Still Looking Up to LJ
by Frank Isola
I don't want to get too sentimental but the best thing about being in the Thomas & Mack Center -- the homecourt for the UNLV Runnin' Rebels -- is seeing Larry Johnson's jersey hanging in the rafters. In my 11 years covering the Knicks, there was no player I admired more than Larry, who was beloved by his teammates.

His college teammate and friend, Greg Anthony, says that Larry prefers to keep a low profile these days. I know Jeff Van Gundy tried to get him to come to Houston but Larry wasn't interested. There was even talk of Larry hooking up with his hometown Dallas Mavs. Here's one interesting thing about Larry -- he's dropped 30 pounds since retiring following the 2001 season. When you look at the decline of the Knicks, it started with trading Patrick Ewing in the final year of his contract. The next year, Larry retired. When any team losses former No. 1 overall picks in consecutive years, it is hard to recover from that.

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This is weird. Someone posted a thread last week asking if anyone knew what LJ was up to and this week Isola writes a short article about. It could be a coincidence because the all-star game happened to be in Las Vegas. But it appears that the press is looking at this forum to get ideas. Again, I am not saying anything is wrong with that (it is just smart journalism to find out what the fans think), but it is interesting.



[Edited by - thegame on 02-18-2007 12:47 PM]

LJ was one of those rare players that you see in college and think not just, "I wonder how he'd look as a knick" but "Oh Lord, Please make that guy a knick!"

and then he is, and he is able to remake his game so beautifully to compliment everybody else.

The X-Man was another player like that. I still don't understand why he left us to go to the Celtics. It changed b-ball history forever IMO.

I'm A GENIUS!!!

You are welcome again sportsbitters!