Just One reason I Hate the Celtics

The video claims that Paul Pierce posterizes Bosh but this is just one more example of not only a flagrant foul but a sociopathic player whose ego and avarice are applauded instead of shunned.

Paul Pierce is a rotten apple who didn't deserve to win one ring, let alone be competing yearly for one. One can only hope that it all comes around for this bastard and that I live to tip a beer when it does.

An Idea for Fixing the Talent Gap

The NBA is broken. Teams tank to jockey for biggest loser position in the draft. Teams like the Knicks try draconian cost-cutting and ruthless player machinations to be cap friendly for Free Agent acqusitions. The result is ugly, anti-competitive athletic events.

The statistics are largely meaningless when the opponents are talentless hacks helping the opposing team win. The sport is bankrupt, corrupt, and a competitive travesty.

I've thought about this for a long time and have always thought the lottery was one talent constraint too much. But the NBA and the media love the spectacle and cost containment it provides.

So I think I've found a middle ground. The goal of this proposal is to make tanking less desirable and extreme cap space maneuvers unnecessary while maintaining some of the cost-containment features of the existing system.

My idea is that every year any team can recruit and sign one draft eligible player before the draft is held in open market style.

This allows a player like Stephon Curry to negotiate with the Knicks (as an obvious example) and sign a deal. Now, maybe the Kicks would sign someone else or no one.

But the total compensation paid to a pre-draft signing would result in a dollar for dollar contribution to the luxury tax aside from the cap limit. So the price for signing such a player would be considerable and temper this being a regular practice by any team.

Players so signed would simply not be eligible to be drafted but the draft would take place with as usual. In fact, this will increase the number of second-rounders who get drafted making the talent pool that much deeper.

Today, a team like the Knicks has spent two years in self-inflicted mediocrity to have a chance of signing a marquee player. There's no guarantee.

The draft is a crap shoot. There needs to be a way for a team to improve by simply acquiring talent on an open market. I think this suggestion goes a long way in resolving many issues.

Knicks Lose to Boston in OT

It goes without saying that I hate the Celtics when they're playing the Knicks. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than when the Knicks beat the Celtics. And Walt Frazier quipped, "This one feels like old times!"

The Knicks had significant leads during this game and finally succumbed to the Celtics on a blown non-call by the referees in the last seconds of the game. Kevin Garnett got away with a trip and shove of a Knick defender [Chandler] and David Lee abandoned Garnett to leave him open for a wide-open jump shot to win the game. Heart-breaking.

Curry looked good for the Knicks and added considerable muscle to the Knicks under the boards. An unnecessary but thoroughly satisfying shove of a pestering Rhodo went a long way in re-establishing the idea that the Knicks are not to be toyed with anymore.

Lee and Harrington continue their enigmatic patterns of good game/expect-the-unexpected play. At time sthe Knicks defense was outstanding. At other times the Celtics ran up big leadsThat had to be overcome.

Duhon and Chandler need to stop shooting and pick the few shots they should take carefully.

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The Celtics looked awful. Garnett was limping and his knee looks questionable.

Rasheed looked awful and the team as a whole looked like it was floating downstream. They will be lucky to make the playoffs this year.

Not to Be

Hitler Finds Out About the Nets

Knicks Speak With Iverson

What Could Go Wrong?

Howard Beck's, Knicks and D’Antoni Appear to Be Undone by a Rebuilding Plan is a decent read. It unwittingly exposes the prima donna philosophy that Walsh and D'Antoni operate under.

When D'Antoni is being asked by reporters to take responsibility for the meltdown of all hope in the Knicks, Walsh interjects;

“I should take all of the responsibility,” D’Antoni said Monday. “My job is to get them to play well. So far, we haven’t done that. That’s about all I can say. I’m leading the team, and I haven’t led them anywhere so far. So I’ll take my part, definitely.”

Moments later, 20 feet away, came a sharp dissent. Donnie Walsh, the team president, said it was wrong to blame D’Antoni for the Knicks’ sad state.

“That’s unfair,” he said. “I’m happy with Mike. I’m very happy with Mike.”

It was Walsh who, upon being hired last year, called for a wholesale overhaul and began purging the roster of long-term contracts, with an eye toward the 2010 free-agent class. As a consequence, the Knicks have a roster that is designed not to win now, but rather to expire next summer.

Clearly, Walsh also wants the Knicks to be respectable in the present, which they are not. But he said he would not judge D’Antoni until “there’s something to judge him on” — i.e. after the roster has been upgraded. That time has not come yet.

“No, not even close,” he said.

Walsh lives in a a charmed, cloistered reality.

A few years ago, Larry Brown, under similar circumstances, accepted complete responsibility for the poor play of the Knicks and lost his job attempting to fix it.

Desperation moves such as trading for Steve Francis became a rallying cry for Brown's head. Yet today the Knicks are considering signing Allan Iverson and everyone debates this as a serious alternative.

So D'Antoni and Walsh have become MSG's new bubble boy duo. They live in a teflon-coated reality that is called "the plan". The plan is little more than a theory that advocates gutting a roster to bare-bones so that your team can 'sign' free agents or swing exciting deals and so on.

It is the equivalent of a bread-winner convincing their family to save all their money to buy a lot of lotto tickets all at one time. What could go wrong?

Beck like so many other mainstream journalists refer to Walsh's actions as a rebuild but its not.

The only thing Walsh has done is to clumsily and brutally dismember a Knicks roster that was imperfect but far closer to respectability than anything in evidence today. And the next move Walsh makes toward making this roster more competitive will be the first. He has not lifted a finger toward the "rebuild" part of the equation.

In fact, as the Beck article points out, he seems to be operating under the delusion that until he and D'Antoni assemble a roster of shiny Free-agent stars and complementary cast-aways that they should not be judged.

Walsh enjoys the hubris of Wall St executives who continue to mock the plight of the hungry by feasting like kings.

An anthropologist might call this magical thinking, this luxury of charging fans to watch sub-par basketball until all the right pieces are assembled so that the accountability clock can start ticking and counting on the good-will of those fans to just hold their breath.

The NBA has created a system of talent acquisition that is wholly dysfunctional. For the league to expect the wholesale deformation and retardation of a sports franchise just to acquire talent two and three years away then heads must roll in the league offices.

This is institutional malpractice of a public interest institution and fans would be well within their rights to demand a class-action suit against the league.

One Word: Rubio

Alan Hahn of Newsday gets it right. Walsh needs to make up for lost opportunities by making an overwhelming offer to Kahn for the rights to Ricky Rubio.

The expense of the transaction is inconsequential. The Knicks have nothing worth protected and if the deal is one-sided toward Minny, that's fine.

We need at least one player who can offer real hope, display immediate talent, and who can justify watching the Knicks another minute.

Short of Lebron James or Dwayne Wade, Rubio is the one that got away and that is a reversible event. Sure there are details but the need is immediate and urgent and will foil none of the Alice in Wonderland, 2010 fantasies.

In a league where Jordan can be teflon-coated from fouls, where referees can game the game, where Gasol can be traded from Memphis to LA, Rubio can become a Knick.

Whatever it takes for that to happen needs to happen. Enough is enough when it comes to the league's abuse of the Knicks. They have dumped injured players with huge on us, they have financed their fortunes on our luxury tax - it's about time for the league to get off this team's throat.

Worst. Start. Ever.

God only knows when the Knicks will play seven seconds or more of consecutively coherent basketball again.

Winning is almost completely out of the question as these early losses are the easier part of the season.

The Knicks are in free fall after losing to the GS Warriors tonight. There are no bright spots. What glimmers in the dust of mediocrity is fool's gold.

This is a team that needs a gifted GM. Walsh and D'Antoni have combined as a toxic duo who are incapable of evaluating talent. The proof is on the floor and with unlimited cap space coming their combined poor judgment is disconcerting.

David Lee deserves better. The rest deserve to be shown the door.

Knicks Beat Hornets - 44 to Go

Again, Larry Hughes is the story and a good one.

I was hoping Hughes would have a great season and it is something vital for the Knicks to contend this season. If the last two games become a sustainable, season long campaign for Hughes then one critical piece of the puzzle will be solved.

The next critical piece is getting Eddie Curry back on the floor and productive.

The other good thing happening is that this team is beginning to make sense in terms of playing time and roles. Harrington is playing very well with off the bench minutes AND he's playing smart basketball.

When the Knicks are driving to the basket good things are happenin'.

Knicks lose to 76ers

Another comeback that fell short.

The most important thing that happened in this game was that Hughes was reinserted into the lineup and paid big dividends. I was afraid D'an was going to give Hughes the Marbury treatment all year. Now we need to get eCurry on the floor.

Milicic looked bad. And our defense was non-existent most of the time. Not good.