator wasn’t as successful as Walsh the Wrecker.”
I think it’s a great analogy. I think it now and I also thought it when I came up with the same one four days before Rieber’s article in a post with strikingly similar structure.
I started out with the premise:
It’s like criticizing a architect halfway through a project, judging him or her at the premature point when all there is to look at is a pile of materials strewn across a vacant lot.
I wrote a bunch of other stuff, and then I concluded:
If the Knicks compile some other group of talent [not LeBron] and win 50 or so games, I’ll still be happy knowing that I tried to build the nicest house on the block and failed, but that I still have a better house than I had before.
But I’m not mad. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks Anthony.
Who Would Want To Play For THAT Team?
It’s getting a little tiresome trying to defend the Knicks from the same old criticisms. I mean, the Knicks have 21 wins and just lost to the 7 win Nets for the second time this season. But as often as folks keep bringing up the same arguments (and it’s become even more fashionable, somehow, to pile on), I’ll keep responding the same way.
The latest volley comes from Mitch Lawrence who posits:
Once he saw the score from the Garden Saturday night, LeBron James must have said to himself, “That’s it. There’s no way I’m leaving Cleveland for that disaster.”
…
Once he saw that the Knicks had allowed 113 points to a Nets team that’s dead last in scoring in the NBA, Chris Bosh must have thought, “How am I going to turn that team around at the defensive end?”
(emphasis mine).
What is that hypothetical team Lawrence writes about? Is he referring to Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and Toney Douglas? Because those players are the only ones with more than just a coin toss’ chance to be around after the summer.
In response to LeBron’s hypothetical dismissal, I think the team is certainly a disaster, but in part it’s because LeBron or another star caliber talent isn’t on it. To illustrate, last night LeBron James sat out, and the Cavs, who have the best record in the NBA, couldn’t beat the Bucks, who, at 4 games over .500 currently occupy the 6th seed. Even with LeBron though, the Knicks wouldn’t have Shaq to protect the paint, or even Anderson Varejao for that matter.
To answer Bosh’s question, I’d say something like “Fake Bosh, I never realized you had such a low opinion of your defensive abilities.” I think it’s likely that Bosh would answer Fake Bosh’s question by saying, “Well, if someone gets by LeBron on the perimeter, I’ll contest the shot inside.” Obviously that’s if Plan A prevails. But the concept remains the same if its Joe Johnson outside and Marcus Camby and/or others inside.
But Lawrence’s article is more about Mike D’Antoni. The thesis is that free agents are scared that if they join Mike D’Antoni’s Knicks, their defensive abilities are going to wither, brown, and crumble to dust. I think they know that’s not true.
Earlier this week, Frank Isola took a shot at D’Antoni’s coaching by asking hypothetically whether the Bucks have so much more talent than the Knicks. Maybe, but what they definitely do have is Andrew Bogut. A legitimate 7 footer who blocks shots and protects the paint, and abuses guys like David Lee on the offensive end too. And they have Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, who actually takes pride in his defense and doesn’t care about his numbers. [1] And yes they have Scott Skiles, who has made a career out of squeezing 5 or 6 extra wins out of low-talent teams by employing a no-nonsense boot-camp strategy that inevitably grates on players who in turn quit on him after about three years.
I’m trying to make the point that when someone smokes Eddie House or Nate Robinson or Sergio Rodriguez or Al Harrington or Chris Duhon, and then David Lee just stands there, what is Mike D’Antoni supposed to do? Yell? Make practice 2 hours longer? Replace Lee with Bender or Eddy Curry?
D’Antoni has a reputation as an offensive innovator whose style doesn’t translate into wins in the playoffs. Two trips to the conference finals say differently. In one of those trips, the Suns lost to the eventual champion Spurs in 7 games in a series where game three was horribly officiated by Tim Donaghy. [2][3] Also the numbers say differently. The Suns, when D’Antoni coached them, were always near or at the league average for points allowed per 100 possessions, a statistic that adjusts for pace.
But that is also besides the point because the only opinions that matter are those of the marquee players in this summer’s free agency bonanza. And they already know what kind of coach Mike D’Antoni is. They’ve all already won a championship playing for him.
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[1] The Knicks did have Jeffries, but he was getting paid too much. Plus, they looked a lot better with him on the defensive end didn’t they?
[2]From Bill Simmons: “Congratulations to Greg Willard, Tim Donaghy and Eddie F. Rush for giving us the most atrociously officiated game of the playoffs so far: Game 3 of the Suns-Spurs series. Bennett Salvatore, Tom Washington and Violet Palmer must have been outraged that they weren’t involved in this mess. Good golly. Most of the calls favored the Spurs, but I don’t even think the refs were biased — they were so incompetent that there was no rhyme or reason to anything that was happening. Other than the latest call in NBA history (a shooting foul for Ginobili whistled three seconds after the play, when everyone was already running in the other direction), my favorite moment happened near the end, when the game was already over and they called a cheap bump on Bruce Bowen against Nash, so the cameras caught Mike D’Antoni (the most entertaining coach in the league if he’s not getting calls) screaming sarcastically, “Why start now? Why bother?” What a travesty. Not since the cocaine era from 1978-1986 has the league faced a bigger ongoing issue than crappy officiating.”
[3] Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvkKdXLwt0U
Note To Peter Vescey: Easy To Second Guess, Harder To Propose A Better Alternative
It’s easy to second guess.
I think most people are on board with the 2010 plan, recognizing that the team Isiah constructed was going nowhere fast anyway. There are differences around the fringes, such as, did the Knicks give up too much to clear Jeffries and Hill when they already had max cap room? Fine. Fair enough. The New York Post’s Peter Vescey makes the point in his typically carmudgeony way:
Judging by their reaction, Walsh’s latest moves had gone over big with New York’s renowned “sophisticated” fans. Potentially, he had traded three pristine picks to the Rockets for a micro-surgically repaired 30-year-old (Tracy McGrady) in order to build for the future, yet they anointed him with oil.
It’s fine to disagree with the Jeffries move. There is an intelligent and rational way to do it. We have a great reader/commenter (Italian Stallion) who does it all the time. But the way Vescey did it is just wrong. The Knicks traded a single pick: the 2012 one, which is protected. They also traded Jordan Hill, who may or may not be a contributor in this league. They also gave Houston the right to swap 2011 picks. Depending on how things go, this right may or may not be exercised.
But the Post has taken its penchant for revisionist history to new levels with a decidedly faulty outlook at what-might-have-been:
Despite the reality, had Walsh selected his draft picks more prudently and chosen a path of resistance vs. concession, the Knicks’ current starters would be Randolph, David Lee, Brook Lopez, Brandon Jennings and Crawford . . . and they would own their own first-rounders in 2011 and 2012 instead of the distant hope of landing James, Wade or both.
But wait a minute Peter, surely an astute basketball mind like you would realize that a playoff caliber squad like the one D’Antoni inherited [sarcasm] wouldn’t have had a lottery pick two drafts ago, so they wouldn’t have had a chance to draft Lopez, the “dominant” center on a 6 win team.
But playing Vescey’s game, Lopez would only improve the Knicks with his dominating play and therefore they surely wouldn’t have had the opportunity to draft the amazing Brandon Jennings [sarcasm]. If you want to be completely honest rather than trying to have it both ways, I’d grant you that the Knicks could have been Ty Lawson, Crawford, Lee, ZBo, and Roy Hibbert. AWESOME!!! Move over Raptors!
Anyway, the completely mythical lineup that Vescey proposes has Lee as a small forward (surely he’s capable of containing athletic NBA wings out on the perimeter), two ball dominating guards with poor shot selection and another ball hog at power forward. Surely the recipe for success right?
I dont know as much about Lefty McCorish, Patches O’Barnaby, Solomon “One Foot” Bilzheimer, or Moishe “48-minute clock” Rothman as the venerable Vescey does, but to my novice mind, if my options were Vescey’s impossible fantasy line-up or a roll of the dice coupled with future cap flexibility that has value well beyond Plans A-C that Vescey purports to be privy to, I go with the latter.
Destroy And Rebuild
Listen up gangstas and honeys with ya hair done
Pull up a chair hon’ and put it in the air son
Dog, whatever they call you, god, just listen
I spit a story backwards, it starts at the ending
-Nas, Rewind
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I’d rather die enormous than live dormant that’s how we on it.
- Jay Z, Can I Live?
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No matter how convinced you are that you’re right, there are people who will disagree. And they have a right to. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Some opinions are defensible.
I got Zach Randolph for 25 and 15 tnt at MSG. If all goes right, Walsh can sign Zach and Jamal in summer, 2011 with their cap space.
-Marc Berman, via Twitter.
That isn’t one of them. Clearly Marc Berman thinks that Donnie Walsh’s plan is already a meaningless failure.
Always a good plan in designing team for 2 seasons @HowardBeckNYT fans wigging out, apparently forgetting this team wasn’t designed to win.
-Marc Berman, via Twitter, sarcastically referencing Howard Beck’s excellent article urging observers to remember the forest from the trees.
The visceral impatience is understandable because losing is painful. The outlook though is tragically flawed. It’s like criticizing a architect halfway through a project, judging him or her at the premature point when all there is to look at is a pile of materials strewn across a vacant lot. It looks ugly so far and so it was a pointless endeavor to build it. The old decrepit house was better.
Will the new house be better than the old decrepit one? Not sure, but I’ll let the architect finish before I convince myself that it wont.
Steve Adamek tried a very creative approach to getting through to those who are so shortsighted that they would criticize a plan that is in the most unseemly part of its execution phase and instead long for a plan of stasis. Adamek indulges them:
Let’s bring back Jamal Crawford for Al Harrington. And bring back Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley.
You’d undo those deals (from November 2008) right now, wouldn’t you?
Let’s even undo the cap-neutral deals of a little over a year ago. Jerome James, Anthony Roberson and Tim Thomas return for Larry Hughes. And Malik Rose makes it back for Chris Wilcox.
Bring Quentin Richardson back and undo this past summer’s deal that brought Darko Milicic to New York.
And finally, undo the ones the Knicks just made. Get back Jared Jeffries, Nate Robinson, Jordan Hill and Marcus Landry. Give back Tracy McGrady, Sergio Rodriguez and the rest.
Oh, and Mr. Vaseline Man can return from his sneaker-sales trip to China.
So basically here’s what you’ve got. Crawford, Randolph, Richardson, Rose, Collins, Jeffries, Robinson, James, Mr. Vaseline Man … In other words, pretty much the 2007-08 roster.
Which went 23-59.
Let that sink in for a minute. It’s such simple and cogent logic. If it doesn’t seep through then your judgment must be clouded. This Adamek piece was so good I’m struggling to find things to cut for the sake of blog brevity…
This is what some folks think the Knicks should’ve done, though. Held onto most, if not all of those players. That way, they figure, the Knicks might’ve put up a legitimate playoff run this season. Maybe finished seventh or eighth.
And then, because of those players’ contracts, they could’ve done the same thing next season. Seventh or eighth place. One (round) and done, most likely.
Meanwhile, they would have no chance to take a run at the best player of this generation, as well as some of his subordinate superstars.
If that’s what you would’ve preferred _ Crawford, Randolph, Vaseline Man, et al, still in Knicks’ finery this season, then you’re a fan of mediocrity.
Yes, the Knicks were 6-3 when Donnie Walsh traded Zach and Jamal. It’s foolhardy though to project results off such a small sample, as this season exhibited first when the Knicks were 1-9, then in December when they had their best month in close to a decade. As Adamek astutely notes:
Mike D’Antoni would’ve had to coax 15-20 more victories out of that group than Isiah Thomas did. Could he have done that? Could Red Holzman have?
(For that matter, how many games would Red have won this season with David Lee as his best player?)
I know that I’ll rest easy no matter what happens in July. The Knicks don’t have to get LeBron James, the possibilities are limitless. But if they do get James, I’ll look back at the haters — who criticized the architect before he got the chance to even start rebuilding the decrepit house I lived in before — and I’ll laugh at their folly.
If the Knicks compile some other group of talent and win 50 or so games, I’ll still be happy knowing that I tried to build the nicest house on the block and failed, but that I still have a better house than I had before.
LeBroptimism Down
Word came through yesterday that LeBron has filed paperwork with the NBA to change his number to 6 for next year. Rules only require a player to submit such paperwork if he plans on changing numbers while remaining on the same team. If a player switches teams he can choose whatever available number he wants. Is it a signal that he’s staying or is it just insurance in case he decides to stay. The possibility that its the former is enough to raise eyebrows.
Fan Satisfaction Poll
Bounce back week for the Knicks and Walsh after the trade deadline. Voters still don’t approve of D’Antoni but he had a resurgence as well. Will recent trends continue?
Loading ...LeBron Wants To Be A Laker In 2010
Roland Lazenby writes at HoopsHype that LeBron James wants to be a Laker. Yep. Sam Smith has speculated about this scenario before but Lazenby has sources to add to Smith’s speculation:
The greatest NBA free agent of all time, LeBron James, is quietly making overtures to the Los Angeles Lakers.He wants to play for them. And James is not all that concerned whether Kobe Bryant is part of the equation. Bryant, of course, has yet to sign a contract extension with L.A. and could wind up a free-agent himself, albeit one with high mileage.
But the overtures have been made. LeBron wants to wear the purple and gold.
And if you think about it, it makes sense. People often point to LeBron’s affinity for the Yankees as a sign that LeBron wants to come to Broadway this summer but his love for the Bombers may mean something else altogether. Consider that he also loves the Cowboys, not the Giants or the Jets. So he loves “America’s” teams. The frontrunner, the proud franchise with the history and the glory. So if you think of the Yankees in baseball, and the Cowboys in football, you think about the Montreal Canadiens in Hockey (23 Stanley Cups – I had to look that up) who do you think about in basketball? As much as it pains me to say it, it’s not the Knicks. It’s the Lakers (or Celtics). And maybe rather than building a new legacy, LeBron wants to add to the most storied one.
Do the Lakers have the juice to land LeBron? Of course. In a sign and trade the Lakers can easily make the best offer of some combination Pau Gasol or Bynum with Artest or Odom and probably some draft picks. If LeBron really wants to go there and the Lakers want him (why wouldn’t they), then game over folks.
If LeBron does change teams this summer, it’ll sting if he doesn’t go to the Knicks, especially after what fans have been through these past two years. I personally never hung my hat on a LeBron-or-nothing philosophy, but it’ll sting.
The only sliver of light for Knicks’ fans is this bit from Lazeby’s article:
Mainly, he wants to wear a championship ring, which means he wants to play for Lakers coach Phil Jackson.“LeBron wants to win. He’s a smart guy,” explains one of my best inside sources, a close Jackson associate. “And Phil loves LeBron, absolutely LOVES him.”
There are many, many complicating factors to such a scenario, not the least of which is the fact that it’s way far from certain that Jackson will even be the coach of the Lakers next year.
“The Lakers have not made Phil an offer,” the Jackson source points out. However, rest assured of this, Jackson’s close associate maintained. “Phil will coach somewhere next year.”
Jackson wouldn’t dare take off next year if he’s not coaching the Lakers because he believes the following year will bring a lock-out, the source says. Jackson craves the chance to win another title before the NBA owners lock out the players in 2011-2012 to force a new contract.
“The whole league is under review,” the source points out. “Franchise values are falling, so the owners feel they must force a new labor agreement.”
The lock-out will bring a lost season, and the 64-year-old Jackson doesn’t want to miss two campaigns. So Jackson could wind up coaching Bron with another team next year, such as the New York Knickerbockers.
Would the Knicks cast aside Mike D’Antoni after these two brutal years? Donnie Walsh promised him the a silver lining, a light at the end of the tunnel. It’ll be the definition of cold-hearted to hand him his walking papers at a time when he was to start collecting on his Faustian bargain. If I’m the Knicks, I’m not sure I get seduced by the possibility of LeBron and Phil Jackson if it means casting away D’Antoni, and it’s not because I think D’Antoni is a better coach than Phil or because I don’t like LeBron or because I don’t want to win a title. But it’s been 37 years since the Knicks won a title and I feel such a cold-hearted move could seal the Knicks into place at the top of the pantheon of sports curses as a result of massive Karmic damnation. Surely, that’s something that Phil Jackson can understand.
2010: The Arn Tellem All-Stars?
A few weeks ago in this space I debated the merits of Joe Johnson and asked, if the Knicks missed out on the big three free agents, whether or not fans could get comfortable with the concept of Johnson as the centerpiece of the Knicks’ summer. The answers were decidedly mixed.
But after witnessing what went on at the trade deadline last week I’ve realized that, while I was likely focusing on the right player as the centerpiece of the Knicks’ plan B (or perhaps even plan A – more on that below) I may have been asking the wrong question.
The Knicks paid a steep price to acquire Tracy McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez at last Thursday’s trade deadline, but even that exorbitant outlay might not have been enough had superagent Arn Tellem not imposed his considerable will and influence on the process. The Rockets and Kings had a trade in place that worked under the cap and didn’t force Houston to absorb any long-term contracts beyond Kevin Martin’s, but it didn’t include the Knicks. Yet Tellem, of Wasserman Media Group, had already decided that T-Mac was going to be a Knick and that was all there was to it. And so, lo and behold, the Knicks were brought back into the deal and T-Mac landed in New York (along with fellow Wasserman client Sergio Rodriguez, who was previously destined for Houston but Tellem had re-routed to NYC instead).
On the surface it would seem odd that Tellem was so adamant that McGrady end up with the Knicks. The team has been the dictionary definition of dysfunction for years and this season really hasn’t been all that different from the past 7 or 8. But Donnie Walsh is something of a godfather to many NBA types, Arn Tellem (and David Stern) included. When Tellem needs advice, he calls Donnie. And so it seems when Tellem needed to provide his marquee client with a soft landing, he called his godfather.
And this isn’t just a one time thing. Danilo Gallinari is a Tellem client, as is the player the Knicks really wanted in the 2008 draft, Russell Westbrook, and the player they would have selected if Gallo was off the board, DJ Augustin. Prior to the 2009 draft, Walsh was often said to be highest on Tyreke Evans, another Tellem client. And during this season, when the aforementioned Augustin struggled with his role with the Bobcats and was rumored to be on the trading block, the Knicks were frequently mentioned as a likely destination for the second year guard.
Even more tellingly, prior to his tenure with the Knicks, Walsh always employed Tellem clients as centerpieces of his Pacers teams, from Reggie Miller to Mark Jackson to Jalen Rose to Jermaine O’Neal to Mike Dunleavy Jr. The two have a long history of building title contenders together.
As it stands the Knicks presently have three Wasserman clients on the roster: Gallinari, and now McGrady and Rodriguez. But after this summer that number could go up dramatically. Which brings me back around to the point of this post.
I think it goes without saying that the Knicks’ dream scenario would be for Lebron James to sign on the dotted line and bring along with him whoever it was that he wanted to play with for the next few years. But even if that’s the dream scenario, it might not be “plan A”, so to speak. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that, though he hoped, Walsh never really thought he could recruit any one of the big three to play in New York, but instead had been focused on an entirely different group of players, more obtainable players, that he wanted to bring into the fold. And that group of players are all represented by Arn Tellem.
That’s right. Beyond the big three, Tellem represents a significant collection of the best available talent this summer. The list includes the fourth best player in this class, Joe Johnson, who we’ve already addressed at length, but it also includes a number of quality veterans like McGrady, Jermaine O’Neal and Mike Miller. On paper, all four players would make tons of sense for the Knicks and it wouldn’t suprise me at all to discover, should the Knicks strike out with the big 3, that Donnie Walsh was intent on signing all of them.
So, assuming that what I’ve described above might be an accurate depiction of what’s going on here (a nervy assumption, I realize), here are what I think are the right questions:
If the Knicks are unable to sign Lebron, Wade or Bosh, could fans get comfortable with the idea of a roster dominated by the clients of superagent Arn Tellem? And if Lebron is unobtainable, would fans be happy rooting for a team assembled around a core with Joe Johnson at its center, but also including veterans like McGrady, Jermaine O’Neal and perhaps Mike Miller?
It’s something to start considering because I think this could very well be the outcome of summer 2010. And it may have been Donnie Walsh’s “plan A” all along.
Gallo = Darko? A Sad New Low For The Already Shameless New York Post
Really by now I shouldn’t be surprised that the New York Post and its stable of “journalists” routinely misrepresent and distort facts and quotes in order to manufacture enough controversy to sell that rag to the unsuspecting masses who may not realize what the Post is up to or be quick enough on their feet to grasp that they’re being sold lies and not news.
So when The Post’s chief spin-doctor, Marc Berman, called the Knicks’ marketing department “presumptuous” for selling season tickets early to capitalize on the hopes of fans that the Knicks might land LeBron James, I couldn’t contain my laughter nor my indignation.
Notwithstanding that Berman may have a point, for him to call anyone “presumptuous” is the most egregious example of a pot calling a kettle black I think I’ve ever witnessed. Berman’s Knicks coverage is built on presumption and I didn’t have to wait that long to find an obvious example.
Within a few minutes of his “presumptuous” tweet, Berman posted about a presumptuous piece of drivel as you could ever care to read, entitled “D’Antoni: Gallinari showing signs of Darko.” Since even the casual observer knows that (even though he’s struggling) Gallinari is worlds better than Darko, my interest was piqued. The thrust of the piece is that Gallinari is showing some of the same disheartening trends that led Mike D’Antoni to give up on Darko Milicic.
Judging by the headline, you would expect a quote from coach Mike D’Antoni comparing the two players. You didn’t get that. You got a quote from D’Antoni saying:
“The rookie wall?.[sic] Did he hit it?…I don’ know. I don’t believe too much on that stuff. Obviously he’s got to turn his motor up. You have to be emotionally invested in the team or otherwise your game suffers. This game is too hard.”
So how did Berman make the leap that D’Antoni compared Gallinari and Darko? From an old quote from D’Antoni about Darko, that had nothing to do with Gallo:
“It’s an easy concept. You play really well, you play. If you’re saying you have a lot practices where you dominate and I don’t play you, I find that hard to believe.”
Really, an accurate headline would have been “Berman: Gallinari showing signs of Darko”, not “D’Antoni: Gallinari showing signs of Darko”. But chalk that up to Berman and the Post’s presumptuousness. And I understand that the “journalist” doesn’t pick the headline, but in this case, the headline was an accurate description of the trifling body. Both were misleading.
What are the presumptions?
1. That the quotes about Gallo and Darko are similar. They are not. The context of them isn’t even remotely comparable.
2. That the question and Mike D’Antoni’s response were designed to evoke a comparison between the two.
3. That you, the fans, are stupid enough to buy into Berman’s nonsense.
