The Banality of Losing

Houston Rockets 101, New York Knicks 92

Yao welcomed the Knicks back to reality on Wednesday

What ever happened to the execrable, cringe-inducing, total-disaster, bad-poetry-in-motion Knicks of yesteryear? Don't you yearn for those days when New York was dropping each game by enough points to win most football games? Can you remember when ever game was almost an apocalypse on the court?

After yesterday's humdrum loss to the Rockets, those days seem so far away. The Knicks have now gone 10 games without losing by 20 or more. The largest margin of defeat in that span was 18 points. Don't worry, eight of those games were losses. But still, it's been a while since the Dumb Bunch dropped a game by 27 to the Indiana Pacers on Dec. 17.

Does this mean the team is getting better? We can only hope not.

Wednesday was a bit staid and offered little beyond the memorable spectacle of watching the Knicks miss their first 12 shots of the game, prompting Walt "Clyde" Frazier to openly yearn for the team to try starting a game with energy at some point. Mike Breen offered this rejoinder: "That is certainly not the Knicks' m.o."

Oh, and of course, Isiah got tossed. That was a sweet moment of serendipity, watching the False Prophet get the heave-ho for brushing an official. If only he had the bad sense to stay and embarrass himself further. Alas, the task of watching the Knicks melt down went to assistant coach Herb Williams.

The Times' Howard Beck affirmed that Tuesday's disastrous victory was (mercifully) a rare anomaly, just another fool's gold win. "Order was restored to the Knicks' universe Wednesday night," he wrote in his lede.

Beck also reported that Isiah declared all his players off limits to any trades this season, calling them "untouchable."

Howard, take it away:

"In other words, Thomas seemed satisfied with his team. Some players, like Marbury, may be untouchable because of their contracts. Other players may be untouchable simply because no one else wants them."

According to Marc Berman's gamer in the Post, getting ejected was deliberate on Isiah's part. You know, coach gets purposefully tossed in order to fire up his team. Well even Isiah's most unlikely strategies tend to suck, and last night was no exception. With Zeke in the locker room, the Knicks stunk more than usual.

Of course, getting tossed in basketball isn't like getting tossed in baseball. In basketball, the other team gets one or two free throws as a result. Isiah doesn't seem to realize that the Knicks can't afford to give away any points. In fact, he should petition the NBA to allow his squad to start with a handicap. From now on, the Knicks will begin every game with a 4-0 lead. Don't worry, they'll still lose in the end.

Mitch Lawrence from the Daily News wrote that Isiah's ploy his dumbest move of the season.

Yes, the 25-point embarrassments might not be regular as rain anymore, but after that terrible win in Chicago everything is well again in the the Knicks' world of misery.

Next up: Raptors at Knicks at 7:30 p.m. on Friday.
Best-case scenario: Devastated by his team's failure to match its best winning streak of the season (two games), Isiah resolves to start a streak of his own and purposefully gets ejected again.
Worst-case scenario: Herb inspires the players with a "let's not suck" plea for mediocrity.

"Ooh, Zach missed a three-footer"

New York Knicks 105, Chicago Bulls 100

That's what Walt "Clyde" Frazier, the living legend, said at some point in the fourth quarter on Tuesday with an odd mix of shock and piquant pleasure, and unfortunately it was the highlight of the game. Zach Randolph turned in an atrocious performance, but Eddy Curry - Big Useless himself - looked downright frisky.

That's really all we needed now. Curry found his mojo, Stephon and the dumb bunch started moovin' and groovin' in crunch time and the Bulls promptly screwed the pooch and lost a 13-point lead. And to think how close we came to making it eight straight (losses) in '08. Hmm, that could be a catchy campaign slogan.

Like I said after the New York almost beat the Spurs last week, this had disaster potential. Thankfully, Chicago still played better most of the game and the Bulls are a crappy team (just not as bad as the Knicks). In other words, it might be time for James Dolan, the Evil Gnome, to hand the False Prophet another fat extension. After all, if Tim Curry's Mini-Me can express unending faith in his pet brown-noser after long losing streaks, lord knows what he'll do once his team actually wins a game.

Dolan is like a coked-out Scrooge McDuck with a chasm in his pockets. Open the bank vaults and let 'er rip, boys!

Don't worry folks, it's only a fool's gold win

Beyond the fact that the Knicks won (another small catastrophe), there was some fun moments. Mike Breen matched Clyde's wit with this chestnut at one point in the third quarter: "A lot of players have found their offensive game when playing the Knicks."

And then there was the surprise start for Quentin Richardson, the Mr. Worstest in the flesh, even though all the news accounts prior to the game said Isiah was sure to pull the plug. No matter - Q was just as shitty as usual.

And then, of course, the Bulls welcomed Zeke back with some true Bronx cheers.

Thankfully, Alan Hahn of Newsday provided some perspective:

"But really what do you want as a fan right now? The Knicks are 9-24, well out of playoff contention. We know they're a House of Cards, really. We know their offense doesn't have much creativity and their defense is suspect most of the time (the effort against the Bulls at the end of the game was solid, but remember the Bulls were without Luol Deng). We know the chemistry isn't quite there. So what do you make of these fool's gold wins? Do you really think, a week away from the mid-point of the season, that the Knicks can still make something of this season? Or do you think it's time to start playing young players and seeing what you have?"

A fool's gold win. I like that. Another interesting tidbit from Hahn: The Knicks submitted their lineup card last night with Renaldo Balkman's name written twice and Richardson's name omitted. Can you believe it? The Knicks are so bad they can't even write down their roster correctly.

Next up: Rockets at Knicks at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Best-case scenario: Yao slams down the first 30-30 since ... I don't know, Moses Malone, Wilt Chamberlain?
Worst-case scenario: The Knicks have actually found their mojo.

The Worst Player on the Worst Team

That would be one Quentin Richardson. Surprised? Don't be. Despite all the bitching and moaning about Big Useless (also known as Eddy Curry) and the waste of space that is Jared Jeffries, the award for now goes to Q, or the Worstest as I shall call him from now on.

Richardson has somehow flown under the radar this season despite atrocious shooting that would get him benched in a youth rec league game. But the Times' Howard Beck called him out today with a sharp denunciation.

We all know the Richardson lost his jumper at some point on the trip to New York from Phoenix, but the revelation this season is how bad his defense is. It's honestly hard sometimes to blame any one player for the matador defense (as Walt "Clyde"Frazier would say) that the Knicks employ, but Beck points out that the Worstest has surrendered 22 points to Josh Howard (a great player) and 36 to Mike Dunleavy (not even close to great) this season.

And thanks for those John Hollinger numbers, too. The great stat maven gives Richardson a PER of 6.8, good enough for 284th in the NBA. And the mystery is why Isiah has stuck with him in the starting lineup for so long. When the False Prophet did shake things up by subbing in Jeffries last week, it was a surprise. To think of all those games when Renaldo Balkman might have started in his place.

The reason for all of this sudden attention is that Zeke is apparently ready to bench Q tonight, according to an article by Marc Berman of the Post. But the supposed reason for the change is that the player's hip hasn't been bothering him. Yeah, and I'm sure his all-encompassing crappiness has nothing to do with it.

Meanwhile, Isiah had this choice quote to offer yesterday when asked if he would consider concentrating solely on his presidential and GM duties: "I know I won't find a more passionate person and a more committed person to [coach] than myself."

Passionate and committed. Two valuable ingredients in the big recipe. Unfortunately, this dish is lacking intelligence and a sense of reality.

387 Days

The brawl that started it all

Do you know what today is? It's Jan. 7, 2008, which marks this as the 387-day anniversary of the Knicks-Nuggets brawl. Let's mark the occasion by printing my column of Dec. 26, 2006 from the North Adams Transcript:

Some of my friends have said they're embarrassed to be New York Knicks fans recently. Forget them. I'll always be proud to be a Knicks fan. What other team has such a ballyhooed history despite winning only two championship in its 60 years of existence? But there's no denying that the team is a complete embarrassment now. "Let them at least be incredibly bad so I can indulge my sports masochism."

Remember that? Probably not. It's what I wrote in the Aug. 18 edition of the Transcript, hoping to provide a definitive statement on the most moribund sports franchise of our present age.

But after the fracas between the Knicks and Denver Nuggets on Dec. 16, I have realized that there may be no way to produce a complete analysis of the pathetic status of the Knicks. Like U.S. presidents and the works of William Shakespeare, the team may require years, even decades of contemplation before reaching any conclusions.

I have now watched Saturday's fight several dozen times and cannot find a single redeeming aspect of the scandal for the Knicks. The team's attempt to have it out with the Nuggets provided just another view into its all-encompassing and disastrous incompetence. New York basketball fans now know this: the Knicks can't even fight well, much less play hoops well.

Any discussion of the New York-Denver melee requires a primer on previous NBA fights. The riot that took place when the Indiana Pacers visited the Detroit Pistons two years ago is most recent. That featured a rapid escalation of violence between a bunch of notorious troublemakers, most notably Stephen Jackson and Ron Artest. It also included plentiful participation by the crowd, from the fellow who threw a cup of beer on Artest to the guy who got KO'd by the Pacers' Jermaine O'Neal.

Saturday's fight offered nothing similar. New York's Nate Robinson and Denver's J.R. Smith crashed into the first few rows at one point, and Robinson put forth a good example of general insanity. But Smith and Robinson produced little that could compare to the antics of the Pacers and the Pistons two years ago.

The most infamous NBA fight, of course, took place in 1977 between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets. That one featured a roundhouse from Los Angeles' Kermit Washington that decked Houston's Rudy Tomjanovich. The punch knocked Tomjanovich unconscious and damaged his skull so badly that spinal fluid began leaking into his mouth.

Obviously, that incident was far more serious than anything that happened Saturday, and it should not be joked about. But, in comparison, it is worth noting that the only injury suffered from the Denver-New York brawl was reportedly a slight scratch to Knicks forward Jared Jeffries' cheek. That slight wound revealed just how pathetic and hollow all the macho posturing of the players was. For all their show of rage and indignation, the most damage they could do was one tiny, skin-deep abrasion. All that trash talk and public vitriol was merely for show and self-aggrandizement.

My favorite fight was the one that took place between the Knicks and the Miami Heat during the second round of the 1997 playoffs. Up 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, New York was derailed when Miami forward P.J. Brown flipped and body slammed Knicks point guard Charlie Ward in the waning moments of game 5.

Brown was suspended for five games, but he was the only member of the Heat punished. New York had six players suspended, most of them for simply wandering off the bench to get a better look at the fight. Playing without many of their stars, the Knicks dropped the next two games and were eliminated.

It was certainly an ignominious moment in Knicks history, but it was also the product of a period when New York was an annual contender for the championship and shared a heated rivalry with Miami on the basis of four straight playoff matchups from 1997-2000 (After the first year, the Knicks won the next three series). That fight nine years ago was the product of some intense pride and animosity between two franchises.

The brawl two Saturdays ago was the result of some intense egotism.

"They wanted to embarrass us," Robinson said, explaining that he believed Denver was trying to run up the score. "It was a slap in the face to us as a team and a franchise and we weren't going to let that happen."

By escalating what might have been a small scuffle into a genuine fight with some flimsy punches and ardent chest-pounding, Robinson provided a slap of his own to the franchise's pride and integrity.

New York head coach Isiah Thomas was no less guilty. He admitted warning Denver's Carmelo Anthony, who embarrassed himself with a sucker punch and hasty retreat, not to go near the basket a minute before the fight broke out. Despite this indication that he ordered Mardy Collins to commit the hard foul that initiated the brouhaha, Thomas was ludicrously exonerated by the NBA.

"They were having their way with us pretty good," Thomas said. "I think J.R. Smith had just made one dunk where he reverses it and spins in the air. I thought that Mardy didn't want to have our home crowd see that again and he fouled him."

No, Isiah, what the crowd didn't want to see was a pathetic group of Knicks act in a way that only emphasized how pitiful they are. The crowd didn't want to see a team that, after the Los Angeles Clippers and the Cincinnati Bengals made the playoffs last season, is undoubtedly the worst professional sports franchise in the country.

Most of all, the crowd wants to see a Knicks squad that matters again. One that plays with heart and pride. And if that pride leads to some conflict, at least a team that can actually carry out a fight instead of producing meaningless sound and fury.

Sports Section Roundup

Houston Rockets 103, New York Knicks 91

I confess my attention was divided between the NFL playoffs and the Knicks last night, so let's take today's cues from the area newspapers and see what fresh quips they can amuse us with.

The Times offers a zingy header, "Randolph Returns; Losing Never Left," and more trenchant wit from Howard Beck:

"Neither Thomas nor James Naismith could explain the Knicks’ endless woe, or the way that they consistently appear to be less than the sum of their parts."

The Post's Marc Berman, meanwhile, offered a terse lede - "It makes no sense" - in reference to how the Knicks could get worse even after getting Zach Randolph back. Well, that really hits at the heart fo the matter. The Knicks simply don't make sense. They live in an irrational, topsy-turvy world.

In his blog, Berman wonders how much longer Isiah will be employed and concludes, "The whole thing is too surreal to believe."

Alan Hahn from Newsday provides an efficient putdown for his lede:

"Isiah Thomas talks about seeking an 'honest effort' from his team. Well, quite honestly, even when they give it, they're not good enough to win."

Alas, the Sun has no weekend edition, but in the meantime enjoy the great John Hollinger's analysis of Wednesday's debacle against the Kings, which includes this choice passage:

"No offense to the Kings, but the Knicks should have won this game by 40 points, and if they weren't so preoccupied with mailing in the season, they would have."

Next up: Knicks at Bulls at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Best-case scenario: This is the the fourth matchup between the two teams this season, and unfortunately the Knicks won one of those games. It would be nice if their record went to 1-3.
Worst-case scenario: An abrupt end to what has become a beautiful little treasure of the new year, a seven-game losing streak.

Catch-82

San Antonio Spurs 97, New York Knicks 93

The original catch has nothing on Catch-82

That was almost a disaster. A day after I said the Knicks had no chance of beating the Spurs, they almost did just that. Maybe it's just the Spurs' style during the regular season of putting forward just enough energy to get the job done, but they let New York hang around way too long. There were times the Knicks looked downright pesky.

And for the sake of the franchise and its future, that's not a good thing right now.

In case you haven't noticed, I root against New York on a nightly basis. This is neither a consequence of some sudden turn against the team or a tendency toward miserable self-hatred. After four long years of the Isiah regime and two more seasons in purgatory with Scott Layden, losing is the Knicks' best and only option.

They must lose in order to win eventually, and that's the basis of Catch-82 (take a gander at the original catch if you desire).

Nothing will get better for the Knicks until the False Prophet and the Evil Gnome leave

Catch-82, named for the number of games in a season (which also might be the number the Knicks need to lose before the False Prophet gets the boot), posits that ultimate improvement and victory is impossible under present conditions - mainly the continued presence of Isiah as coach and GM, along with most of the players. Thus, the only way to ultimately get better is to get so bad that all the idiots that currently manage or play for the orange and blue get swept away.

In other words, the only way to win is to lose - a lot.

Simply being bad at your job (which is enough to get axed in most workplaces worldwide) simply won't do. We know this because of the ludicrous contract extension the False Prophet got last March after leading the Knicks to a 29-34 record at the time - you know, a losing record. No matter, MSG head honcho and evil gnome James Dolan ponied up a new deal for Zeke, explaining that he had "seen significant and evident progress."

The Knicks promptly fell apart and have remained putrid to this point. Nice contract-year work, Isiah. Mind you, this all followed several years of trades and signings so heinously stupid that most people quickly lost all faith in the team.

And now, with New York on pace to set franchise records for crappiness, Dolan reiterates his support on an almost weekly basis while Isiah grins and mumbles absurd championship predictions.

None of this is new. When asked on his show two months ago where the Knicks' infamous 45-point loss to the Boston Celtics came from, Jim Rome was incredulous. The past four years, he declared, was all you needed to look at to understand why New York was so bad.

Clearly, there is no prospect for improvement with the current situation. And the Evil Gnome has made it clear that there will be no changes if the Knicks continue sucking as they have all season. The only option than is obvious. If it ever wants to get better, the team has to lose as much as possible so that Isiah gets canned some day.

Hate the Coach

Ivan Cash hawks his self-designed T-shirt outside Madison Square Garden before getting arrested for "intent to sell" on Wednesday

So now Ivan Cash is finally getting some attention. The college student - who has speculated tongue-in-cheek that his intriguing name indicates a mysterious status as a money-obsessed Russian gangster or 80s porn star - had achieved only 33rd street fame before Wednesday.

That's because the 22-year-old graphic design student at SUNY-Geneseo was known until now only by those poor Knicks fans entering Madison Square Garden who saw Cash occasionally hawking T-shirts with the edict, "Don't hate the player or the game - hate the coach," and a picture of Isiah Thomas.

I confess, I had heard of Cash before the Daily News reported his arrest on Wednesday for "intent to sell." In other words, he was offering his self-designed T-shirts outside the Garden without a vendor's license.

Well the News got the headline wrong ("Student arrested for 'Fire Isiah" tees" despite there being no such slogan on the shirts in question). It also failed to mention that Cash has been doing this for some time now and has had trouble with the fuzz before.


I first came across his Web site over a month ago and considered for a time calling this blog "Hate the Coach." Alas, Isiah-in-Wonderland was both catchier and more specific. Now Cash has set up a separate site just for selling the shirt. There's also the original story of how he designed and starting selling it back in November 2006 (check out the photo of Walt "Clyde" Frazier appending his John Hancock to one of the tees). Cash also provides the following denunciation:

"Isiah Thomas is the worst thing that's ever happened to the New York Knicks, period. As the president and general manager, Isiah previously fired the coach he'd hired: Larry Brown, (causing the Knicks to eat his remaining, ~$10 million salary) and appointed himself as head coach. Not only have the Knicks failed to have a winning season or make the playoffs since Isiah has taken over, but they also have consitantly had the highest payroll in the league. Innumerable lost draft picks, and a sexual harrasment charge later, the time is ripe to give Isiah the boot."

He hates the False Prophet, the T-shirt is cool and has a great message and it all supports a college student - what's not to like.

State of Denial

Who's crazier - Isiah Thomas or Jurgen Prochnow's

uber-stressed u-boat captain?

Was I the only one who watched Isiah Thomas' pre-game comments last night and wondered if the guy had officially lost it, if he actually was living in the wonderland of his battered mind? Apparently not. After seeing the False Prophet's face of grim certainty and Panglossian reverie on ultimate success, Howard Beck surpassed himself again. Sportswriters sometimes have to wear many hats - statistician, social commentator, figure of justice. After watching Isiah ramble on about winning championships and seeing the Knicks get spanked by the injury-ravaged Kings, Beck, the Times' beat writer, put on a shrink's hat and penned what literary folks might call a masterpiece of psychological realism, a profile of an unstable mind in limbo.

And to hear Isiah's ravings made me think of Jurgen Prochnow's u-boat captain's ominous intonation to his crew while dodging depth charges in "Das Boot":

"Now it gets psychological, friends."

Indeed. Beck's article was good enough to repeat in its entirety. Alas, for the sake of brevity, accept some substantial excerpts:

"Things are rarely as they seem in Thomas’s world. Possibly, it is because his own narration constantly diverges from the expected and the evident. The Knicks reached 2008 with 8 victories and 21 losses — among the worst New Year’s Day records in franchise history. Thomas entered the first game of 2008 talking about championships and legacies. He was not, as far as anyone could tell, attempting humor.
'I believe that one day that we will win a championship here. And I believe a couple of these guys will be a part of that. And I believe I’ll be a part of that. And as I sit here and I say it today, I know people will laugh even more at me. But I’m hellbent on getting this accomplished and making sure that we get it done. And I’m not leaving until we get it done.'
The statement was delivered with great conviction and a steady gaze, as most of Thomas’s soliloquies are. It is becoming increasingly difficult, however, to gauge the true weight of his words. Thomas has made a lot of firm-sounding statements recently, only to undermine them."

All of this was accompanied by four large photos on the front of the sports section showing various gametime expressions of the False Prophet, ranging from comatose to assured to distraught. Alongside, his comments were pull-quoted with the most egregious passages rendered in extra-large type. Moving on:

"So it should not necessarily have been surprising that Thomas, with his team on pace to set a franchise record for losses amid nightly calls for his dismissal, had a different — some would say absurd — perspective.
'I don’t necessarily just want to win a championship,' Thomas said. 'I want to leave something that’s going stand for a long time. I want to leave legacy, I want to leave tradition. I want to leave an imprint and a blueprint, in terms of how people play and how they coach and how they respond when they put on the Knick uniform. I want to leave what I left in Detroit. This is a dark time for us. But I know there’s a light at the end of this tunnel.'"

I'm pretty sure that Isiah is the only one who sees that light, and that leads to another question - is the Isiah just like all the other false prophets of history: equal parts crazed and megalomaniacal. I asked a psychologist I know about his behavior, which has prominently included an insistence on all things positive while the surrounding world collapses and a startling absence of reality. The answer - a bad case of denial, perhaps a symptom of some underlying problem.

Isiah reminds me sometimes of a high school freshman in a class I once substituted in. She chattered along freely and volubly even though I asked her to shut up several times. When confronted, she denied that she had been talking, and I was forced to explain that thinking something is so does not make it so in reality. I think the False Prophet could benefit from a similar explanation. And now, the conclusion of Beck's gamer:

"'I believe we’re on the right path,' Thomas said. 'And I believe we have the right players. Our record doesn’t show that. But I’m not ready to give up on these players.' Then the true believer presided over his 22nd loss in 30 games, while a crowd of thousands chanted 'Fire Isiah.'"

While Isiah easily won quote-of-the-day honors, similar recognition should go to Eddy Curry, who responded with this when asked if he got a message from his coach after being benched last week:

“I don’t think I needed a message. But I got it, though. He could have told me. I respond well to conversation as well.”

As inept as Big Useless is at times on the court, one can never accuse him of being stupid or surly.

I'm not sure what the epigram at the bottom of this poster means, but I enjoy thinking of Isiah as the banana who insists on being an apple

While Beck scored the biggest points, the other Knicks beat writers had just as much fun picking Isiah apart. Marc Berman from the Post called it the coach's "most over-the-top performance yet" in an article titled "Thomas spouts delusional title talk."

Post columnist Mike Vaccaro was particularly gleeful:

"I WANT to live in Isiah Thomas' world. I do. I want to wake up in the morning, and even though the thermometer insists it's 23 degrees in the sun, you can walk the streets in your Bermudas and your tank top and your flip-flops and have to keep the sunscreen at the ready. I want to go to lunch, eat my hamburger and fries, then close my eyes really, really tight and convince myself that I've just consumed filet mignon and a side of lobster (with drawn butter). I want to step on the scale at my health club on the day after the holiday season ends and discover that I have - tada! - lost 25 pounds!

Vaccaro followed up that lede with 14 more paragraphs of the same. It needs to be read to be believed.

Mitch Lawrence of the Daily News, meanwhile, is having just as much fun as I am:

"Of all the nonsense Thomas has put forth during his four-plus years on the job, this might have been his strangest, saddest moment. Thomas didn't violate the Garden's media policy. He violated common sense, objective reality and something commonly referred to as the God's honest truth."

All of the New York area papers had similar write-ups, and there's no point listing them all. Just zip over to that links box on the upper right and have a belly of laughs while reading some of the local serial sarcasts go to town.

Another Disaster

Sacramento Kings 107, New York Knicks 97

I was very worried heading into the game against Sacramento on Wednesday night. The Kings were 11-18, missing their four best players (Ron Artest, Mike Bibby, Kevin Martin and Shareef Abdur-Rahim) and had not had a lead greater than 13 points during the entire season.

I shouldn't have fretted. Sacramento passed the 13-point mark in the second quarter, at which point the "Fire Isiah" chants began raining down. According to Walt "Clyde" Frazier and Mike Breen, it was the earliest in a game the ubiquitous chorus had started.

There's a consistent mediocrity, at times barely detectable, which can make you drift into a have while watching the Knicks. They're down by two points; blink your eyes twice, and the deficit has grown to 15. The Knicks were down by double digits early on and stayed there for the rest of the game, and I'm not entirely sure how it happened. That was an eminently winnable game, and the Kings are clearly not a good team. They would have collapsed in the second half if New York had not already given up.

That led to the depressing spectacle of Clyde and Breen spending the final 24 minutes discussing various ways in which the Knicks were a complete embarrassment. The latter provided this memorable comment midway through the third quarter:

"This crowd is just bored. They're not even booing anymore."

A moment later, John Salmons stole the ball and went down the open court for a relaxed reverse jam. The boos came cascading down again. By the end, Isiah looked ready to stick his head in the sand for a few centuries, Malik Rose begged his team to try harder and Zach Randolph got tossed for tossing his headband in frustration. Even the impressive return of Stephon Marbury was overshadowed by the mounds of crappiness stinking up the Garden. Rose, apparently, has publicly stated that the team simply doesn't care.

Compare that to the Sacramento starters (mostly backups until the stars got hurt), who looked like hardwood gods after playing the Knicks. Salmons accounted for 32 points, 11 boards, six assists and six steals. Francisco Garcia scored 22 points, and Brad Miller added 26 points and 16 rebounds.

Eddy Curry, meanwhile, came out "on fire" after the False Prophet decided to give up on his revamped lineup and go back to starting Curry and Randolph together. But even though Big Useless notched 15 points in the first quarter, his defense probably gave up 25, and he went 4 for 11 from the line.

In other words, it was one monumental, execrable performance. It's still early, but I think this team is special. The Knicks could end up being awful in unique and interesting ways. We are witnessing historic moments this season.

The moment that really stood out for me, though, was when Garcia dived into the baseline crowd while going after a loose ball. There were three minutes left in the game, and his team had a big lead. That's passion. The story of Mikki Moore offered a similar conclusion. As Frazier mentioned at one point, Moore went undrafted out of Nebraska and played in Greece, the CBA and the NBDL. He also got cut by seven different NBA teams. But he worked hard and persevered to the point where he's currently earning $6 mil per year from Sacramento, where he's a valuable contributor. Can you imagine if even one player on the Knicks had that kind of commitment and work ethic.

Next up: Knicks at Spurs at 8:30 p.m. on Friday.
Best-case scenario: While considering the matchup between the best and worst NBA teams of this decade, Isiah falls into a catatonic stupor and can't be moved from his hiding place under a chair in the locker room. The Knicks forfeit
Worst-case scenario: Umm, there is none. There is no way the Knicks will win this game.

Marks of Futility

The Knicks are the basketball version of the post-steroids Jason Giambi - flabby, gaunt, overpaid and a complete disaster on the playing field.

"Could It Get Worse for the Knicks?"

That was the headline question in the Times sports section Tuesday. Thankfully and hilariously, the paper didn't require anyone to read the actual article to get the answer. The end of the header read "Amazingly, Yes."

Does someone at the Times read this blog? Probably not. But Mike Ogle's look back at the year that was and the one still to come answered some questions raised by my latest post. Yes, the Knicks are on pace for 22-23 wins and 59-60 losses. In the historical framework, those are awful results but potentially record-breaking ones. Yes, it is obvious that the Knicks are bad in an epic way right now. But it will take hard work to set a historical low.

Team Titanic 1, Larry Brown's 2005-6 squad is currently tied with the 1985-6 edition of the Knickerbockers with a 23-59 record. Those are the most losses in franchise history. Three Knicks teams, however, won fewer games. They were all from the early 1960s, when a season had fewer contests. The all-time mark of ignominy goes to the 1960-1 squad that went 21-58 for a .266 winning percentage.

Right now, the Knicks are winning a .276 clip. That puts some new records within striking distance. We may all look back on 2007-8 as the season of utter shittiness.

This passage from Ogle's article also intrigued me:

"Two weeks ago, Coach Isiah Thomas said that in another two weeks it would be a fair question to ask him, as the team's president, if his job as coach should be in jeopardy."

Dear Lord, how did this news escape me? How could any reporter have underplayed this tidbit? This should have been the basketball version of the General Petraeus report. The media horde should have descended upon Madison Square Garden, waiting for the False Prophet to hold forth with stoic, sunny optimism and that plastered-on smile of idiocy. Alas, we all missed a great opportunity to take insanity and absence-of-reality to a whole new level of hyperbole and comedy.

Even so, the inevitable follow-up to Isiah's timetable was delicious:

"When reminded of that statement at Monday’s practice and asked what he thought about his job status now that the losing had continued unabated, Thomas replied, 'We’ll keep moving in this direction.'"

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Is he completely fucking mad? Is that the let's-lose-lots-of-games-and-suck-worse-than-Jason-Giambi- after-he-stopped-juicing direction? Thankfully, we got clarification from Ogle:

"Which direction is that? 'Me as coach,' he replied."

Oh. Well that makes just as much sense.