Araton is one of the best sports journalists walking

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/sports/football/06araton.html?ref=sports

By HARVEY ARATON
Published: November 6, 2007

For all his disgust for an organization he recently castigated as “not a model of intelligent management,” it is indeed strange that a ritual disciplinarian like Commissioner David Stern did not suspend Dolan and Thomas in the wake of a jury’s ruling for the former Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders in the sexual harassment and illegal firing civil case she brought against them. Stern said he might yet punish them, but why did I have the feeling he decided, for the sake of the league at large, that now was not the time?

Where besides Boston is the buzz? One acclaimed rookie (Portland’s Greg Oden) is out for the season and another (Seattle’s Kevin Durant) is on one of the league’s worst teams. Who can take LeBron James and his Cavaliers seriously after last season’s finals? Who believes Dwyane Wade can carry Miami and the ossifying Shaq all the way again? Phoenix and Dallas are regular-season stalwarts, but what about those deflating playoff submissions?

San Antonio, the defending champion, my favorite team, should be celebrated all over, but the unfortunate fact is, it isn’t. Take a good long look around the league and you realize this would be an opportune time for the Knicks to put New York back on the competitive map. And with Kevin Garnett in Celtics green, what diehard sports commissioner wouldn’t get a little tingly over some healthy antagonism between Boston and New York?

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Are the Knicks capable of hanging with the Celtics, among others, in the Atlantic Division? Perhaps, if they remain healthy and focused, if Thomas can accentuate his bench’s athleticism and aggression and if he learns to selectively use the uneasy low-post mix of Randolph and Eddy Curry. To that end, down the stretch of games against good teams, David Lee’s firm hands and hustle should not routinely be sacrificed.

“We’re so deep, more than anybody else,” Jamal Crawford said, though by “anybody” he surely meant the Celtics.

He mentioned the energy of Lee, Renaldo Balkman and Nate Robinson, who really do bring some of the intangibles that helped make Thomas the Hall of Fame player he was. They may also represent his best and last hope to survive, to scratch out a playoff berth and restore an N.B.A. buzz to New York.