Knick updates, with the season one day away: 

-First off, yes MC Welk, I read the Esquire piece.  Thanks for the headsup.  It's pretty humorous, though it does fudge the facts a bit (i.e. Ewing was not "traded for Luc Longley").  Though I am an unabashed Knick fan, I do try to keep perspective.  And James Dolan, as an owner, as been a total disaster.  He ran Dave Checketts out of town, and replaced him with the total failure that is Scott Layden (i.e. the guy who traded Ewing "for Luc Longley", or whatever they are calling Glen Rice these days).  It continues to this day with his failure to settle with Anucha Browne-Sanders before the trial, thus saving himself money and bad press.  He's a terrible owner, and possibly a reason for haters to feel sorry for us Knicks fans.

On the plus side, he is willing to spend money on his team, which makes him better than the Suns owner, and Donald Sterling (among others).  And I know I've said this before, but I agree with him sticking with Isiah Thomas.  Just like last season, the key is progress.  The Knicks improved 10 games last season, and I expect them to improve another 10 games this season.  Anything less than that is failure, and time to bring in a new GM/coach.
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The NY Sun has been posting some pretty awful articles (mostly by John Hollinger - see here for a solid debunking by Cosellout) about the Knicks lately.  So when I read Martin Johnson's piece today ("Knicks Shouldn't Let Salary Determine Playing Time") I was expecting the worst.  And certainly it had it's standard share of mindless rhetoric ("When it comes to the Knicks, money matters in the all the wrong ways" - mix metaphors much?) and mind-blowing statistical analysis (Noting that the Knicks starting lineup has five of the highest paid Knicks in it... No sh*t!!  Really?  What NBA team has a bench that gets paid more than its starting lineup?!?).

But after yawning through most of the article, Johnson finally gets to the point.  A point which he probably could have started with, instead of wasting most of the article on unnecessary rhetoric, but what can you say about the NY Sun... it's not even a real paper!   Here's his suggestion:

"I think the Knicks should start Lee, Randolph, Balkman (when he's healthy again), Richardson, and Marbury, and they should split time with a second unit featuring Curry, Chandler, Crawford, Nate Robinson, and Jared Jeffries. The idea is that none of the Knicks big men are first-rate shutdown defenders, but the team has several perimeter defenders. Use them. All the players on this second unit except Curry rebound well for their size. I'm even willing to go deeper than 10 men a night; forward Malik Rose, center Randolph Morris, and guards Fred Jones and Mardy Collins shouldn't rot at the end of the bench."

Thank you.  He even acknowledges that the Knicks bench is better than "two-thirds of the NBA".  Would it work?  Here's my thoughts:  Lee and Randolph are high energy guys that are needed off the bench because they provide a spark.  I like them in the second unit with a scorer like Nate or Crawford, because those guys can just focus on playing defense and rebounding, and let the ballhogs dominate.  It makes sense to make sure that Balkman and Lee (and the second unit as a whole) get a lot of minutes, but I don't know if that means you have to put them in the starting lineup.

I also like cutting back on Marbury's minutes, so playing the second unit as much as the first unit makes sense.  Crawford and Curry need to stay together - they have the best chemistry of any two players on the Knicks.  But keeping them together in the starting rotation (as Isiah is right now) is fine. 

The root of this article is that Randolph and Curry can't work together.  The local media (and "experts") have been selling that since the trade occurred, and they want to prove themselves right.  They've jumped on 5 preseason games as sufficient evidence that it can't work.  Call me stupid, but I think we should give it at least half a season before we write it off as a failure.  Patience is not a strong suit of lazy beat writers.

Never the less, I do give Johnson some credit for suggesting Isiah needs to play the bench as much as the starters.  I think no one, other than Randolph, should be guaranteed more than 34 minutes a game.  If Marbury is doing a good job of moving the ball and playing defense, than he should be out there.  But otherwise, no one really strikes me at this point as deserving more than 30 minutes of play.  Eventually Isiah will have to settle on a rotation that works best, but for now he should experiment until he's worked out the kinks. 
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Knicks Defense has the November schedule up.  Looking at it, it might be a slow start for the Knicks.  The have a tough game against a Cavs team that got upset in their opener.  LeBron got held to 10 points, and though Q-Rich usually does a good job against LeBron (he hates Kings James), this will be a motivated LeBron. 

The Knicks then have a very winnable game against the T-Wolves.  The Nuggets are tough; the Knicks play them twice in their first 10 games.  They also play the Suns, Pistons, Bulls, and Jazz this month.  Winnable games include: Clippers, Kings, Bucks.  The game on Nov. 29th against the Celtics could determine whether the Knicks have a winning month or losing month.  

The Knicks play 15 games this month.  Our prediction: 7-8 to start (their only losing month of the season).  If they  exceed that, watch out!   
*******
Garbage Points had some great previews this month for every NBA team.  Very knowledgeable, very in-depth.  My favorites:

From the Philly 76ers preview (Brian, Ricky take note):

Bold Prediction:

• Reggie Evans will impersonate a doctor in an attempt to touch Chris Kaman’s testicles again. His scouting report takes on a new connotation when it says "good ball-handler". (d)
• Larry Brown pushes to become head coach and GM of the team after a bad start. He refuses to play Andre Igudola, Thaddeus Young and Andre Miller, because Reggie Evans and Shavlik Randolph are "Larry Brown guys." (j)
• During a timeout, Mo Cheeks berates Andre Miller and demands to know why he didn't pass to a wide open Kevin Ollie on the play before. "Kevin Ollie's still in the league?!", Andre Miller screams. "Kevin Ollie's still in the league?!", Mo Cheeks screams. "I'm still in the league?!", Kevin Ollie screams. (q)

Also, this under "Favorite Moments":

• At a Knicks/ Sixers game attended by me and my brother, We scream out to the court "Nate, don't let Willie Green beat you - hes a bum!" Nate Robinson immediately steals the ball from him and goes in for an easy lay-up. Me and my brother should be coaches. (j)

And, from their Knicks preview:

Favorite Moment:

• In a tie game against the Nuggets with 28 seconds left, Jamal Crawford dribbles out the shot clock. With nine seconds to go, he gets caught in the air and his pass is easily picked off. With several Nuggets down the court, Najera attempts to pass it down for the winning points. Crawford swats the pass, grabs the ball, and with plenty of time for a closer shot, he shoots and makes a desperation three. (q)
• David Lee goes 14 for 14 from the field in the Rookie-Sophomore game. (d)
• In a tie game at Denver Jamal Crawford begins a wild sequence by throwing an errant pass directly to a defender, stealing the outlet pass, and launching a three-pointer while falling to give the Knicks the lead with less than four seconds left. Gus Johnson, calling the game, flipped his lid. (j)

If that doesn't accurately sum up Jamal Crawford in two examples, nothing does.

Also, this picture of Marbury is awesome:
Nice work, guys.
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Um, now seems like a good time to tell an unrelated Trini Ricky story, one that didn't make it into the "Trinidad & Tobago" preview. 

If you remember my last Trini Ricky story, his father was gangsta... he was last seen jumping out of the bushes in Crown Heights, pointing a shotgun at a mugger.  Rick's father was the real deal.  They left Trinidad when Rick was young because "people were after him".  No details were ever provided.

Ricky had one older sister, who married a nutty guy (The Brother-In-Law).  We saw photos from the wedding one day when Ricky brought them in to school.  They got married in East New York, arguably the worst neighborhood in Brooklyn (and in New York City, or even NY State, and most comparable to Newark).  The photos showed them outside after the wedding, on the street.  There were literally burnt out buildings up and down the street - completely abandoned.  No joke, there was a parked car on fire in the background in one of the photos.  It had been completely stripped already, so at least nothing of value was burning.  Take it from someone who has been to Beirut... it looked like a war zone:
But the best pictures were the ones where Dad presents his son-in-law with his wedding gift.  The series of photos went like this:
1. smiling Dad, smiling son-in-law pose for camera
2. smiling Dad pulls gift from behind his back
3.  "What could it be?" wonder son-in-law
4.  Opens gift.
5.  It's the biggest bag of weed ever. 
6.  Both dad and son-in-law smile happily.

Seriously... really big bag.  No joke.  Only in Brooklyn in the 90's.  If you weren't there, you probably don't believe any of this.  That's fine... but it's all true.
So that crazy brother-in-law?  One year, right before the West Indian Parade (every Labor Day on Eastern Parkway) me and a friend went to visit Ricky at his crib, which was near where the festivities take place the night before the parade.  It's a wild scene.  We were chilling at the crib later that night, and Rick's b-i-l is there.  Smoking weed, drinking, chilling.  The four of us are hanging.  For the record: Rick's crib was in a straight up crack house, and every other apartment in the building was pretty much used by hookers or addicts.  There were crack pipes all over the staircase.

Anyway, it was time to head back to Queens (I was staying at my friend's house).  Ricky offered us a ride in his b-i-l's car. 

"Your brother in law has a car?"
"Sho' does.  We built ourselves."

We had to see this.  We get outside, and they take us to an old RX-7.  A f*cking Mazda.  I can remember making fun of Mazdas in my old site back in 2002... Mazda must be Japanese for "midget car". Mazda Miata means "really midget car".  Not funny, admittedly.  But damn... Mazdas are small. 

Anyway, first we tried to figure out who was going to drive anyway.  Neither I nor my friend had a licence.
Ricky: "I'm too drunk.  My b-i-l will drive."

Ain't he high as a kite right now?!?  My friend and I looked at each other in panic for a second.  Then we shrugged.  F*ck it, let's just get home.

Then we shot it out, to see who had to sit in the trunk.  He won, so I had to sit in the trunk/backseat with Ricky, staring out the glass window. 

B-I-L goes to start the car.  This involves, seriously, rubbing two wires together.  This is his car, yet to get it to work he has to hot-wire it.  On his first try, the window rolls down by accident.  "Me bad", he says.  Then the engine starts, but we don't move.

Ricky has to go outside and crank the engine.  Literally.  Not a joke.

We finally start the engine, and are moving.  Pretty slowly, yet the engine is roaring.  It's working hard.  We kick it up to about 30 mph, and the car engine is really roaring.

"Yo, where did you this engine?" asks my boy.
"We took it from a motorcycle."

They only knew one way to get to Queens from Brooklyn... via the Interborough (now the Jackie Robinson).  It's hard to describe accurately how awful this road is.  Here's what you need to know:

• Connects East New York, Brooklyn (worst neighborhood this side of Compton) to South Jamaica, Queens (worst neighborhood in Queens).
• Did I mention Jamaica is nowhere near our destination (Woodside), and in fact, neither is East New York nearby.  In fact, if we took the local streets, it would be a straight line.  But instead we are driving way west to East NY, to take a highway that takes us further west (but also north to Queens), leaving us far away from Woodside. 
  
• Also, it's the night before Labor Day/West Indian Parade.  Every block in East New York is having a block party, and it's objectively scary to drive around that neighborhood at night on a normal night.  
• The Interborough is two lanes wide - one for eastbound traffic, one for westbound traffic.  No median (note: this has since changed).
• It's incredibly curvy.  Every turn is followed by another turn.  It was clearly designed by Konami.  In fact, the Interborough is a track in Pole Position. 
  
• Upon making those turns, don't be surprised to find a huge mound of dirt in your path.  If so, the appropriate action to take is to verve onto oncoming traffic to get around the huge mound of dirt blocking your path.
  

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Also on the Network: √ Hospitality [Loge 13] √ Throwing Up One's Hands [C70 At The Bat] √ The Hybrid: Denard, Boise, Denard, Week 2, Other Stuff [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ collegefbpoll.com Top 25: Week One [College Football Poll] √ Want To Go To Social Media Night? [C70 At The Bat] √ Another Step Back [C70 At The Bat] √ Leftovers: White Sox and Stuff [Tremendous Upside Potential] √ Mets All Wet [Loge 13]

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