Basketbrawl

The New York Knicks and the Denver Nuggets decided that scoring baskets weren't enough to decide their contest on Saturday night. They staged their own version of Boxing after Dark with about 90 seconds to go in their game. The brawl lasted for about a minute and Nuggets scored a knockout on a right hook delivered by Carmelo Anthony.

The brawl started when Mardy Collins committed a hard foul on J.R. Smith who had performed a circus dunk on the previous possession. The Nuggets were up by 19 points at the time and still had all their starters in the game. They were clearly enjoying the pounding that they were inflicting on the Knicks. It is an unwritten rule that a team will put in it's bench players when a game is beyond reach. The Nuggets didn't do this and it clearly got under the skin of some of the Knicks players.

The Nuggets coach George Karl is a former UNC player. I'm fairly sure that Karl doesn't exactly have the warmest feelings towards the Knicks considering their handling of the Larry Brown affair. Larry Brown is also a former UNC player and as everyone knows, the Tar Heel ties run very deep. Karl probably saw an opportunity to embarrass the Knicks at home and decided to keep his starters in to run up the score. Karl broke an unwritten rule in all of sports that you do not try and show up an opponent. His actions lit the fuse on what was to become an ugly scene at the Garden.

Nate Robinson is the person most responsible for the foul escalating to an all out brawl. He was the the third person in after the foul was committed and he proceeded to get into a wrestling match with Smith. Their fight spilled over the photographers and into the first row of fans seated behind the basket. The fact that the NBA immediately suspends players who leave the bench area during an on the court fight played in a big part in limiting the brawl to the players who were actually in the game. This could have turned really ugly, but the Garden security force also did a good job of maintaining order in the crowd. They kept them from getting involved with the players. Thankfully the scene was not reminiscent of the Pistons-Pacers brawl from two years ago.

Carmelo Anthony landed the only clean shot of the night when he sucker punched Mardy Collins and then took off back pedaling down the court. A few Knicks players had to be restrained as they tried to go after him, but he escaped retaliation. Anthony is currently the leading scorer in the NBA and has worked hard to repair his image after appearing in a video a few years ago that seemingly glorified drug use. Anthony is third member of the famed draft class of 2004 which included Dwayne Wade and LeBron James. He has lagged behind the other two in terms of endorsements and notoriety, but was on the road to making up some of that disparity this year. This incident will certainly bring him more notoriety but probably not the kind that he has been looking for.

NBA Commissioner David Stern will probably hand out stiff fines and suspensions to the main players in this drama. I would suspect that both Anthony and Robinson will be looking at suspensions in the 10 game range for their roles in the brawl. Collins and J.R. Smith will probably get one or two game suspensions as well. Stern has worked hard to change the image of the NBA. He has made the players wear suits on the sidelines and has changed the rules so that arguing calls brings an immediate technical foul. While he can make changes to the rules, he can't change the people who actually play the game. You can dress them up, but that doesn't change who they are. A lot of the players come from urban settings where reputation means everything. They will go to great lengths to protect that "rep". Fines and suspensions are not really on the minds of players during these heat of the moment incidents. Brawls on the court are more reminiscent of a playground fight rather than a disagreement between highly compensated professionals.

It's a shame that a basketball game came down to a street fight, but these things will happen occasionally. The only thing that we can be happy about is that the incident did not escalate and include the crowd. There's plenty of blame to go around for the brawl from the coaches to the players, but in the end it's impossible to legislate against aggression. That being said, David Stern is going to give it his best shot on Monday.

One Big Happy Family

Stephon Marbury got his wish this offseason. His friend and confidant Isiah Thomas took over as head coach of the Knicks. It supposed to be peaches and cream for Starbury this year, but it instead looks like the beginning of the end of a beautiful relationship.

Marbury didn't even attempt a shot in the Knicks last game and his offensive output has been anemic this year. Isiah has resorted to benching him for large stretches of the game as the second unit attempts to pull the Knicks out of the mess that the first unit has created. Marbury is now openly sulking on the bench and refusing to acknowledge his teammates efforts on the court when he is not in the game. This is the kind of situation that Isiah was supposed to be able to avoid. One of the reasons that the Knicks gave for firing Larry Brown was because he didn't communicate with his players. Isiah is now getting a taste of what Brown had to deal with last year. Overpaid, underproducing malcontents who refuse to bend to the will of the coach, even for the good of the team.

How is Isiah going to react to this situation? Well, he has started talking in the press, but it has yet to reach the open levels of warfare that the Brown-Marbury situation reached last year. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they are bad mouthing each other openly in the press. Marbury was supposed to have free reign this year. This was supposed to be his team. However, the starting five has been lackluster to say the least. They lack energy and creativity. Marbury has watched from the bench as the 2nd unit, led by Jamal Crawford, David Lee and Nate Robinson have played the kind of uptempo, high energy style that is supposed to be a Marbury trademark. Isiah has insisted on starting him with Steve Francis in the backcourt, which has to be one of the most mismatched starting guard combos of all time. I have no idea why Isiah thinks that they can work together on the court. Marbury is the kind of player who needs to have the ball in his hands in order to be effective. Francis is much the same way. Marbury will at least pass the ball once in a while, Francis is a black hole on offense. Balls come his way and he will proceed to dribble until there are a few seconds left on the shot clock and then fire up an off balance, ill-conceived shot. This experiment has already proved to be a disaster. It's clear that neither player knows what his role is supposed to be and if they do know what their roles are, they are refusing to play them.

James Dolan is the kind of person who thinks that throwing money at a situation will fix it. In the case of Starbury that is partially true. I'm sure once this situation gets a little more out of hand, the Knicks will do everything within their power to trade him. I'm think that eventually they may just have to buy out the remainder of his contract and let him walk. The knicks are clearly not going to get any better with him as a member of the team. If he were benched, I'm fairly sure that he would do his level best to sow the seed of discontent among his teammmates. Francis also has to go. If the Knicks are to improve, they must develop the kind of team mentality that Francis and Marbury are apparently unwilling or unable to develop. They are "me" first players. That will not work in the kind of system that Isiah and Larry Brown for that matter, tried to bring to the team. Also neither of them are the kind of players who can carry a team on his back. Hell if Kevin Garnett can't do it, they sure as hell can't, and he's twice the player that they are.

Isiah supposed has a year to show improvement in this team. If he insists on starting Marbury and Francis then the Knicks will be in the same situation they were last year. The young players are more than willing to provide the team with maximum effort when they are on the floor. They actually seem to be enjoying themselves when they are playing. Marbury and Francis look like they are playing out a death sentence and that is exactly what they will doom the Knicks to if they are given the majority of playing time in the backcourt. As the saying goes, "be careful of what you wish for, because you just might get it". Welcome to the Knicks 2006 season. You can check out, but you can never leave.

Down and Out

The Knick bandwagon is just about to start rolling. Four games (and three losses)into the season is apparently enough to turn Isaih into Larry Brown. He is already berating his players for lack of effort and while he hasn't yet resorted to all out warfare in the press, I'm sure that's just one more lackadasical performance away. Isiah has already said that he's willing to bench anyone who doesn't perform well. According to the coach, he has no favorites. I'm sure that's news to Stephon Marbury, who was sure that he was Isaih's favorite.

The Knicks defense has been non existent this year. They have given up over 100 points in all four of their games this year. If not for a few missed free throws by Memphis on opening night, they could well be 0-4. Scoring may be about talent, but defense is about effort. They are clearly not giving the effort that is required on the defensive end. And the finger has to be squarely pointed at the coach. David Lee continues to be a rebounding machine when he's in the game and Nate Robinson provides a lot of enthusiasm off the bench, but Marbury, Francis and Curry have been disappointing to say the least. I can't take credit for this but I will repeat it, a writer in NY said that Curry was the only person to ever gain weight during a game. Apparently he's stuffing his face during timeouts. He just seems uninterested for large stretches of the game. A lot of that is due to the fact that he never touches the ball for long stretches because one of the Knicks 24 guards is firing up a jump shot from 30 feet.

It's going to be a long season and there's nothing that Isiah can do about it. I guess he could get fired, but I don't think there's a coach or GM that can turn this situation around in the immediate future. I'm looking forward to the game in Denver tonight. I'm interested to see if Isiah starts the usual suspects or acutally tries to mix things up. I don't see how it can be any worse than what he has already put out on the court this season.

Knick of Time

The Knicks won their first game of the season last night. It's significant because it's Isiah Thomas' first win as head coach and it's first time the knicks have been above .500 in almost two years. It wasn't pretty though. They beat a depleted Grizzlies team by one point in a three overtime marathon. The Knicks somehow wasted a 19 point lead with less than 10 minutes to go in what looked like a flashback to the glory days of Larry Brown. The were saved by the solid play of Quinten Richardson (I find it very hard to write those words), and important contributions from David Lee and Nate Richardson off the bench.

So what to make of Thomas' debut. He got solid play out of Eddie Curry, which is more than Larry Brown could ever say. While Curry did turn the ball over five times, he also scored 17 and collected 14 rebounds. It would not be a stretch to say that the knicks would be happy with that kind of production every night. David Lee really provides a lot of energy and should see significantly more time that he did under Larry Brown last year, when he was sometimes inexplicably left out of the rotation. Steve Francis, on the other hand, was atrocious. He was 0-6 from the field, had five turnovers and scored a total of two points. I know that Francis used to be a good, if over rated player, but he seems to be totally lost. The fact that he is not the focus of the offense has turned him into a spectator on the court. The knicks would be much better off starting Jamal Crawford and bringing Francis off the bench to provide instant offense like Detroit did with Vinny Johnson back in the bad boy era. Francis probably wouldn't appreciate being demoted to coming off the bench, but sometimes you have to ruffle a few feathers to help the team. I'm not sure that Thomas, in his "player friendly" role, would be willing to make the change. Starbury had a decent night, but fouled out before the end of the second overtime period. In theory, he should really flourish under Isiah. He's got a less rigid system to play in and should have no complaints about the coaching this year. This really is his team on the floor and he's going to have the lead them. He may lead them straight to hell, but the rest of the team has no option but to follow.

The knicks head to Atlanta next, so there's a good chance that they will be 2-0 before they play their first game at the Garden. It will be nice for the Garden crowd to have a winning team to cheer for. The first home opponent are the Indiana Pacers who are not the title contending team that they used to be. The Knicks have a more than decent chance to open the season 3-0. The Spurs come into town after that and might lay all the "Knicks are back" talk to rest very quickly. The knicks are going to be better than they were last year. They have to be. I think I could coach the Knicks to more wins than Larry Brown did last year (If you're reading this James Dolan, I can be had at a bargain basement price). Thomas is on a short leash. Dolan has given him one year to turn this team around. With the Eastern conference in somewhat of a transition period, the Knicks should find the going a little easier this year. It's probably too much to expect a .500 season, but they might get close to 40 wins. Will that be enough for Dolan to keep Isiah around? It remains to be seen. The problem is that even if the Knicks do push 40 wins this year, I don't see how they get much better. They are still saddled with untradeable contracts and unless they get lucky in the draft, this is basically the team that they will have for the next couple of years. Of course there's always the prospect of another blockbuster trade for another huge salaried star (Kevin Garnett anybody), but with what they would have to give up (Channing Frye, David Lee), it probably wouldn't make the team any better.

The knicks will be at least 10 games better than they were last year. They will make a run at mediocrity, but is that what $100+ million buys you these days? Isiah has a lot to answer for. I can't wait for the end of the season when he starts spinning in the press about what a success the season was even though the team didn't make the playoffs. Should Knick fans have to settle for a 40 win team? Not for $100+ million they shouldn't, but that is about the most that can be expected. Isiah put this team together but unfortunately, the fans are going to have to live with it for years after he's gone.

Dumb and Dumber

Isiah Thomas and James Dolan have just completed the worst year in the history of franchise ownership. First they hired Larry Brown, which on the face of it seemed like a very good move. Unfortunately they proceeded to provide Brown with players who were unable or unwilling to follow his direction on the basketball court. Mind you, this was a coach who was coming off back to back appearances in the NBA finals. That apparently meant nothing to collection of malcontents, has beens and never beens that the Knicks shamefully called a team last year. Then they fired Larry Brown while still owing him the 80% of his contract. That 80% translates in $40 million. It must be nice to just throw away $40 million. It's like Dolan had $40 million burning a hole in his pocket and decided to throw it away to avoid clutter. This may be the first time that a franchise has had too much money.

The NBA supposedly has a salary cap. It's not a hard cap, however. The cap only prevents you from signing free agents if you're team has already exceeded the cap. It doesn't affect trades that you might make. Thomas has added about $40 million dollars to the Knicks payroll which was already $20 million over the cap when he arrived. In doing so, he hasn't made the team any better. In fact they may just be the worst team in the league. The fact that Thomas was a guard seems to have made him believe that answer to every problem is to bring in another guard. The knicks have at least six guards on their roster. On any given night last year, half the active roster was made of guards and the most amazing thing is that there wasn't a true point guard among the bunch.

Well Thomas is now the coach and GM. He can no longer point fingers at anyone else but himself at this point. He still has a sexual harassment charge looming over him and I give him until about mid season to be fired. This may be the best thing that could have happened to the Knicks. Thomas' failure as a coach will perhaps finally break whatever spell he has cast over James Dolan. This may be the move which gets Dolan to realize what a mess Thomas has made of this once proud franchise. Thomas has been a wrecking ball wherever he has been in the past. I'm sure there are more than a few owners of former CBA franchises that are dreaming up cruel and unusual ways to torture him. Thomas left the CBA in shambles and he's doing the same thing to the Knicks.

Of course he may end up doing a better job than Larry Brown did this year. That wouldn't be very hard because the Knicks played like an expansion team this year. But an improvement of a couple of games does not signify a turnaround. Given the current make up of the team and the untradeable contracts that the Knicks currently have in abundance, I can't imagine them being in a position to make the playoffs. Hopefully another losing year will signal the end of this great basketball experiment. Perhaps Dolan will turn the team over to someone who actually knows something about winning basketball and stay the hell away. Oh that's right, he had someone who knew something about winning basketball and he just gave him $40 million to go away.

You know what? Never mind. It's hopeless.

Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil

Larry Brown returned to work for the NY Knicks yesterday and actually had a conversation with Isiah Thomas. Brown was at the Knicks workout facility putting potential draftees through their paces. Brown will have his Waterloo with Jim Dolan shortly and the immediate future of the Knicks will be decided. The press reaction to the potential dismissal of Brown has been swift and negative, but I can't imagine that Dolan is phased in anyway by the criticism. Practically every move he has made has been criticized in the press, except for the hiring of Brown. I certainly hope that given the time that has passed since this story first broke, he has had a chance to reconsider his position. Brown is clearly in the best position to help the Knicks improve on this years dismal record.

The only potential benefit to Brown's dismissal would be the ultimate failure and then firing of Isiah Thomas. Isiah has never shown himself to be a great coach and he would ultimately fail in that role allowing Dolan to then fire him. I'm not sure what he's waiting for at this point. There is one move that I'm not going to criticize Isiah for and that was trading the Knicks #1 pick this year for Eddie Curry. It doesn't appear that there is a franchise type player available in this years draft and for all his apparent lack of intensity, I would still bet that Curry has more potential than any player available at the top of this years draft. Of course there may be a Dwayne Wade type flying under the radar at this point, but I have no doubt that if the Knicks had indeed ended up with the top pick, they would have chosen another under performing guard (J.J. Redick?) to join the 20 they already have on the roster.

The Knicks have two first round picks (20 & 29) and hopefully they will choose wisely. Perhaps they could package the picks to move up to get a power forward or trade them for a power forward. I know it seems a radical move to actually try and get someone who actually might fill a need on the team, but hell, they've surprised me before. Steve Francis, Jalen Rose??? Supplies!!!

Anyway, now that the Knicks and Larry Brown are at least playing nice in public, it's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. At this point they are like the wise three Monkeys. Larry Brown sees no evil, Isiah hears no evil and Dolan speaks no evil. Someone is going to blink. I'm just not sure which one it will be. My money is on Dolan. I'm sure his meeting with Brown is not going to be a love fest and that may just provide enough motivation for Brown to accept a buy out and move on to his next job.

Stay tuned kids. It's about to get exciting.

Fire Sale

The Knicks are back in the headlines which is pretty amazing considering their season has been over for weeks. The news out of the Garden these days is that the Knicks are looking to get rid of Larry Brown after arguably the worst season in Knicks history. Heckle and Jeckle also known as James Dolan and Isiah Thomas have apparently decided that the major problem with the team is the coach.

Larry Brown and the Knicks have been a match made in hell to this point. Brown, who went through a messy (and lucrative) divorce with the Pistons last year, said that the Knicks were his dream job. He never realized what a nightmare this season would become. The Knicks roster was filled with rookies, underachievers and over paid shooters with no conscience. Larry Brown is first and foremost a defensive coach. He should have known that this team would never be able to fit that style of play. Brown is partly to blame for the Knicks performance this year. He should have tried to adapt his style to the players that he had, not the other way around. He made certain concessions when he coached Alan Iverson, but for some reason seemed unwilling to do that here. Perhaps he's just getting more stubborn with age.

With all that being said, Larry Brown still undoubtedly knows how to coach. He is the only person in history to win a NCAA and NBA championship. He is only one season removed from being a few points away from celebrating back to back championships. Heckle and Jeckle have no such resume to fall back on. Isiah did win as a player in college and the pros, but I don't remember that being a prerequisite to success as an executive. Dolan has turned the Knicks from perennial contender into laughing stock of the league. Now, who is in a better position to turn the Knicks around? Don't worry, it's a rhetorical question.

The Knicks are about to take a sad song and make it much, much worse. The reports are that Isaiah would take over as coach. Isiah has never proven that he has the ability to be a great coach. His Pacer teams never reached an NBA final and what makes him think that the malcontents on the Knicks would be willing to listen to him? They didn't listen to Larry Brown, but apparently Isiah speaks their language. After all, he did draft, sign or trade for every player on the team. The fact that Dolan is willing to turn this team over to Isiah is just another example of an owner without a clue.

There are lots of people around the country who hate George Steinbrenner, and with good reason, but at least he has brought a winning team to the city. Dolan only embodies the worst qualities of George; meddling, spending, bad decision making. He needs some good "basketball people" around him to help him with some of these decisions. Unfortunately the last two, Scott Layden and Thomas, have led the Knicks to this current state of affairs. And his answer to this quagmire? Fire the only person on the staff who has actually shown the ability to lead a team to a championship. Genius, pure genius. And George is supposed to be the crazy one.

Baby, I'm a Star

Stephon Marbury is talking today about how much he'd love to play with Kevin Garnett. He pines for the days when he and Garnett were supposed to be the second coming of Stockton and Malone. Here's what he had to say about playing with Garnett again:

"In New York, that would be great. Playing back with Kevin, that would be something, that would be talked about forever. I think for the NBA it would be great also. Because you get to have two guys reunited from when they were younger, when they were predicted to be [John] Stockton and [Karl] Malone."

That's really amusing that he would long for his days with Garnett because, if memory serves correctly, he was the one who forced a trade out of Minnesota because he didn't want to play second fiddle to anybody. The strange thing is that Garnett seems to have amnesia about his time with the self proclaimed "Starbury" as well. While they did make the playoff in the two years that they were together, it was clear that Marbury was never going to sacrifice his offensive goals for the good of the team. Garnett had this to say about playing with Marbury:

"You need two guys to connect. The chemistry Steph and I shared basketball-wise is one I shared with Spree (Latrell Sprewell) and Sam Mitchell. I don't think he made that connection with anyone else. I sacrificed. He sacrificed. We made it work."

Marbury never sacrificed for Garnett. Garnett, on the other hand, is the consumate team player. He can do practically anything he wants on the court. He has never hogged the ball, (even though it's clear that he's the best offensive weapon that his team possess), he works hard on the boards (which practically defines effort), and he works hard on the defensive end of the floor. Garnett has always demanded so much more out of himself than he has his teammates. Would he be willing to put up with the indifferent defensive performance that Marbury gives every night? Would he put up with Marbury firing up 20 shots a night? Would he sit quietly as Marbury starts to criticize him in the press? I don't think so.

I'm not sure who he thinks Marbury is, but he's certainly not Jason Kidd. Marbury proclaimed himself the "best point guard" in the league last year and in his own mind, I think that he truly believes that. His reward doesn't come in wins; it comes in the form of his paycheck and his individual stats. In his mind the role of a point guard is not to run the team, but to be the star of the team. He wants the ball in his hands all the time. He doesn't trust his teammates and his teammates don't trust him. It sounds like a match made in hell. Larry Brown was able to get the most out of Alan Iverson, who was supposed to be impossible to control, but in Marbury he has clearly met his match. Marbury doesn't listen to anyone, because listening or trying to conform to the wishes of someone else would somehow diminish his star, and he clearly can't let that happen.

Marbury closed with this comment about his time in Minnesota:

"You had two guys who knew how to play basketball and loved the game, that's how I thought it was going to be everywhere. When you're young, you really don't know. That's why it's called experience."

There is so much wrong with that statement that I barely know where to begin. First of all Marbury has never shown that he loves the game. What he loves is being the star of the game. He doesn't do anything well except score and even that is now in question. And if he had such an ideal situation in Minnesota then why did he want to leave? He thought it was going to be like that everywhere? What the hell does that mean? He was clearly hoping that it wasn't going to be like that everywhere because he refuses to share the spotlight with anyone. Kobe Bryant, who is twice the player that Marbury is (and who many point to as the poster boy for the spoiled NBA Player), managed to keep his ego in check long enough to win three championships with Shaq in LA. Marbury is apparently incapable of or certainly unwilling to make the same sacrifice. He couldn't get out of Minnesota fast enough.

Experience has taught Marbury nothing. He still doesn't care about winning, or playing the right way, or being a team player. He longs for Garnett because he longs for a change. He's worn out his welcome in NY just as he has in every other city that he's played in. Is it just coincidence that every team he leaves gets better (Phoenix and NJ as prime examples)? I don't think so. He has never and probably will never make a team better. Unless he changes his ways (and that is highly doubtful), controversy and that shiny dome of his are doomed to be the only things that rotate around "Starbury".

Garden Party

The Knicks?!!?! I don't even know where to start really. Isiah Thomas clearly has a plan, and I think that's the best thing that I can say about his moves since taking over the Knicks front office. He has a plan but apparently he was on Heroin when he hatched it. Here's what he has done so far in a nutshell; He has traded away the Knicks future (in the form of an unprotected #1 pick in the upcoming draft, which by the looks it may end up being the #1 overall pick), imported high priced "talent" (Curry, Marbury, Jalen Rose, Crawford), brought in players who just plain suck (Richardson, Jerome James (come on Jerome James????? what the fuck!) and traded for broken down players (Penny Hardaway).

And what has all this wheeling and dealing brought? A God damned disaster! And now he has seen fit to trade for Steve Francis. Francis hasn't seen a shot yet that he doesn't think he can make. It's amazing, first there's Marbury, who last year proclaimed himself the best point guard in the NBA (unless there's an NBA in Sweden, I believe that to be a bit of an overstatement). And now add Francis to that mix. Someone forgot to tell Francis that he is not the second coming of Pistol Pete, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson all rolled into one. I guess it's nice to have confidence in your game, but he's bordering on delusional. I don't know who gave him the nickname "Stevie Franchise", but they should ask for it back.

Instead of waiting for Hardaway's contract to expire at the end of the year and help the Knicks start to get somewhere near the NBA salary cap (they currently pay somewhere in the $60 million range in penalties for being over the cap), Isiah decided that Francis would somehow be able to turn the team around. Now the Knicks have Jamal Crawford, Nate Richardson, Quentin Richardson, Jalen Rose, Francis and Marbury to share two guard positions. How about that! Half the Knicks starting 12 will be guards. All of them are shoot first and pass maybe players. Jalen Rose is probably be the best point guard of the group, but Marbury would never allow him to move into the starting PG position.

I find it hard to believe that Larry Brown has signed off on these moves. First of all, he and Jalen Rose are basically sworn enemies. Rose accused Brown of trying to ruin his career while he was in Indiana. Larry Brown is a defense first coach, who has basically been handed a group of players that can't play defense. This has got to come to a head at some point. I'm guessing that Isiah will be shown the door before Larry. At least Larry has a defense for the dismal record of the Knicks. He can claim that he could only use what was given to him by Thomas, and he would be absolutely right. Why on earth did anybody think that Isiah knew what he was doing anyway? He didn't do anything with the Raptors (granted they were an expansion team, but he didn't move the needle at all during his tenure there), he blew a deal when he was the owner of the CBA that would have basically made them the developmental league for the NBA. He didn't take the Pacers to the NBA finals, in fact they got better after he left. This is the trail of "success" that he carried with him into the job as GM of the Knicks. I guess anything looked like an upgrade after the Layden era, but at least those teams made the playoffs.

I'm not sure that the Knicks could beat the bench players of an NBA team right now. They get beaten by 20+ so many nights that it seems the scoreboard at the Garden starts out with the Knicks losing by 20. I can only lay the blame at the feet of Isiah Thomas at this point. He either drafted, signed or traded for every player currently on the team. I know that when he came in, he was handicapped by the contracts that the Knicks had, but he has taken a bad situation and made it worse. I can only hope that the Isiah experiment will come to end shortly. It will take years for the Knicks to rebound, but at some point they have to realize that it's time to hit the chicken switch.