The Next Clippers?

Well, with baseball season coming to a close, I think its only fair to focus some attention on a sport that has been slowly going downhill since MJ walked away (the second time). As a Knicks fan I’m well aware of how bad NBA basketball can look. Passionless, ugly, full of turnovers, one on one plays, bricked free throws, arguing in the media. Ok I’ll stop, since all that happens during and after just one Knicks game. So what to expect from this upcoming season for the Knicks? I turn to one of my favorite fictional athletes ever to phrase it correctly:

Reporter – “What’s your prediction for the fight?”
Clubber Lang – “Pain”

Isiah Thomas will be fired if the Knicks don’t do better than last year, but honestly you can’t do worse than last year, unless you actually play with only 4 guys on the floor. And if you watched the Knicks last year, they sometimes looked like they only had 3. Is this a good team? No. Is this a great team to play Live with? Definetly. They also have some viable fantasy stars. But you look at the roster and realize that not only does Isiah Thomas have very little idea how to put a team together, he is too stubborn to realize he needs to try something new. The Knicks are set up to be the big losers in the east for the next 5 years easily. Of course, in the East, that means they’ll probably be the 6-8 seed in the playoffs every year by winning 37-42 games a year. If you look at the teams that have been winners lately (not just champions) and you see a common thread. 1 superstar, 1 or 2 stars, and a heck of a lot of roleplayers who excel in only 1 or 2 things. The Spurs have Duncan and Ginobli/Parker. Then a guy like Bruce Bowen who may be the most important part of the Team. Dwayne Wade, Shaq, and Gary Payton. Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, and of course Raja Bell. The list can go on.

So what do the Knicks do? Their “star” is Stephon Marbury, who is nowhere near the level of where he should be, or where he ever will be. Our #2 guy? Steve Francis, who has cost more coaches their jobs, and made more teammates angry than almost any other player. Oh, and the franchise center is Eddy Curry. He’s never met a rebound or blocked shot that he liked. Jared Jeffries was a terrible signing to begin with, throw a large amount of money at a guy who supposedly played defense and could rebound, yet did neither on a Wizards team where he started. Oh, and now he’s hurt. The Renaldo Balkman era has yet to begin, and most likely never will. Renaldo and Jerome James can sit at the end of the bench and talk about how cool it is to be getting paid lots of money to run around in practice and be laughed at in the media. By the way, I know this joke has been made, but is there any chance they can do a press conference after Balkman gets a bunch of garbage time, scores 10 points, gets hailed as a “steal” and then have him show up to meet the media with Rolando Blackman?


Sure I love Nate, Channing and David Lee, but you know Isiah won’t use them right. Hopefully they will at least get some playing time, since Larry Brown was on Meth for most of the season or something like that.

My prediction on the season: 36-46, 7th seed in the playoffs. Isiah is hailed by Dolan at the end of the season as “turning the team around, and being ready with key acquisitions to make a run at the championship in two years”. Dolan is then exposed as a sports zombie, intent on sucking the life out of every major New York sports franchise and P Diddy takes over the Knicks. Dolan takes over the Red Bulls. Isiah decides to become a life coach.