The Beginning of the End for the Knicks
By HOWARD BECK
Published: September 20, 2005

Jeff Van Gundy had ventured headlong into the path of a hulking, headstrong center once before, and perhaps he should have known the futility of such gestures when he tried to reroute Patrick Ewing's course five summers ago.

Ewing, one of the greatest players in Knicks history, wanted to leave New York after 15 years as the face of the franchise. Team executives, despite great reservations, were trying to oblige him with a trade.

But after a four-team deal fell through in early September 2000, Van Gundy was given one last chance to change Ewing's mind. He set out for suburban Maryland to throw himself in Ewing's way - much as he once threw himself at the leg of Miami's Alonzo Mourning during an on-court fight. The results were similarly disappointing.

"I tried to talk to him," Van Gundy recalled, "to tell him this was fate, that it didn't go through; should we think about moving on?"

But as Van Gundy learned once again, there was no stopping a determined 7-footer moving with purpose, certainly not one as willful as Ewing. "He was set," Van Gundy said.

Shortly after, the four-team deal was reconstituted, and on Sept. 20, 2000, Ewing got his wish. He was sent to Seattle, ending a long and mostly glorious association with New York. In many respects, the Knicks have still not recovered.

In the wake of that fateful transaction, they have endured four straight losing seasons - their worst stretch in 17 years. They have never replaced Ewing's production, his leadership or his star power. Their payroll is the N.B.A.'s highest, and growing every year, but the results have not matched the dollars spent.

To say the downward spiral began with the Ewing trade is certainly an oversimplification, although chronologically speaking, an accurate summation. It is also an article of faith among legions of Knicks fans, who point to Ewing's departure as the beginning of the end.

It was for Ewing, too. He averaged only 8 points a game in his final two seasons, with Seattle and Orlando.

"When we traded him, I would say that was probably a lose-lose," said Dave Checketts, the former Madison Square Garden president. "It didn't work out well for anyone."

David Falk, Ewing's longtime agent, has come to call the deal "a mutual decision, and a mutual mistake." On the five-year anniversary of the trade, many of its worst consequences are still visible in the Knicks' current state of affairs.

The team payroll next season will fall to $115 million to $120 million, much of it earmarked for underperforming or broken-down players. The profligate spending began when the Knicks acquired several overpaid players with long-term deals to match Ewing's $16 million salary in the 2000 trade. Every move since then has exacerbated the situation.

The team's latest big-money addition - and latest attempt to fill Ewing's shoes at center - is Jerome James, a journeyman who signed a five-year, $30 million deal in July. By all objective measures, and in the view of many N.B.A. executives, the 30-year-old James will be vastly overpaid.

James will be the ninth player to start in Ewing's old position in the last five years. Four of Ewing's successors were power forwards playing out of position: Kurt Thomas, Othella Harrington, Mike Sweetney and Marcus Camby. The true centers were Luc Longley, Felton Spencer, Dikembe Mutombo and Nazr Mohammed. Combined, that group would have trouble approximating Ewing's Knicks career averages of 22.8 points, 10.4 rebounds and 2.65 blocks.

Without a true franchise player, or a post player who commands double teams, or a defender to guard the basket, the Knicks have averaged 34.8 victories over the last four seasons and have not won a playoff game since 2001.

The Ewing trade did not singularly cause the Knicks' demise, or force them to overspend in the years that followed, but it set in motion some of the trends that led to both. "I think if we all had a do-over again, we'd all do it over," Van Gundy said.

At the time of the trade, Ewing had no ambivalence. He felt the atmosphere at the Garden had turned on him. The Knicks' offense had become geared toward its flashy guards, Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell. Fans and reporters had begun to question whether Ewing was slowing down the team. And in the locker room, Ewing sensed that some of his teammates felt the same.

Falk maintains that Ewing never demanded a trade, but said, "The environment wasn't working."

Ewing, now an assistant on Van Gundy's Houston Rockets staff, generally declines to revisit the issue. Through a Rockets spokesman, Ewing turned down an interview request for this article.
But friends say Ewing, too, regrets the move. "I think what Patrick miscalculated was the voice of New York," Van Gundy said. "He thought that the voice of New York had grown tired of him, fan-wise. And I think he misread that. I said to him that he was confusing the vocal minority for the silent majority."

Ewing's apparent misread was the first mistake. Many more followed.

In exchange for Ewing, the Knicks received a package built around Glen Rice and Longley, two aging veterans with diminished skills and huge salaries. Rice was given a four-year, $36 million contract in the deal that brought him to New York from the Los Angeles Lakers.

Longley retired a year later because of health problems. Rice never meshed with Houston and Sprewell, and 11 months after he arrived, he was traded to the Rockets in a three-team deal. In return for Rice, the Knicks received two role players, Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley. Eisley had six years and $42 million left on his contract. Anderson, acquired in a sign-and-trade deal, was given a contract worth $40 million over six years.

That same summer, the Knicks lavished Houston with a six-year, $100 million contract, a deal frequently criticized as too generous. But with Ewing gone, the team could ill afford to lose another popular player.

For the 2001-2 season, the payroll was $85 million, more than double the league's salary cap. The Knicks won 30 games.

Had the Knicks kept Ewing and allowed his contract to expire, they would have taken $16 million off the books in 2001. It would not have put them under the cap, but it might have put them on a course toward payroll flexibility, rather than a payroll quagmire.

"We took, like, seven, eight, nine guys in this trade to get up to Patrick's salary," Van Gundy said. "That took our flexibility away for the future."

But the Ewing trade was just one miscue, independent of those that followed, which is why Checketts is bothered by the popular perception that the Ewing deal is the root of all the Knicks' problems.

"I think the majority of Knick fans have said that this trade was the start of the downfall of the franchise, that this was the first step toward the morose that everybody has been entrenched in since," Checketts said. "I just think that's silliness. It was only the first in a series of very bad moves."

There were other events beyond the team's control. Van Gundy resigned unexpectedly in December 2001. Injuries slowed the development of Camby. Health issues forced Larry Johnson, another team leader, to retire, and injuries have pushed Houston into near irrelevance.

But the ballooning payroll is another matter. Those who followed Checketts - Scott Layden and now Isiah Thomas - have continued a pattern of acquiring large, usually undesirable, contracts.

Layden acquired Eisley, Anderson and Antonio McDyess. In two seasons, Thomas has traded for Penny Hardaway (who will make $15.75 million next season), Tim Thomas ($13.98 million), Maurice Taylor ($9.1 million), the recently retired Jerome Williams ($6.1 million) and Malik Rose ($6 million). All are considered overpaid. Even the franchise star Stephon Marbury, one of the best point guards in the league, has a bloated contract by today's standards. With four years and $77 million left on his contract, he is virtually untradeable.

Thomas has also traded away players with expiring contracts - to acquire Marbury and Jamal Crawford - rather than allow those salaries to come off the books.

"I think that in hindsight, had Patrick stayed with the Knicks, it would have no impact on what they're going through now," Falk said. "What they're going through is the result of a rash of moves."

Rather than learn from the mistakes of his predecessors, Thomas has repeated them, Falk said.

"You can't keep doing the same thing over and over again if it's not working," Falk said, repeating the often-heard criticism of personnel experts around the league.

Still, the pattern of wild and unwise spending may finally be reaching an end. Thomas seems inclined to let the contracts of Hardaway and Tim Thomas expire after this season. The contracts of Houston and Taylor expire a year later. If Thomas lets all four leave, the Knicks will shed $60.2 million from the payroll over two years.

Although the trades he made added payroll in the short term, Thomas said every move had a benefit: He dumped Eisley's contract in the Marbury trade, and though he took on Hardaway's contract, it expires before Eisley's. Acquiring Rose's bad contract netted Thomas two first-round picks.

Along the way, Thomas has assembled a younger core, with a higher upside than the collection of aging players he inherited. That is why he disputes the notion he has repeated the mistakes of his predecessors.

"I definitely haven't followed that trend, because our current roster consists of eight players who are 25 or under," Thomas said. "The trend set before was they always went out and got older players with bigger contracts."

"At some point in time, someone had to pay for that," he said. "Last year, on my watch, I had to pay for that."

With little hope of creating cap space quickly, Thomas has traded veterans for youth, as he did by swapping Kurt Thomas (32) for Quentin Richardson (25) and the rookie Nate Robinson (21) in June. The Knicks have three players picked in the first round this year, and they will have two first-round picks next year.

There is still no flexibility in the payroll. Even when Houston's deal expires in 2007, the Knicks will be well over the cap. But Thomas said the flexibility was rooted in having multiple players with upside and reasonable contracts, who could be combined in a trade down the road.

"I'm happy with the players that we have," Thomas said. "I feel like we're in a very good position moving forward. I can finally say our franchise is healthy enough to move forward."

The youth movement creates a sense of renewal and a measure of hope. But there are no surefire All-Stars among the young players, or any recent All-Stars among the veterans. Five years after the Ewing trade, the Knicks still lack a transcendent talent or an undisputed leader, someone who can push them deep into the playoffs.

Perhaps Shaquille O'Neal, commenting on the trade five months after it happened, put it best: "Trade a legend, bad things happen to you."

its a good read and it just documents how after Ewing left they should have rebuilt the team. I dont for a minute buy the "you cant rebuild in NY" mantra. They had a great fan base and could have restocked that team in 2-3 years.

Isiah has made some very suspect moves to say the least. He's clearly overpaid for some players but he's also dont some very good things and the team is younger and does have upside and I hope he stay on this course of using the draft.

good article, I was one who always said the knicks should of kept Ewing, made him happy somehow, struggle through the year, and send him off with great fanfare. From that point they should of rebuilt, I had no problems with guys like spree and camby, but when we traded Ewing we sent ourselves spiraling into cap hell wigh clowns like Rice, and longley, then Anderson and eisley.. Ewing was very prideful and what made him a great player also made him a bad star and teamate at times.. He should of embraced some of the changes, sometimes the hardest thing to do for a star is recognizing time for change...

Yea... I could see that

7 teams have passed on him. Denver twice. They took NENE who has yet to distinguish himself, and Skita! Skita!

I have no problem with trading Camby, he was really breaking down here.

Amare had a boad load of potential issues that he defied and overcame.

With perfect clarity of hindsight, its clear what most would choose to decide.

The thinking of knicks then to take dice was consistant. I'll give them that!

That trade disgusted me. No problem trading for an injured guy with franchise potential. But trading for that injured guy and then hoping he will save your franchise was ridiculous. What's worse than the trade was after he injured himself again we still sat back and made moves based on the notion that he would come back as good as ever. It was moronic.

Layden was a disaster. He built his whole reputation because he drafted eisley and Anderson in the second round. Where they should have been!!!!!!!!!!!

What was teh topic again?

Aw man, thanks. I missed you too.

I think Checketts's quote is internally inconsistent. Yes, Knicks fans think the Ewing trade "was the start of the downfall" (and thought so at the time the trade was discussed), which means it was the "first step" in the process, not the end. WTF is he talking about?

"I think the majority of Knick fans have said that this trade was the start of the downfall of the franchise, that this was the first step toward the morose that everybody has been entrenched in since," Checketts said. "I just think that's silliness. It was only the first in a series of very bad moves."

Posted by Marv:

Listen, I hated Layden as much as anyone. Believe me. But the Dice trade was worth the gamble at the time.

Camby was looking like s**t at that e The number 7 was FAR from a sure thing. Actually still is. Nene has a long long way to go still. Dice was only available at that price because he was a health risk. The Knicks took the roll. It didn't work out. He was examined and cleared by many doctors.

The man was unbelievable during the preseason. No one knew if the knee was gonna stand. It was a risk, like you take sometimes in life.

If it had stood . . . holy schnikeys, as dj would say. The man was a beast. Everything that Amare has to offer and more. And Amare was a HUGE question mark at that time. I followed the draft like everyone else and I didn't regret no taking Amare at that time - all signs were shaky about this guy.

I strongly disagree. Many orthopedic surgeons have said that a player who has had multiple knee injuries like McDyess is susceptible to subsequent knee injuries. Consequently, trading for McDyess and expecting him to remain healthy was unreasonable.

If they were going to make the trade and include Camby, the 1st round pick had to have been conditional.


[Edited by - Rich on 09-21-2005 7:51 PM]

Norm Scott is a fine doc.

Blame Dolan, Blame Layden. blame impatient fans, blame the business model, etc. It looked good, it failed.

There is much failure to be spent with this team. And Isiah has not had the midas touch either!

Lets be fair, its younger, more athletic, and off a 33 game season and Larry brown there is reason to be optomistic, but there is a ton that can go wrong.

Q tweeks his back and is just so-so. Any injury to Sweets-James-Mo-T. for extended period.

And hows this, what if Larry needs a month or two off? What if Larry parlayed his urinary situation into some sweet payoff from Detroit and knowing Isiah would trip over himself to get him and can't make a good go of things? What if Frye needs a season to "season" and can't step in?

Is the above all possible? Not all at once mind you. Sure Marbs can blow a knee, but im looking at some small intangables that could go wrong.

Norm Scott is gone, Layden is long gone, and we have reason to look forward, but this is Isiahs game now. This is his recovery strategy.
He could have taken a different route, but its his baby now. The good and the bad.