Give the Knicks an Asterisk

Seattle Sonics 86, New York Knicks 85

I don't know what Howard Beck is talking about over there at the Times. His latest article is either so tongue-in-cheek as to be completely disingenuous or he's actually buying the crap coming from the False Prophet. Knowing Beck, maybe he's just letting Isiah do his spin and reporting the results with something close to a straight face. Here's the gist of the article:

"If the Knicks had a campaign slogan for the final months of the season, it might be 'Losing with dignity.'"

Well, as long as it's losing, right? But then check out the follow-up:

"They found encouragement last month by going 5-2 after Stephon Marbury bowed out of the lineup to have ankle surgery. They have since gone 0-5, but with a string of shiny asterisks attached to the losses. The Knicks are encouraged because they held fourth-quarter leads in three of those games and also had chances to win the other two. That they repeatedly failed in crunch time was somewhat of an afterthought."

Now hold on there. Losing after holding a late lead, does not mean you get a "shiny asterisk." It means you folded in crunch time. It means you can't take the heat. It means that when it matters, you're still a shitty team. I think Beck knows this, so I guess this is all just fun for him.

The important thing, of course, is that the Knicks lost five straight and now stand at 14-33. By the way, do you remember the team's last extended West Coast trip? It was a 0-4 skid in November. Now a 0-5 streak. It seems the one thing the Knicks suck at more than basketball is basketball played far from home.

New York now has the fifth worst record in the NBA. I'd like it to get even lower, but losing to Seattle (12-35) was pretty nice. As Marc Berman put it so tersely in the Post, "The Knicks are in the toilet bowl."

Now that's good copy.

Next up: Clippers at Knicks at 7:30 p.m. Monday
Best-case scenario: Mike Dunleavy follows up his insult of the Knicks last week by taking out Isiah with a pregame judo kick to the temple.
Worst-case scenario: Isiah gets revenge by murdering Dunleavy in cold blood during the game, then standing over his lifeless corpse as the Garden goes nuts. Wow, I'm a bit bloodthirsty today.

Randolph Decides to Care

Portland Trail Blazers 94, New York Knicks 88, OT

It's hard to imagine that the Knicks managed to score only 88 points in 53 minutes of basketball. It's also hard to imagine that Zach Randolph played a good game. But there he was, all square head atop rotund body, knocking down shots all night. In other words, he can play pretty well when he gives two shits.

Randolph had 25 points and 13 rebounds. But he also made only 11 of 23 shots and tied Nate Robinson for the Knicks' worst plus/minus of the night with -14. (Interestingly, good old Channing Frye had the overall worst plus/minus of the night, going an incredible -18 in 14:31. He had only two points and four boards).

The Knicks shot 39.4 percent overall, and Howard Beck of the Times delivered a gem of a backhanded compliment in his lede:

"Seven months after leaving, Zach Randolph returned to his original N.B.A. home Friday night and turned in a vintage performance. He arrived late, shot a lot, scored in bunches and left the Rose Garden with a loss — much as he did for his last few years with the Portland Trail Blazers."

Jamal Crawford might be the goat for now,
but Isiah's still the all-time idiot

Then again, Jamal Crawford missed 21 shots to easily take Goat of the Night honors. Nice going, J-Craw.

Here's the most important thing - New York is now 18-32 and has lost four straight. Now that's Knicks basketball.

The most refreshing sight (other than the Knicks blowing a lead again and then wasting away in overtime) was David Lee back in the starting lineup, his seventh appearance there this season. Calmly efficient, he shot 5 for 6 and had 14 rebounds. During the past three games, he's averaged 39 minutes per night and made 20 of 29 shots. In other words, I can't freakin' believe he hasn't been starting regularly. Then again, of course, Isiah's an idiot.

Up next: Knicks at Sonics at 10 p.m. Saturday.
Best-case scenario: Kevin Durant follows up his mega-performance in the Sonics' win against the Knicks in December by exploding for a quadruple-double: 40 points, 15 rebounds, 12 dimes and 10 steals.
Worst-case scenario: I'm loving these terrible road trips. It would be sad to see one end in victory.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

Once colleagues and friends, Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas
are now sworn enemies

And just when you thought he'd faded into the yearning past, Larry Brown reared his ugly head this week and sent forth both a nice sally at his enemies with the Knicks and a great news item for a slow week.

Larry Brown, who presided over the original Team Titanic and that season from the depths of Dante's Inferno, must be getting jealous of all the new misery this year. His old bunch are getting overshadowed. And no one ever thought the Knicks could be worse than they were with Brown at the helm.

Brown opened his mouth this month to complain that MSG officials were spying on him regularly during his season with New York and giving him the cold shoulder, refusing to speak to the coach throughout the final weeks of his tenure. You can read all about it from the Post, the Daily News, Newsday and the Times.

Here's his nicest swipe, though. Brown, who's now with the 76ers in a front office position, was asked about head coach Maurice Cheeks and the potential he could replace him at some point. "I could never stab Mo in the back like that," Brown responded. Sort of like how Isiah axed Brown and then installed himself as head coach, right?

These sorts of comments might reek of sour grapes, but I like it. Brown, after all, waited almost two years to open his mouth - a fine show of restraint. And he also pulled off the salvo nicely. He didn't blame anyone particularly and instead indicted the whole organization as one filled with douchebags and creeps.

Frank Isola, the Daily News' beat writer, has a fine take on the whole event in his blog.

The False Prophet decided to stay above the fray, but that didn't stop the Times' Howard Beck from taking the opportunity to present a lengthy comparison of the Brown and Thomas eras.

Torpedo tubes open, fire away.

Q the Knife

Boston Celtics 109, New York Knicks 93

I missed this game, and apparently I also missed a few treats besides a solid loss. Howard Beck was quite sedate about the defeat, but Marc Berman put some gloss on it in his gamer: "It got so bad yesterday, the Knicks and Isiah Thomas were shown up by Celtics journeyman guard Eddie House and marginal center Kendrick Perkins."

Oh jeez, that must have been fun. According to Berman, this is how it went down:

"With 2:24 left in the Boston rout, House drained a right-corner 3-pointer in front of the Knicks' bench that put the Celtics up by 20 points. House turned to Thomas and shouted at him. In a rage, Thomas called timeout. When the huddle broke, Thomas led his five Knicks up the sidelines to midcourt as if they were looking for a street fight. Referee Joey Crawford talked to Thomas to settle him down."

In other words, this almost turned into Knicks-Nuggets II, which would have been a brilliant redux. And the False Prophet even let his mask of gentility/insanity slip during the postgame conference and let out a good curse. Alas, another opportunity for the Knicks to embarrass themselves before a national audience slips away. On the other hand, they lost by a lot. It may not have been 45 points, it wasn't even 20, but we'll take what we can get after last week's disgusting success.

And yet ...

And yet, how nice would it have been if Isiah had just started a flagrant brawl?

But there were still perks. Quentin Richardson and Paul Pierce got the double-ejection, with the Worstest apparently inviting Pierce for a postgame showdown outside. How disastrous would that have been for Q? Pierce has survived a knife attack and multiple stab wounds. Richardson is shorter, slighter and out of shape. And I can't quite see him in a Mack the Knife kind of role.

The Worstest is ready to throw down with Paul Pierce

Here's an idea, Q: How about you take that combativeness and sudden energy and try to buck up on the court? If you have the energy to fight, where's the energy to play defense, you miserable sack of shit. This is what I can't stand, and the same thing was evident during the fiasco with the Nuggets last season. You don't get the right to posture with false machismo if you're so pitiful that you can't put up a good effort more than once a week.

And Berman, of course, is pulling no punches these days. So he slipped this delectable morsel into his article: "Curry was god-awful defensively, out of position and removed after the Knicks fell behind 21-10 six minutes in."

Big Useless at his best.

By the way, Alan Hahn assures us that these recent wins mean exactly bupkus. Good to know this is all a facade of respectability.

Meanwhile, there was another imbroglio over fan discontent, as Berman recounted in his Knicks Notes roundup. The Garden of Hate's Big Brother-esque tactics have been both disappointing and hilarious so far - how long before someone holds up a sign at a game that says "2+2=5" - but this was the first time reporters got involved in some kind of fracas. I can just imagine how pissed Berman must have been when security jostled him.

The Knicks have to learn something about PR. They've already alienated all the fans and most of the media. But the media will turn around with a few wins. Reporters will never forgive this kind of bullshit, though.

But the most transcendent of all involved the False Prophet, of course. I don't even have a joke or commentary here. I'll let Berman do the honors in his blog:

"Weirdest moment came when Isiah lectured some of the writers for saying he was disappointed nobody asked him about Martin Luther King during his pregame availability with the media. One wiseguy journalist said later if he wanted us to ask him what MLK would have thought of Anucha."

Yup, those are the Knicks.

Isiah would love to talk about MLK, but don't bring up Anucha

Next up: 76ers at Knicks at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
Best-case scenario: Let's get that damn winning streak out of our minds with the beginning of a nice, long losing streak.
Worst-case scenario: Philly is 2.5 games ahead of the Knicks. If New York gets any closer, they might just wrest themselves out of the shitty tier of NBA teams and into the craptacular group.

A Day of Relief

Washington Wizards 111, New York Knicks 98

It's amazing how much better you can feel 24 hours later, and I'm not talking about my cold. With life as a Knicks fan looking so lackluster on Friday, the Dumb Bunch came through in style.

First, they lost to the Wizards after beating them easily earlier this week. Then we hear that Stephon Marbury underwent surgery for bone spurs in his ankle and is out indefinitely. On top of that, Isiah Thomas continues his public game of coy/enigmatic/bullshit announcements regarding Marbury's relationship with the Knicks. Now everybody from the Garden of Hate janitors to the media to the crazy man singing songs in Penn Station have concluded that Marbury is finished in New York; He'll either be traded or cut.

And then, to cap it all off ...

Wait for it ............

A JEROME JAMES SIGHTING!!!!!!

As Marc Berman wrote in his blog: "Basketball's version of American Idle is back."

ZING!!!!

The Albatross around the Knicks' necks spreads his wings

This is like coming across Sasquatch in the remote woods of Oregon and discovering that he's only a large man so developmentally challenged that he can't tell left from right (actually, he doesn't even no what left or right are).

Yes, the biggest albatross in the Knicks organization emerged last night with a couple of minutes of garbage time remaining in the game and even sank his only basket. I'm surprised the False Prophet let him off the bench. He must have regretted the move the second that albatross started tightening around his neck.

So what nickname shall we give Jerome James? The Albatross? Oversold Sasquatch? The Stiff of All Stiffs?

And how about that "matador" defense. With apologies to Walt "Clyde" Frazier, that defense was even worse than matador. I can't quite find the right bloodsport analogy at the moment, unfortunately.

But you know what I like best?

The Post's Marc Berman. He and Howard Beck from the Times are the most reliably downcast when it comes to the Knicks (at least among those writers who have survived the past few years without quitting or going insane). But while Beck is subtle and biting, Berman loves a good written slap across the face. So I obviously drank deeply from the Berman Kool-aid after seeing this lede from his gamer today:

"Cancel the championship parade and date at the White House. The Knicks carried their season-high three-game winning streak into the nation's capital last night and saw it vanish like Congress in January."

One more thing about the mercifully quieted Marbury-Isiah hullabaloo. Have you ever noticed how public speculation about these kinds of subjects are always very public and yet very speculative. That's for a reason - the Knicks do a crap job of handling the media. Here's how you deal with internal problems: be as brief and unhelpful as possible and maintain a show of unity. Sort out the rest in the locker room. Here's how you don't handle these problems: snipe at each other through the press.

Next up: Knicks at Heat at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Best-case scenario: Losing to the worst team in the league, that's all we can ask for.
Worst-case scenario: This could get ugly. Miami looks horrible in a Knicks-in-December kind of way. It'll take some classic crappiness to get New York the L. Then again, they might just had enough putrefaction to pull off an 88-58 loss.

Ewoks Are My Only Solace

New York Knicks 111, New Jersey Nets 105

I'm just to upset about this game to write much of anything. All I know is that some wins had to come at some point. Look, we can all just weather this stretch together and get to losing soon. As Howard Beck noted in the Times, "There is rarely anything rational to the Knicks’ rhythms."

But a third win in a row wasn't the only bit of surprising news. Behold, Ken Berger's sarcastic column in Newsday:

"Isiah Thomas said before last night's game - brace yourself - that the Knicks' plan is to avoid taking on more salary so they can get their cap number and luxury-tax bill under control. What? Is the world about to end? Is Britney Spears joining a convent? Will Tim Donaghy reveal at his sentencing hearing next week that every Knicks game he officiated in the past four years was fixed and the franchise will have to fold? What is going on here? The Knicks, concerned about spending money?"

The Knicks represent all that is gaudy and a bit disgusting in New York, playground of the super-rich and their overpriced proclivities. How else to explain the contracts Jerome James and Jared Jeffries received.

And since I have nothing else to add, here's a picture of James Dolan and an Ewok, that fuzzy ball of vomit/fur. You can bet your life that a nickname will come of this. Making fun of Fredo/The Evil Gnome/Tim Curry's Mini-Me never gets old.


Next up: Knicks at Wizards at 7 p.m. Friday.
Best-case scenario: This is an easy one. A loss, a big loss, a rim-rattling loss, a drive-by shooting loss, a gargantuan blowout loss followed by many tears and much rending of garments.
Worst-case scenario: The Wizards blew donkey goats against the Knicks earlier this week, so I'm very worried. Now that we know how bad a Knicks winning streak (by the way, just for the record, outside of New York three wins is considered not nearly impressive enough to define as a streak), can you imagine the horror of a rout?

Fredo and the Knicks

New York Knicks 89, Detroit Pistons 65

As Fool's Gold Wins go, this one was a doozy. Come on, 24 points over a 28-10 team? The Pistons looked more like the Knicks on Sunday night than the Knicks can usually manage. They so rarely seem to have the energy these days for a true show of shittiness.

I can't focus on this game too much. The ball movement was goddamn impressive at times, and the Knicks committed almost no turnovers. On the other hand, the fact that Detroit couldn't have sunk a jump shot even if the hoop was 10 feet across had nothing to do with the quality of New York's defense.

Instead, I'm gonna throw this out there:

"Defensiveness and denials filled the air Saturday afternoon, which made it pretty much like any other day recently at the Knicks' trouble-filled training center. Nothing changes here except the Knicks’ winning percentage and their mood, which are plummeting in tandem."

That's Howard Beck's lede in the Times on Sunday, one of those typical between-games articles about nothing in particular except the state of the team. But here's my question: Couldn't that be the lede of almost every Knicks article over the past two months?

There's a beautiful monotony and regularity to all this ballyhooed losing. Yeah, the occasional bit of iron sulfide pokes and - poof! - a win emerges. But for the most part, it's the same disappointment, absurdity, mediocrity and siege mentality day after day. I wonder if at some point the players will start getting cabin fever or something and gradually lose their minds.

But the most interesting article in the Times this week came from the metro section of all places. Did you miss it? The title: "Madison Square Garden's 'Godfather,' Without the Respect."

Yup, it's our good buddy James Dolan, the Evil Gnome, Tim Curry's Mini-Me, the man with the jowls. And now he's got a new nickname.

The article, about the recent controversy over MSG's property tax exemptions and the possibility of their being revoked, compared the Dolan family at length to the Corleones. And James Dolan got smacked with the Fredo tag.

When you get compared to the infamous Fredo Corleone, here's what it means: You're weak, stupid, ineffectual. You're the oldest, but everyone understands you can't be depended upon. You can't lead or prepare for the future. You can't protect or control your family. You are bitter, jealous, pathetic, a black sheep. Your younger brother Sonny is crazy and nut, but he's better than you because he has balls. Your wife's a drunk, you can't face the music, you sleep on black satin sheets and you know all this shithole dives in Havana.

They might not look alike, but James Dolan and Fredo Corleone have a lot in common when it comes to management

Of course, this isn't the first time the Corleone family has come up in basketball. Shaq famously compared the three sons of Don Vito a few years back to his three big co-stars over the years. In his analogy, Penny Hardaway was Fredo, Kobe Bryant was Sonny and Dwyane Wade is Michael.

(As an aside, has anyone noticed that the Knicks have at some point picked up all the over-the-hill washed-up stars of those mid-902 Magic teams. Penny, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott - all came to the Knicks at the end of their careers and ate up money and bench space. So you know what that mean: Shaq is next. Can't you just see Isiah trading away his next two first-rounders for Shaq just when the big man is entering a sharp decline. By the way, the Magic started playing as an expansion team in 1989. Their first franchise victory ... that's right, over the Knicks.)

So that's what we've come to - James Dolan is aptly being compared to the worst mobster in the history of organized crime, but the tangential connection to Penny Hardaway seems like a big compliment. After all, Hardaway had a few good years before completely falling off the map. Dolan - he's stunk like a fat rat since the day he took charge.

Next up: Wizards at Knicks at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
Best-case scenario: The Knicks follow a 24-point win with a 48-point loss, and Dolan rips off his face to reveal a resurrected John Cazale underneath.
Worst-case scenario: A winning streak, Yikes!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Big Man Psychology

Chicago Bulls 100, New York Knicks 83

So with the shit hitting the fan as loss followed loss, the False Prophet pulled out this gem from his bag of tricks on Sunday - the old flip-flop switcharoo. After Isiah Thomas bungled his unvaunted lineup change on Wednesday, he came back with the inevitable correction against the Bulls: Zach Randolph plays, Eddy Curry sits.

And that made Howard Beck of the Times give us this:

"The day began with Curry out of the starting lineup for the first time in two seasons, the latest desperation move by Coach Isiah Thomas to break his team’s funk. The day ended with another rout — a 100-83 loss to the Chicago Bulls — followed by a tedious marathon interview at Curry’s locker stall, where he was asked 50 different ways about the benching while his teammates dressed and left. Curry said the demotion left him numb, which on balance seemed preferable to depressed. 'It definitely bugs me,' Curry said. 'I think I’m a starter in this league. But I guess not on this team.'"

There's something tragicomic about this exercise in pop psychology. Imagine the scene: Dozens of modern scribes gather round the bloated man-child of the moment, raining down questions as he offers sheer pathos in return.

Eddy Curry, Jamal Crawford and Stephon Marbury get their bench faces ready

And as Beck has done so wonderfully recently, that lede was followed with the most casual and subtle of putdowns. Where other writers scream their anger, Beck applies calculated disdain.

"Then again, Curry may just need to wait a few days for Thomas to change his mind again. Thomas has shaken up the lineup in two straight games, with two straight losses to show for it, and seems inclined to keep tinkering until something clicks. The Knicks (8-21) would seem to have little to lose anymore, aside from a few wispy strands of morale floating through the Madison Square Garden corridors. They lost four straight games and 10 of their last 12 to close out 2007, never showing any reason to believe they will be better in 2008."

In the meantime, the Knicks did their best to help new Bulls head coach Jim Boylan pull a Lawrence Frank. Maybe this is the break Chicago needed on the way to a playoff season.

Alan Hahn, incidentally, delivered this nice rant on Knicks Fix before gametime. It's enjoyable enough to copy almost in its entirety:

"When Isiah Thomas strolls into the Garden around 10:20 a.m. this morning -- barely 90 minutes before tip-off -- you can't help but wonder if a sense of urgency really exists at all. As Walt Clyde Frazier might say, now's the time for stressin' and obsessin'! Now's the time for dark circles under the eyes. Pulling out hair. Burning the candle at both ends. Sleeping in the office with video tape piled up around you. Now's not the time for giving two days off in between losses and after you threaten lineup changes.Now's not the time for inviting Roy Jones, Jr. into practice. Now's not the time to shuffle the lineup like a deck of cards without making sure every single player knows and understands what his new role will be in the change. I'm tossing the keys on the table here. Running out of things to blog at this point."

That's understandable. Hahn has been at this a lot longer than I have. But I'll trudge on in the meantime. Taking a daily dump on these fools who play for the Knicks is too much fun.

By the way, remember when Knicks-Bulls meant something special - the Garden going crazy, a super-intense matchup, a game that kept New York still for a few hours. Those memories are starting to get the dull patina of old age.

Next up: Kings at Knicks at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
Best-case scenario - Ron Artest makes a triumphant return to New York by scoring 38 and shutting down Jamal Crawford so completely that Crawford announces his immediate retirement.
Worst-case scenario - Ron Artest demands a trade to the Knicks and promises to pump some life back into the team.

Assuming the Worst

Orlando Magic 110, New York Knicks 96

It's not often that sportswriters go to a game assuming one of the coaches is an idiot. Despite any notions of impartiality, sportswriters certainly have some assumptions: Peyton Manning is a good passer, Bill Belichick knows what he's doing, Tiger Woods will probably pull away down the stretch.

But you don't see this often: The head coach is a raging moron, and we should have expected the worst.

But the age of caution is long gone in New York, especially when the Knicks are concerned. And sportswriters are gleefully unleashing some verbal uppercuts. The Post weighed in most savagely after Wednesday's loss to the Magic, with writer Marc Berman delivering this lede:

"Isiah Thomas' ballyhooed changes to the starting lineup last night caused more chaos and confusion."

But the article didn't end there. The hits just kept coming:

"With Thomas taking another page from the 'how-to-get-fired' handbook, the Knicks (8-20) notched their 20th loss last night, folding in the fourth quarter in a 110-96 defeat to the Magic at Amway Arena. The only thing Thomas accomplished was Curry and Randolph weren't on the court together all night. In the land of make-believe, this was unbelievable even by Thomas standards. After two days, Thomas stuck with his new starting lineup for two minutes. Then he had an entirely new alignment to start the second half. ... But after Curry picked up two fouls 2:06 into the game, Randolph was inserted and Curry was not heard from again. That is, until the start of the fourth quarter, when Thomas inexplicably attempted to defrost Curry, who was shocked to be put back in."

"How-to-get-fired" handbook, land of make-believer, defrost Curry - that's enough vitriol to make me giggle with pleasure. Add to that the hyperbolic, punny header: "Magic Kingdumb," followed by the equally insulting sub-headline, "Isiah Bungles Lineup Shakeup in Orlando." My only regret is that I didn't actually see the game, my night being occupied with prior plans.

Ken Berger of Newsday delivered an almost equally vicious lede in his gamer:

"Only the Knicks could make a drastic lineup change and have it blow up in their face in two minutes and six seconds. Only the Knicks could bench the wrong big man, anger both of them, bring the guy who should have been benched to begin with into the game after he'd sat for 34 minutes, and turn a three-point game into a blowout in the first 2 1/2 minutes of the fourth quarter. Confused? So are the Knicks. So, evidently, is the coach. Nothing makes sense with this team anymore, not after last night's inexplicable 110-96 loss to the Orlando Magic. 'We're all just trying to find answers here,' Knicks coach Isiah Thomas said. Sure. Wrong ones."

Howard Beck of the Times was a little more sedate, but even he had to offer some criticism:

"Coach Isiah Thomas furiously shuffled bodies all night in a vain search for an identity on a team that has none."

With blows this voluble landing, it seems fair to ask if the sportswriters were piling on. The answer is simple - of course they were, and the Knicks deserved it. What's more, piling on is fun in this situation. It's what this blog is dedicated to.

My last question was will Curry bit the dust? I'm still not sure if the answer is yes or no. Despite pre-game speculation almost unanimous on a switch of Curry for David Lee, Isiah kept Curry in the lineup over the far more productive Randolph, who was benched for Lee. But then Curry played less than five minutes overall, giving way to Randolph, who played most of the game and provided plenty of offense.

The other lineup change was even more surprising as the False Prophet put in Jared Jeffries for Fred Jones. No matter what Jones has done wrong over the past month, I think just about everyone knows that Jeffries is not the answer.

The important thing is that the Knicks are 8-20. Unfortunately, the pack of terrible teams is large this year, but New York has a good opportunity to secure the title of "Worst in the East" soon. The Knicks' biggest rival now is the Miami Heat, who are a half-game back.

Next up: Bulls at Knicks at noon on Sunday.
Best-case scenario - Jim Boylan's rise to head coach spurs the Bulls to a 40-point win. Buoyed by the success, the Bulls go on to sweep the Knicks over the season, ending with Viktor Khryapa dropping 60 points in a couple of months.
Worst-case scenario - The Knicks are so impressed they decide to trade their next two first-round picks for Viktor Khryapa.

Will Curry Bite the Dust?

So by tomorrow morning's shootaround, we will all know what the hullabaloo's all about. Isiah Thomas admitted after the loss on Sunday to the Lakers that it was time to shake things up in the starting lineup.

Cue the thunder and drama. Almost all observers have assumed that Eddy Curry will get the hook and be replaced as a starter by David Lee. Unfortunately, this development has the real and very scary potential of actually improving the Knicks.

I mean, that's quite a notion - the only player on the team who clearly cares about winning should start. It only took Isiah four seasons to figure out that in the pampered NBA superstar universe, a big difference in effort and motivation trumps a small difference in talent.

Anyway, I enjoyed this article from the Times' Howard Beck about the problems of playing Curry and Zach Randolph (above left) at the same time. Some of the nice tidbits:

"Randolph (a power forward) and Curry (a center) are, of course, not the team’s only problems. The Knicks are terrible defensively, and have been for several seasons. They are stocked with gifted one-on-one scorers who struggle to mesh in a team game. They lack a true, undisputed leader."
...
"Thomas has promoted the idea that Randolph’s outside shooting ability makes him a complementary player to Curry. But all three scouts interviewed for this article disagreed."
...
"All three scouts recommended moving Curry or Randolph to the bench and minimizing their minutes together. Only one of the three scouts expressed any belief that the tandem might improve over time. Then again, the Knicks’ problems may be much bigger than their big men. The Pacific Division scout said the Knicks simply lacked an identity. 'Certain teams, you know what they do,' said the scout, pointing to Washington (which runs the Princeton motion offense) and New Orleans (pick-and-rolls with Chris Paul), among others. 'Everyone has principles or cores. New York, they’ve got a lot of individual offensive talent, but they don’t have, it seems to me, any principles, any cores.'"

No principles, no cores. That's a nice summary of the state of things in New York.

The graphic (above) that accompanied the article was also interesting. It's about time plus/minus was regularly calculated as an NBA stat like it is for hockey. Curry's mark of -11 overall and -16 while playing without Randolph is simply astonishing. He's also been on the negative side during every season in his career.

A Return to Normalcy

Charlotte Bobcats 105, New York Knicks 95


Normalcy, in this case, being both a made-up word (damn you, Harding) and a state of complete shittiness.

From Viv Bernstein's lede in The New York Times today:
"The fourth anniversary of the arrival of Isiah Thomas as president of the Knicks comes Saturday without fanfare or celebration. Instead there is only more misery for the Knicks."

What a surprise. Did anyone really believe that a fluke victory over the Cavaliers on Wednesday meant anything? Apparently, yes.

"Thomas, who had questioned the team's heart before that game, seemed to believe the Knicks had turned the season around with that win. But Friday's game was another step back. 'It's extremely disappointing and puzzling,' Thomas said."

What, exactly, is so goddamn puzzling, Isiah? You're an incompetent idiot, and the team has sucked for four years. David Lee (bless his heart) catching fire for one game doesn't mean an epiphany has suddenly gripped the minds of Eddy Curry, Zach Randolph, Quentin Richardson, Jared Jeffries and Jamal Crawford.

The 105-95 loss to the Bobcats had blowout potential early on, with Charlotte leading by double digits early in the second quarter. The hosts went up 71-44 early in the third, before Isiah pulled Q and Curry. After that, the bench players lead a bit of a comeback, rescuing Zeke from another 20+ point loss.

The Bobcats, of course, are 10-14 and fourth in the Southeast. But hey, that's good enough to beat on the hapless Knickerbockers (8-18 now).

My favorite part of Bernstein's article was the appended notes section that most newspapers attach to the end of gamers - the Times calls them "Rebounds":

"Isiah Thomas did not get completely away from the jeers and calls for his dismissal that come nightly at Madison Square Garden. One fan held a sign during Friday's game that read, 'Hey Isiah, Santa's got your pink slip.' There were a handful of chants of 'Fire Thomas.'"

I'm just absolutely delighted by this news. There are several possibilities here: The Knicks have fans down in Charlotte willing to go the extra mile to show Isiah just how completely he is reviled; hatred of Thomas has become a nationwide fad, a pursuit for the truly committed; Bobcats fans have seen how the Garden crowd gets its groove on every night and decided they needed to have some fun too. Good times all around. Plus, bonus points for the "Fire Thomas." It's good to shake things up occasionally from the somewhat staid "Fire Isiah." Let's get creative, people.

One final point. Where exactly was Howard Beck? Has the Times' beat guy just gotten so miserable watching the same putrefaction night after night that he just couldn't take it anymore?

Next up: Lakers at Knicks on Sunday at noon. Best possibility - David Lee smacks Curry upside the head instead of high-fiving during a substitution. Worst possibility - The Knicks win by 20, Kobe tells the media he's dying to play for the Knicks and Dolan announces his engagement to Isiah.