can somebody please post todays insider about the knicks??

Here it is...gloomy stuff.

It could've been worse. Marcus Camby or Latrell Sprewell could've thrown another punch on Martin Luther King Day Monday. (Shareef Abdur-Rahim earned that honor this year.)


Camby and Spree kept their cool Monday, but how much longer can Knicks president Scott Layden keep his? In the wake of the Knicks' 43-point loss Monday, worst ever at Madison Square Garden, it can't be much longer.

How bad did it get? Midway through the fourth quarter, Hornets forward P. J. Brown asked a reporter at the press table: "Are they trying to make some type of statement with this? Is there some kind of conspiracy going on over there?"

Can you blame P.J. for asking? There are plenty of theories out there as to why the Knicks stink -- is it the coaches' fault, the players', Layden's? -- but theories are for small-market teams. The Knicks play in New York and the fans (who booed the team loudly Monday, chanting "Re-fund! Re-fund!) and the media (the team made the front page of the N.Y. Times) won't let Layden rest until he does something, anything, to fix the Knicks.

On Monday, Insider reported that over the past week, Layden has become more and more desperate, adding Camby to the long list of Knicks players on the trading block. In a perfect world, Layden would be able to package Spree, Camby, one his point guards and Kurt Thomas and land a legitimate big man and a young, energetic point guard.


Unfortunately, the NBA is far from a perfect world. With teams obsessed with luxury taxes and salary-cap space, GM's are more conservative than ever. They smell blood and Layden's two stars don't have the trade value they once had. The vultures are circling.

Said one GM to Insider, "The worse it gets for the Knicks, the harder it is for Scott to pull of a good trade. Spree is deteriorating, Camby is always hurt and everyone else on the roster is overpaid. My guess is, if they make a deal now, it's for the sake of making a deal. The Knicks are cooked."

Still, Layden is trying. He's talking to everyone. The Nuggets (the Knicks would take Nick Van Exel if Denver would throw in Raef LaFrentz), the Blazers (Rasheed Wallace couldn't make things any worse), the Warriors (Layden loves those undersized power forwards), the Bulls (he could've had Ron Artest cheap not long ago) and the Jazz (seems like old times) are the most likely to work out a trade with Layden. But they're all long shots.


Truth is, all of those teams are struggling, but none are in as bad of shape, long-term, as the Knicks. There is plenty of blame to go around. Spree is now habitually late to practice. His shooting percentage and overall play have sunk to all-time lows. His excuse? Chaney is too lenient. Monday, Chaney called for a more consistent effort from Spree and Allan Houston. Told of Chaney's explanation, Sprewell shook his head before saying, "If I were him, I'd blame it on us."


Camby is still struggling with a sore left foot. After the game, Chaney questioned whether Camby is doing more harm than good. "Is he a liability or not?" Chaney asked rhetorically. "We have to make that decision. I'm going to speak with him. I'm either going to have to cut his minutes or allow him to rest that foot until he gets healed, because he has to play at a certain level for him to be effective and for the team to win. And right now that foot is preventing him from playing at the level he normally plays at."

That's just what Layden wanted to hear as he goes out trying to convince teams to take Camby off his hands.

Mark Jackson, Charlie Ward, Thomas, Clarence Weatherspoon, Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley can all be had. But who in their right mind, other than the Knicks, would give up young prospects in return for their huge contracts?


And then there's Chaney. The N.Y. Post reports that while there are no immediate plans to fire him, his job is in jeopardy. Assistant Tom Thibodeau is waiting in the wings to replace him. N.Y. Times columnist Harvey Araton writes that Martin Luther King day was a sad day for an African American coach who was never really given a chance to succeed.

"People are just destined -- or set up -- to fail in some jobs. Purely in terms of honest opportunity, Martin Luther King Day looked like the old days for one of the two African-American coaches at Madison Square Garden."

Can it get any worse? N.Y. Daily News columnist Mike Lupica says the Dolan's will come to the rescue -- they have no choice.

"The people in charge will do something soon because they have to, because they can't declare the season a lost cause with half a season to go, because Cablevision charges a vulgar amount of money for Knicks tickets. Because the Knicks have mattered too much for too long for the people in charge to give up the way the Knicks did yesterday."