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.
   

Super Tuesday Endorsement

James Dolan, left, and Steve Mills, right, have both donated money to Hillary Clinton. That means my endorsement goes to Barack Obama.

Isiah-in-Wonderland is a strictly non-political endeavor. But sometimes politics and the Knicks conspire to force your hand. And so, this blog's endorsement goes to Barack Obama.

Just take a moment to assess that and change all your opinions accordingly.

This decision was based solely on one set of data that had nothing to do with the candidates or their issues. Of the four current members of the New York Knicks who have donated money to political candidates, three gave to Hillary Clinton. That's reason enough to vote for Obama, in my mind.

Steve Mills, who fulfills some sort of executive function for MSG, gave $2,000 to Clinton. Herb Williams gave her $1,000, though that was for her last senate campaign. And most egregiously of all, James Dolan (aka Fredo) has served up the maximum amount of $4,600. Stephon Marbury also gave $2,300 to Obama.

But when Dolan is letting the money fly, I'm always opposed. My only hope is that Clinton decides to use Dolan in her campaign. I'd love to see that two-bit ewok trying to give a speech and then getting pelted by venomous invective and perhaps some rotten fruit as well.

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.

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.

Vecsey Comes Undone

Here's a good photo of Peter Vecsey doing his Ancient Booer impersonation after dubbing Isiah the "King of Slime"

The total state of insanity revolving around the Garden of Hate these days has finally seemingly driven the Post's Peter Vecsey over the edge. Vecsey, of course, was the one who bestowed Isiah with the nickname the False Prophet, and I'm glad to see that he is responding to the Knicks and their Dante-esque level of hellishness by responding with the absurdity they deserve. That's why he used a paraphrase of a wonderful quote from "The Princess Bride" today in his column:

"Bow down to the King of Refuse! So, bow down to him if you want. Bow to the King of Slime, the King of Filth, the King of Putrescence. Boo! Boo! Rubbish! Filth! Slime! Muck! Boo! Boo!"

Vecsey was referring, obviously, to Isiah, who now has another great name to go along with the False Prophet: the King of Putrescence. Hmm, too wordy? Maybe King of Slime will do. Actually, both will work.

The other highlight of the column was the details on the trade offer from the Knicks that the Milwaukee Bucks recently turned down. The swap would have sent Zach Randolph and Renaldo Balkman to Wisconsin in return for Charlie Villanueva, Bobby Simmons and Dan Gadzuric.

I don't know how to react to this, but since Isiah made the offer I have to assume that it would have been terrible for the Knicks. And that's probably why the Bucks were nuts not to accept. If Isiah called me up with a trade offer that didn't involve me giving up Tim Duncan or LeBron James, I'd agree automatically. You just take it for granted that Zeke will screw over his own team no matter what.

By the way, the whole Marbury thing has taken on a surreal air. Right now, I'm leaning toward the back-off approach. A lot of the columnists want to send the guy to the public stockades, but I want to wait and learn more before making any judgments.

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.

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.

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.