I Like Zach

Good Lord, this blog must sound alien to the majority of Knicks fans.

I happen to think Zeke is being unfairly demonized as coach and GM. This is a decent team that certainly doesn't have great chemistry at the moment but the idea being floated all over the place that we trade David Lee to "improve" is insane. You don't trade emerging all-stars - evah!

Nor do we have to package the sixth pick to get rid of Randolph or Curry or whoever. If the sixth pick gets traded, trade for quality not to rid ourselves of someone. Maybe I'm a contrarian but I love Randolph's potential at MSG. That doesn't mean he isn't trade bait, merely that he has value as a stand-alone asset.

The other myth is that the Knicks don't have talent is bizarre. This is a young team that hit a speed bump because of an overly player-entangled GM/Coach. That is resolved.

The best scenario for the Knicks may be to draft the Italian SF Danilo Gallinari and stash him in Europe for a couple of years and make a trade or two on draft day for some extra picks. I believe Isiah is sincere in his desire to see this franchise blossom and I would be trilled if he influenced the Knicks landing a great draft pick or two.

I think next year will be a two act play. The first half season will rebuild trade value and in January the Knicks will begin to cash that in. February will mark the truest beginning of a new era.

Now, there is also a lot of speculation about a potential Memphis trade but IMO the wrong team is being bandied about. I could see the Knicks and Denver swapping Marbury and Curry for Iverson and Camby to change the mix in Denver and maybe save them a few bucks. The trade doesn't hurt any future Knick plans and makes the Knicks entertaining as they emerge.

Six

I have had no use for the lottery for many years. As the season wore on I saw no reason for the losing and quite frankly the league is poorer for this sad spectacle.

But things being what they are if we had gotten the first pick my feeling was that even if Rose was a bust (and I have no great feelings about him), he would be tradable. I never liked Beasley because he just seems belligerent.

The sixth pick is of no real interest either. Mostly specimens.

The real meat of this draft is #12 - 20 or so. If the Knicks were to draft down I would love to see them draft Westbrook who is just a freak PG who I think may be the most interesting of the bunch.

The other player I covet is Joe Alexander - worker bee. He's a sleeper showing nothing spectacular but the work ethic tied to the athleticism is a clue this guy will contribute.

Hibbert is a joker pick as well.

There are some kids that will drop through both rounds that I've talked about who are equally intriguing.

What's most interesting however is that Isiah will be weighing in again thisyear and may surprise us all yet again with an unexpected recommendation.

Ewing... eh

I'm ambivalent about Ewing coming back to the Knicks. Yeah, its a sentimental gesture and so on, but honestly, Ewing's interference with Donnie Nelson years ago still sticks in my mind as the dumbest basketball judgment in Knicks history (and nobody, I mean nobody in basketball history, has exercised the kind of dumb stuff we've seen here - reader, meet Mr. D'oh-lan).

I'm talking of course of the back-stabbing kind of stuff that happened when Donnie Nelson tried to run the offense through Anthony Mason and Ewing balked.

On the other hand, and this is purely wishful thinking, if Ewing would take Curry out to the MSG woodshed and get Curry's sad ass in shape maybe bringing back an old warhorse would be worth it.

My Guess

Knicks will win a championship before the Celts.

Atlanta and Cleveland have exposed the Celts as nothing special. Lebron absolutely posterized Garnett last night.

End of the road for Celts, no doubt. Barkley and Magic openly questioned their defense. Sports Illustrated skewered them this morning.

Doc will be coaching the Bulls next year. JVG the Celtics.

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You heard it here first. Grunwald sticks as Knicks GM. D'Antoni will be guiding the trades.

Alright, Stop Right There

No more discussion of TJ Ford as a Knick - OKAY? The idea sucks and as a long-suffering Knicks fan the very F'n last player I want to see in a Knicks uni is an accident prone one.

If we trade for a Toronto PG it will be Calderon. As I suggested then, Curry and our pick for Calderon and #17. I'm good with that. Unless we're picking 1 or 2, I can live with Calderon.

TJ Ford I have no use for.

Let's look at two teams loaded with young talent AND draft picks. Seattle owns SIX picks and Portland THREE! Is #13 or #24 available? Earl Watson and Jarrett Jack or Steve Blake may all be available and worth a gamble.

And what about Free Agent Beno Udrih? Can D'Antoni lure him here? And what about the Memphis glut of PGs? Navarro? Conley?

Marcus Camby Art

Today, our family was touring Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic and we walked through the student center, a beautiful new facility.

There the art department was displaying some digital print art that was just great. Among the prints was a nicely done tribute to Marcus Camby that profiled his career and trials and tribulations. The artists identifying label was missing.

Nice piece though and certainly something that should get posted on a sports blog.

So far so good

Walsh and I are on the same wavelength. Mike D'Antoni was named head coach last night. I heard the news while listening to JVG and Mark Jackson call a playoff game. In recent weeks, being more and more exposed to Mark Jackson's -cough- insights on the air, I became wholly convinced he would be a disastrous choice for the Knicks.

JVG, seemingly knew the Knicks and MJ had dodged a bullet, and made a chirpy baseball metaphor remark like, "When Mark finally gets his chance he'll hit one out of the park!". The Yankees should be afraid, be very afraid.

D'Antoni means having an open-minded coach who will get us a Euro or two in time. I also think Walsh realizes that this roster is on the verge of something good. I don't want to jinx the next season but I think Knicks basketball is back as of yesterday.

This won't be a rebuild, this will be a fine-tune of an already young team ready for bigger things. We will likely see smaller, faster line-ups, crisper passing, and maybe a few Phoenix faces along the way.

Oh, and don't buy the Chicago Bulls bylines. That has always sounded like nothing more than ESPN sports-noise. D'Antoni being a theoretical good fit there means nothing. Walsh knows quality and D'Antoni was coming here all along. Rumors to the contrary, IMO, were always just hot air from the usual bloviators.

Now, let's speculate the next step. Steve Nash is now an orphaned lost soul in Phoenix. Seems inevitable that Phoenix has melted down. Their picks sit at 15 and 40.

Might Nash be available for a swap on draft day? I like the talent at 10-20 as much as 3-9. I believe that Walsh, Isiah, and D'Antoni might identify a franchise changing player in the mid-teens.

It will get interesting fast.

Another player a D'Antoni might want onboard is Pietrus who is available.

Just thinking aloud.

Pat Riley and Brain Theory

In an article called Folding your arms can help your brain: study by Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service, the author reports on a new study that has a surprising genesis.

Normally, it's thought that it's a psychological state that leads to a body movement. The study suggests it goes both ways, that a body movement also can trigger a psychological state.

Lead author Ron Friedman says the idea for the study came from watching former Miami Heat head coach Pat Riley pacing the sidelines, arms folded tightly across his chest, chin jutting forward, a "non-verbal signal," Friedman and co-author Andrew Elliot write, that could not be clearer: "I am going to persevere."

"(Riley's) got this book called, The Winner Within, and on the cover is him standing there with his arms crossed," Friedman, a professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, N.Y., said in an interview.

The researchers wondered, is Riley's posture more than just an outward sign of persistence? Their study appears in the most recent issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.

"We were interested in determining if body movement doesn't just convey our thoughts and feelings to others, but that they also inform us, ourselves, about our own psychological states," Friedman says.

They looked at one specific body movement - arm crossing - because it is a behaviour widely associated with perseverance. Friedman calls it a kind of battery recharge, "a feeling of tightening, something you do when you settle in and try to get yourself energized."

In the first experiment, 41 University of Rochester undergraduates (five men and 36 women) were told either to cross their arms or to put their arms on their laps. Next, they were asked to solve three anagrams, two of which were easy, ("WODN" and "TOBOR"), the third unsolvable. It was the word "Rochester," scrambled but with one letter missing. ("OCHERSTE")

The researchers weren't looking at performance but rather straight-out persistence.
The arms-crossed participants persisted longer (80 seconds on average) than the arms-on-thighs group (less than 60 seconds).

In a second study, volunteers were given a series of solvable anagrams. Those in the arms-cross group did better, because they worked at it longer.

Friedman says that certain body positions over time become associated with specific psychological states of mind and become linked in memory, so that doing one automatically triggers the other.

"If you continue crossing your arms when you're feeling persistent, that association is going to trigger persistence just by arm crossing alone."

But crossing your arms can make people seem defensive, or, in a romantic relationship, emotionally distant. It also may mean different things across different cultures. "What we have here is a westernized culture. We didn't look to see if the same effect is happening in China and Japan."

As well, the study was done in a lab setting, and not the "real world."

Still, when later asked, "What do you think this study was trying to test?" not a single participant guessed it was about the role of arm position on persistence.

As for Riley, though he's no longer head coach after stepping down last week following a league-worst 15-67 season, he's still "persisting" as team president, Friedman says.

Very interesting stuff.

They should study Dolan for brain farts. Maybe they occur at Knicks games.

Career losers

As a disclaimer, I dislike the Celtics to begin with but this year's playoff series with Atlanta is especially sweet to watch.

For all of the insider trading that took place for the Celtics to land Garnett and for all of the saturation hype about how destined the Celtics were to win it all (presumably because the NBA owes Garnett a title), the Celtics are playing just like who they are - perennial losers.

Pierce has long been labeled as a "punk" in the blogosphere. Not a healthy rock 'n roll punk mind you but a a childish bully-type punk. Game six illuminated the source of that observation by NBA watchers. Pierce does not deserve to win a thing. Nada.

Ray Allen on the other hand is one of my favorite players yet he has never won a thing. Of the -cough- big three, he probably deserves better (say, San Antonio).

Garnett is one of those guys who could be surrounded by all-start squads and still cannot win a ring. I shed no tears here. Ewing, a far more heroic player, never won a ring either but deserved to.

Doc Rivers is being skewered over at the Elba Knicks forum and deservedly so. Seems like he's a nice guy surrounded by great bench coaches and still can't sweep the lowest ranked playoff team in the playoffs. Weird.

My guess is that when they built the new garden some Knicks fan buried a David Wingate jersey in the foundation. May Celtics fans cheer long and hard and never win another title in that building.

As for the media, so many commentators act as though Atlanta were just winning because they were at home. How is this different from the rest of the league with the exception of teams tanking for ping-pong balls?

TNT makes it sound as if Atlanta should just know their place and lay down.

Personally, I hope those crazy bastards from Atlanta keep on winning - just because.

Go Atlanta

Atlanta hasn't been this hot since Gone With the Wind!