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James Dolan tried. He really did. But he just couldn’t pull it off.After years of watching the New York Knicks spin their wheels under his handpicked stagemaster, Isiah Thomas, Dolan appeared to have finally bitten the bullet by hiring respected basketball executive Donnie Walsh and letting him rebuild the team.
The move gradually paid off. Walsh spent two seasons clearing salary cap room as the losses continued to mount. But by 2010, the house was cleaned. Coach Mike D’ Antoni was running an exciting, team-oriented offense. Amare Stoudemire, who had demonstrated in Phoenix how well he fit D’ Anoni’s style, came aboard as a free agent to be the offensive centerpiece. No championship-caliber team yet, but things were clicking. The Knicks took a big step from lousy to competitive. Fans were into the new style and looking ahead to a bright future.
Still, Dolan had to have him. The course he’d let Walsh take, the one that was showing so much progress, went out the window in favor of immediate gratification, a Dolan trademark. Carmelo Anthony meant a true leading man for New York‘s big stage and for the Knicks’ cable outlet, MSG Network. His No. 7 would sell a ton of jerseys.
The Knicks struggled early in the 2011-12 season, the result of an offense that mainly consisted of coming down the floor and watching Anthony take a shot. It was an injury to Anthony and the improbable rise of Jeremy Lin at point guard that kick started the season and got the Knicks back on the national radar. The ball moved, the points came in bunches and Madison Square Garden roared. Later, when Anthony returned, the club, trying to mix fluid ball movement with isolation, struggled to make it work. D’Antoni didn’t last the season.
And now the team is again burdened with a tight salary cap as it tries to take the next step. Lin is now looking over a lucrative four-year offer from the Houston Rockets, one described by my colleague Allen St. John and others as a ”poison pill” on the basis of its back-loaded structure that would hit the Knicks’ salary cap hard by the the third year. Lin still hasn’t signed the offer sheet. But assuming he does, the Knicks will be forced to choose between 1) losing out on a guy they probably could have had for less had they moved more quickly to sign him, or 2) committing serious money for a player who may turn out to be mediocre over the long haul, with the financial commitment preventing them from going after other players.
The club wouldn’t be in this pickle had they resisted the urge to sign Anthony, who brings more than a $60 million salary cap hit over the next three years. This isn’t to suggest that Lin is necessarily the long term solution - his career sample size is to small to tell just yet. Nor is it to vilify Anthony, one of the NBA’s elite scorers. He just wasn’t the right fit for the plan the Knicks had in place. The league has been waiting for years to reap the financial benfits of a strong contender in New York. Now David Stern & Co. may be back at square one. The Knicks may even be on the verge of being overtaken in their own backyard by the Brooklyn Nets. All because James Dolan risked millions in future postseason revenue in favor of selling a bunch of Carmelo Anthony jerseys.
-- the preceding post was brought to you by the letter K and the number 22.
7/5/2012 8:48 PM