Poor Decisions? Knicks Deserve A Mulligan.
New York Times. 05-25-07.
By William Rhoden

As the N.B.A. playoffs grind forth, Madison Square Garden is dark once again.
The Knicks recently completed their sixth consecutive losing season, and their fourth since Isiah Thomas became team president.

With Memorial Day approaching, N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern has to devise a solution to the league's New York conundrum.

How long do you allow this franchise to perform poorly? How long do you allow a flagship franchise to be at or near the bottom?

The Knicks are one of the N.B.A.'s pillar franchises. They have the largest payroll but also probably the bleakest outlook for winning a championship any time soon.

Some optimists predict that by the 2009-10 season the Knicks will be under the salary cap in a substantial way and therefore in position to acquire the star player who will lead them to a long-awaited title. But that's two more seasons — 164 games, 18 more months — of losing and just missing. Two seasons, at least, before they can come out from under a suffocating salary-cap manhole.

What is a commissioner to do?

I suggest that the league wipe the slate clean.

The N.B.A. should act like the World Bank and treat the Knicks like a developing nation. The league needs success in New York and there is only one way to achieve that: The N.B.A. has to forgive the Knicks' debt.

Last season, the Knicks had a payroll of more than $120 million, the largest by far in the N.B.A. The Knicks are perennially so far over the league's salary cap that it will be a long time before they can obtain the sort of transcendent player who can lead them to a championship.

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The salary cap was installed nearly two decades ago as a way to prevent teams in larger markets from outspending smaller-market teams and buying up the best players. But the cap hasn't stopped the Knicks from ill-advised spending, from habitually becoming entangled with bad contracts, flawed players and star-crossed coaches.

There is a precedent for this sort of relief. In the summer of 2005, Stern persuaded the owners to include an amnesty clause in the collective-bargaining agreement: a one-time opportunity for teams to waive one player and avoid having him count against the team's luxury-tax calculation. The salary, however, was still counted against the salary cap.

"The owners fought me on that," Stern said yesterday.

But the commissioner persuaded the owners to grant amnesty for the good of the league.

So why not suggest this more invasive, one-time amnesty to the owners, by erasing the Knicks' salary-cap and luxury-tax excesses? For the good of the N.B.A.

Allow the Knicks to dump four contracts (say, Steve Francis, Jerome James, Jared Jeffries and Malik Rose) and move under the salary cap.

The Knicks are an important team for the N.B.A. Talk all you want — as Stern did yesterday — about all the franchises being the same, about all being equal, about no franchise being more important than another.

But New York, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles are the preferred cities to go deep into the playoffs, to reach the finals — to maximize television revenue.

In a peculiar way, however, it's good business for the N.B.A. to have a spendthrift team like the Knicks exceed the cap and pay the luxury tax. The tax is distributed to teams that are under the cap, providing them with additional income. These are the teams that are beating the Knicks and spending less money in the process.

Stern wasn't hearing it. Two years ago, he said, he believed amnesty "was an appropriate time to reset a little bit, with emphasis on a little bit."

A similar move now, he said, "would be too large a gesture, and that would be too disruptive in the context of a new collective-bargaining agreement."

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Stern suggested that his misgivings with my World Bank-Developing Nations analogy notwithstanding, this was an issue of rewarding competence.

Why should franchises that have budgeted and exercised fiscal restraint have to bail out a New York franchise that has made stupendous blunders over the years in pursuit not so much of a championship, but of packed arenas and big-name players.

"What do you say to teams that are under the cap, have managed under the cap and are doing very well competitively?" Stern said.

I'd say patience may be a virtue in San Antonio and Salt Lake City, but it's not a virtue in New York.

Here is what else I'd tell those teams: For years you guys sent your washed-up, overpaid players to the Knicks. The Knicks became the destination of choice for a parade of bad contracts — Penny Hardaway, Jalen Rose, Antonio Davis, Francis. New York helped out the N.B.A. Now it's time the league gives a little something back.

Forgive the Knickerbockers' debt, commissioner. Give a little power to the people.

ha, that would never happen.

at best, we can hope for stern getting fed up and forcing dolan to sell the team.

Maybe Portland will trade us the rights to the NUMBER 1 PICK in exchange for Nate Robinson.

Or... There should be some medical exception to the salary/Luxury tax - that a player with a medical injury can retire and not count against your salary cap and luxury tax.

No matter what anyone says--and despite a few teams in NBA history---especially now in modern times--you *have* to be adept at drafting players and then committed to keeping a core of them. You can be opportunistic in the trade market--looking for deals that make a ton of sense--that enhance your club--but the way this Knick team is going to get better is by keep doing what they are doing with guys like balkman lee and collins.
The MLE has not worked in this decade whoever used it and we havent been the best at trades. By having the bird clause on your players you get to keep them if you wish--so realistically you can keep a core of players together for 9-10 years--probably the lifecycle of a good nBA run. You will make mistakes--everyone does but this is th best way to build the team. Finding a trade like jermaine Oneal where you end up having to give up the bank for him--and he gets hurt--thats it.

Not gonna happen. The Knicks made their bed and will lie in it.

AND... if you gave us the amnesty, it would be temporary, because in five years we'd be in cap hell again. This team is not run intelligently... while, as a fan I'd love a helping hand, and I do think the rules are a little too strict, this is the Knicks fault that they're in such a hole.

The Knicks being good is good for the NBA, yes. If you want the Knicks to be good, they have to make their primary being good and not the primary goal being a playoff team to make Dolan extra $$.

This is really not necessary. The Knicks are big boys and i'm sure that they knew exactly how expensive this was gonna be when they made each move. Now to the writer 2 years is too long and far away, but in reality it's VERY close and there's just no need for such a drastic move. As i've said many times we have a young core and 2 years won't mean that much in terms of our future. We can continue to grow and improve all the while drawing closer to a cap number that is in line with the rest of the league.

Now that Oden and Durant are out west, we won't have as much competition in the East to have to go thru, so there's another reason to wait the 2 years and not be too hasty in doing anything crazy before that. I predict this team will make the playoffs next season, which is a good thing and should take some of the pressure to do something crazy off the plate.

agree. not going to happen, and should not happen. i love the knicks, but why should we get special treatment? like Solace said, "the knicks made their bed now they should lie in it." besides we're not than far from being a playoff team, and we're already a competitive team.

even this past season we were a flawed team that was couple of injuries away from being in the playoffs. this guy is making it sound like the world of the knicks is falling apart. or even worse the nba itself, all due to the knicks.