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| Thursday, March 7 Quick fix for Knicks? Forget about it By David Aldridge Special to ESPN.com |
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I can't help it. I'm loving this. Every day, someone with a Knick Allegiance comes up to me and says, 'What are they doing?' I really love the New York sense of entitlement. Our team plays in New York; therefore, it should be winning; if it isn't, bring in someone who will make it win.
Well, Gothamites, guess what? There's no Plan. Every team in sports stinks from time to time. It's your turn. There is no magic bullet, no savior that will change the fact that the Knicks are an expensive, ill-fitting mess, and they're not getting better any time soon. And I think that's why Cablevision gave Don Chaney a one-year contract extention in the face of his 12-27 record since taking over for Jeff Van Gundy. (Although why they did it now and not at the end of the season, or when they first hired Chaney, is a little odd.) It was a white flag, an acknowledgement that nothing is going to change the short term, and there is no point in continuing to throw money around looking for a miracle. Which, if you think about it, is Kind of a Plan. The Knicks are budgeted for $85.5 million this season, $89.4 million next season, $94.3 million in 2003 and $69.5 million in 2004 (when Mark Jackson, Travis Knight and Charlie Ward finally come off their bloated cap). They won't be under the cap until LeBron James is on his second NBA contract. They cannot sign any free agents because they will never clear enough cap room. Scott Layden, it says here, is guilt of throwing good money after bad, and further saddling his team's long-term escape prospects. And he's guilty of believing David Falk, which wouldn't make him the first GM to make that mistake, only the latest. But, for fun's sake, let's take away the two major deals of his administration. One was Patrick Ewing, Chris Dudley and a first-round pick for Glen Rice, Luc Longley, Knight, Vernon Maxwell, Lazaro Burrell, Vladmir Stepania and two first-round picks. The second was Rice and Muggsy Bogues for Howard Eisley and Shandon Anderson (Anderson on a sign-and-trade). End result: Longley (still on the cap despite his waiver and retirement), Knight, Eisley, Maxwell and Anderson come off the books, to the tune of $20.6 million in savings this season. The Knicks would still be way over the cap.
Add the salaries of Marcus Camby, Larry Johnson (like Longley, still on the cap despite his waiver and retirmement), Latrell Sprewell, Kurt Thomas, Othella Harrington and Ward together and you get $41.8 million. The cap is $42.5 million. And that $41.8 million doesn't count Allan Houston, whose cap charge is $12.75 million today. Even if we all agree Layden overpaid to keep him, he would have had to pay him something. Let's say it was $10 million per year (for a $70 million deal) instead of $14 million and change per. That still would put New York at $51.8 million this season. And that's just for six guys. Even minimal spending for another six to eight players would have pushed the Knicks' cap well in excess of $60 million this season. My point is not that Layden hasn't made some bad moves, only that some of this was in place before he got there. And even if you think Layden is the dumbest guy in the room, who, exactly, is supposed to turn this around? Larry Brown? Oh, that would work. Larry in Gotham, getting second-guessed every 17 seconds, with an old, expensive team that would roll its collective eye the first time LB talked about "playing the right way." Doc Rivers? Um, you might want to talk with Mrs. Rivers before you throw that stale chestnut out again. In Orlando, .500 is acceptable; Grant Hill's been hurt. In New York, .500 gets Vinny from Passaic railing to blowhard talk radio hosts. Donnie Walsh? Let's see. In Indiana, he has a new building that he runs, solid ownership, a charismatic coach, ridiculously loyal fans and the best young talent in the league. In New York, he'd have…what was the question again? Jerry West? He hasn't worked anywhere but Inglewood, Calif., for 40 years. This may come as a surprise to you in the Most Important City in the World, but he has a nice life in Cali. He plays golf, he hangs out. I never say never, but there would have to be an awful lot of money involved to even get Jerry to think about it -- and by extending Chaney, you've kind of made it clear that you're not going to spend dollars like that. The only thing the Knicks can do now is ride this thing out. No one wants any of their players, save Sprewell and Thomas, and not everybody wants them. I know you don't want to hear this, but couldn't it be time for the Knicks to be bad enough to get in the lottery and have a chance at some prime young talent? Prime, low-priced talent that can be locked up for five years? By which time most of these horrible contracts will have finally run their horrible course? It may be difficult to come out and call that your Plan. In a place where you charge through the nose for your product. If anyone comes up with something better, let me know.
Van Exel's bad rap "Probably spoiled," Nick Van Exel says. "A little rich kid or whatever." There are guys in the league who have terrible reputations, and those reps are steeled in some truth. But they don't run away from them. Rod Strickland is one of those kind of guys. So is Van Exel. He's out of hell (civilians know it as "Denver") and playing for a contender, and he knows that many people think he's a jerk and a coach-killer, and he wishes that weren't the case, but there's not a lot he can do about it, because he can't do interviews with everybody in the world to change their minds. "I got a negative reputation, and I put myself in those situations," he says. "Do I think I can get out of those situations? I don't know. But I know personally, that's not my character, not the way I am. The way I'm perceived is not the way I am." Van Exel says now that he made a mistake by being so public with his demands to be traded. But he also disagrees with the notion that his $77 million contract should have been enough to keep him warm on those losing nights. That he should have just shut up and played.
Van Exel knows he has been guilty of bad decisions. Lots of them. From shoving Ronnie Garretson to feuding with Harris his last two seasons in L.A., to seemingly encouraging a spat with Nuggets fans by asking for more boos when they rained down on him in the Pepsi Center this season. The losing ate at him. "I would just, after games, go straight home. I wouldn't want to be seen in public," he says. "I just think losing really tears me up inside, because I put a lot of pressure on myself to win, to succeed, and it was just eating me up. I wouldn't want to been seen. I'd go straight home from practice and not leave the house until the next morning when I had to go to practice. Then come back home." The Mavericks are adamant about their claim that Harris was adamant about getting Van Exel if he was at all available. For his part, Van Exel thought he would wind up in Minnesota after he couldn't reach an agreement with Boston on how to recoup money he agreed to defer from the last two years of his contract. (He deferred about $2 million with Dallas, which will repay him over a four-year period after he retires.) And one of the first people Van Exel says he sought out when he arrived in Dallas was Harris. "One thing I told Del was that was a big learning experience, for him to say 'Nick is a good person,' " Van Exel says. "Even though we had our little spats in L.A., he's definitely a good person, and that was a big step to mend our relationship." Don Nelson says he doesn't know how he'll use Van Exel, except that he'll use him often. It's likely that he may play Van Exel at two guard alongside Steve Nash, and spot Van Exel at backup point as well. But Van Exel claims he doesn't care where he's used, or for how long.
"In L.A., when I got hurt, and then came back, I let Derek Fisher start in my place," Van Exel says. "Steve Nash is a great player. I can see if he was just an average point guard, but he's an all-star. So I'm not even thinking about trying to get Steve Nash's position. I just want to play. If Steve Nash goes out of the game and I come in, that's fine. If me and Steve are on the court together, that's fine." But the spotlight is on Van Exel and Raef LaFrentz in Dallas. The Mavericks did a little more than tinker with a team that's fighting for the best record in the league. They have a lot of scorers, but they still need to get what Avery Johnson calls "dirty rebounds," the tough stuff in the paint that wins playoff games. When Shaq and The Big Fundamental are schooling you inside, it doesn't matter whether you have a DVD player in every locker or a spend-whatever-it-takes owner. Now, Van Exel can't get many rebounds. But he has a few intangibles. "Energy off the bench, firepower off the bench," he says. "A lot of emotion. These guys here, they kick your butt, but they don't say anything about it...so I'm gonna try and bring a little toughness, get up in your face, talk a little trash here and there. But not to embarass anybody or anything like that."
Around the League
David Aldridge is an NBA reporter for ESPN. |
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