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Knicksfan
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By Sean Deveney - SportingNews
So this is how it is: The Knicks traded their best player, Zach Randolph, to the Clippers for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley, only to discover during a physical that Mobley was suffering from a dangerous heart condition that forced him to retire. In normal circumstances, this would be ample cause to nix the trade, for the Knicks to get Randolph back and return to the Clippers their damaged goods.
But the current edition of the Knicks is anything but normal, and if ever there was an act that served as a nod to just how abnormal things are in New York, it is the team’s shrugging off Mobley’s retirement and, effectively, accepting the 31-year-old Thomas, now on his seventh team, as the only return for a 27-year-old big man who was averaging 20.5 points and 12.5 rebounds at the time of the deal. The message, clearly, is that these are the Knicks of time. Very limited time.
Mobley’s value to the Knicks as a player whose contract expires in time for the free-agent bonanza that will come in the summer of 2010 outweighs the fact that Mobley will never play a minute in the blue-and-orange. It also outweighs the fact that the Knicks are still a severely shorthanded seven-man unit. Being rid of Randolph’s albatross contract means the Knicks have a nearly pristine payroll in ‘10. They’ll still look to move along Eddy Curry, if possible, but they’re not under much pressure to do so.
All of this seems to make it tough to be a Knick these days. That was the opinion of the big prize of the 2010 summer, Cleveland’s LeBron James. “It’s a distraction for the Knicks,” he told reporters. “It’s not a distraction for us. We’re good. Players on [the Knicks] don’t want to hear about LeBron James or Chris Bosh coming to their team at this point. It’s a year-and-a-half away. They’ve got better things to do.”
But maybe it isn’t really that hard for the Knicks. For all the salary-dumping deals the team has pulled off, for all the LeBron James talk, for all the focus on disgruntled prodigal point guard Stephon Marbury, there doesn’t seem to be much depression in the Knicks’ ranks.
“So far, so good,” said forward Al Harrington, another player with an expiring contract, acquired from the Warriors for Jamal Crawford. “We all know the situation here, that the team is building for something later. But we still have a good team here and we’re going to get better before the end of the year. We just have to go out and play.”
Indeed, there is a certain freewheeling quality to this edition of Knicks. They’re not dumb—they know they were brought here because of their short contracts as much as their talent. Only Curry and Jared Jeffries are signed past the summer of ‘10. This team isn’t supposed to do much this year or next. But, sometimes, playing with nothing to lose is not such a bad thing.
“You can’t think too much about it,” said point guard Chris Duhon, whom the Knicks signed this summer, in part because he was one of the few free agents willing to accept a two-year deal. “We don’t sit around and talk about it. I mean, what are you gonna do? It is 2010. We still have to play this year. We have to play next year. We all know it is a business, and there are business moves the team has to make. But that’s OK. We have to keep a positive attitude. And we have done that.”
If anything, the short contracts of the Knicks players serve as a sort of bond, something that has drawn the team together and helped put a chip on its shoulder. They are experienced, they are athletic, they are versatile and they seem to have taken to coach Mike D’Antoni’s up-tempo system. They’re 10-12 despite the many roster convulsions and despite the attention paid to rebuilding in two summers that has marked the early season. When they get healthy and add some depth, the Knicks figure to be dangerous.
In the locker room, there is the feeling that this bunch can do something no Knicks team has done since 2001—finish above .500 and make the playoffs.
“I know it is a strange situation if you are looking from the outside,” Duhon said. “But for us, I think guys are starting to feel comfortable in the situation. We have a lot of guys who are coming from situations where they were not happy. Now, they’re happy about the new opportunity. It’s a fresh start for a lot of us. We’ll get better and get better. We’ve just got to try to do what we can in this stretch to stay positive and know that once everybody is in the lineup, we’ll show we can make a run to the playoffs.”
Knicks_Fan
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12/13/2008 12:06 AM