http://www.nypost.com/seven/10072007/sports/media_now_the_enemy.htm?page=3

Red Holzman used to hold the team charter until the Knicks' press corps had finished writing, no matter how long it took. In those days, and for many years to come, we also were permitted to take the team bus to and from the hotel and airport. Rory Sparrow, angry at something I wrote, once beseeched Hubie Brown during a road trip to have me stripped of that privilege.

"I was here long before you got here and I'll be here long after you're retired!" I shouted.

Little did I know Dolan would one day own the Knicks and distrust of the media would be of epidemic proportion. In all fairness, accessibility had faded fast in prior regimes. Dolan delivered the coup de grace!

For the last six years or so, media members are tolerated at practices for roughly 15 minutes per day. At training camp we're limited to a seat in an assigned narrow side section in the balcony of John Kresse Arena; straying into the middle for better a sight line is outlawed for fear, what, we might discover the team's secret plays no one has thought of yet?

We're then granted another 15 minutes or so of hurried audiences with the players and coaching staff. The Knicks make the media's job even tougher by forbidding exclusive sit-downs with individual players or coaches unless pre-approved and you agree to be blindfolded en route to the meeting place so steps can't be retraced.

Seeking authorization and two hours of Larry Brown's time two years ago here in Charleston, I was summarily turned down. Building adversarial relationships with the media is what the Knicks do.

"Look," Thomas said, "you work for the New York Post and your paper does things a certain way. We work for the New York Knicks and we do things our way. When we worked for NBC and Dick Ebersol kept telling us 'Talk about Jordan! Talk about Jordan!' he was doing it his way."

No comment!

It's not often there's intrigue attached to an exhibition game, but who's not breathlessly waiting to see if Next Town Brown shows up here tomorrow when the Knicks open up against the 76ers?

From what I'm told, Brown, the Sixers VP, plans to attend, but nobody would be all that surprised if he ducked back to Philadelphia from Durham, N.C., where the team is training. It's be his first appearance against his latest former team since last summer's hugs-and-kisses arbitration hearing.

For the record, Thomas swears he never called Brown the "b" word.

- P Vescey

Does anybody really care what Peter Vescey and his gossip newspaper (the post) have to say?

The Knicks are a joke.

I'm surprised the NBA lets them get away with it.

Good to see Isiah is still jealous of Jordan.