On Vacation

We're 48 games into the Knicks' season, and I'm proud of both them and myself. I've managed to pump out enough vitriol to fill a coffee table book. More importantly, New York is 14-34 and currently on a six-game losing streak.

Ahh, that's the good stuff.

Moreover, the Knicks have constantly embarrassed themselves with off-court controversy, often verging on sheer pathos and insanity.

Sadly, I'll be taking a leave from it all. I go on vacation today and won't return until Feb. 29. During the interim, Isiah-in-Wonderland will be on hiatus. I'll be monitoring as much as I can from overseas, but in the meantime you'll have to supply your own Knicks bashing.

Hey Doc, I can't find Jerome's pulse

To tide you over, here are some fun predictions for the next three weeks:

1. Isiah will remain as coach and GM.
2. James Dolan will be arrested for participation in an internet pornography ring.
3. Stephon Marbury will begin living in the deep bowels of MSG like the Phantom of the Opera.
4. The Knicks will win against Indiana on Wednesday then drop their next three.
5. Quentin Richardson will start a fight on the court and get bitch slapped.
6. Jerome James will quietly die while riding the bench, but no one will realize for a week.
7. The Knicks will still suck when I get back.
   

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?

Hail the Daily News

In keeping with the theme of Isiah Thomas' four-year anniversary over the weekend, check out this retrospective by Frank Isola of the Daily News. It opens with one of those classic attempts by Isiah to rationalize the mess he created:

"We started from deep, deep, deep in the hole. We started with a cap number that was probably the highest of any NBA team in history and a low talent level and a building that was empty. Now we have a building that is full, probably one of the most profitable franchises in the NBA. Our cap number's down and our talent base is good. We're young, we're improving and we still have a lot of room for growth. Now we've got to put some wins on the other side of the ledger."

Ah yes, winning - that's the only accomplishment Isiah and the Knicks are missing. Too goddamn bad it's the only important one. And by the way, what's the salary number now? Is Isiah even aware that the NBA has a luxury tax and not a salary cap?

Isola's column is a nice, albeit brief look back at four years that could be a primer on how to suck in the NBA. Some of the Isiah's early, stupid moves are now quite forgotten after the fiascos of Jerome James and Jared Jeffries in the past year. But Isola reminds us of the idiocy of yesteryear, highlighting such personnel gems as the Steve Francis acquisition. Good times. It also included a few moves I didn't know about, like Isiah firing Mike Saunders.

It's always fun to trash something in print (witness this blog). That's why movie critics love what they do. They find new putdowns for the latest on-screen dreck. But it's tough to rail against Isiah in an interesting and fresh way after people have been doing it for four years. That's why I liked Isola's column.


Also, major props to the Daily News for those "Fire Isiah" tearaway pages (pictured above). Yeah, it might not be impartial, but aren't we a little past that by now?