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.