So we're almost halfway through another brutal New York Knicks season. Things have certainly improved under Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni, but like any good Knicks fan, I'm not happy.
Supposedly, the team is more fun to watch thanks to D'Antoni's impulsive offense. If fun is watching Nate Robinson and Al Harrington shoot as often as they want, I don't want any.
I get that D'Antoni is the best coach the team could have gotten, and I loved watching the seven-seconds-or-less Phoenix Suns, but I don't think it fits this team. Chris Duhon is no Steve Nash. He's performed admirably despite a hurt back, but I think his stats are definitely inflated by playing ridiculous minutes and playing at a stupid-fast pace every night.
And there are still some doubt as to the man who probably should be the starting point guard of the team, Stephon Marbury. Hear me out before you crucify me, Knicks fans. I know the marriage between Marbury and pretty much every basketball team he's been a part of has been rocky, but the Knicks have totally mishandled the situation. If they didn't want to play him this season, they should have waived him.
In addition to Marbury, the team has three other wasted roster spots: Eddy Curry, Jerome James and Cuttino Mobley. Curry's hurt, James is out for the season and shouldn't be a professional basketball player to begin with and Mobley has a heart condition that forced him to retire. At one point in the season, D'Antoni was using a seven-man rotation and running the team into the ground. Why not waive Marbury and sign someone who can actually give the rest of the team a breather?
The worst part of watching the Knicks this season is that management has already written it off. Walsh's strategy, like that of many other teams, is to clear cap room for 2010 when the Knicks will sign LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Michael Jordan.
This is great for the fans. For the next two seasons, we'll be treated to non-competitive basketball solely for the chance of signing a good player in 2010. I understand New York is the media capital of the world and that James Dolan is willing to spend all of Cablevision's money, but my guess is a lot of the free agents on the market in 2010 will be looking to join a team they can win a championship with.
I can't see any championship team including Jared Jeffries, who seems to have absolutely no redeeming basketball ability at all, Quentin Richardson, who talks a huge game and almost never backs it up, or Nate Robinson, who is the stupidest person I have ever seen play basketball. And yes, D'Antoni's game is fun to watch and no doubt play but I can't see him winning any hardware with it.
The Knicks have certainly moved forward from the shambles of the Isiah Thomas era, but it's still not pretty in the Garden. Here is my projected lineup for the 2010-11 New York Knicks: Amare Stoudemire at center, Chris Bosh at power forward, LeBron James at small forward, Dwayne Wade at shooting guard and the lively Walt "Clyde" Frazier at point guard.
Myles Ma can be reached at ma5@tcnj.edu.
