| | It never ends well for the old player and maybe it shouldn't. No one wants to be shown the door when he or she still feels there's something left in the tank, but time marches on. Everyone gets the gold watch sooner or later.
|  | | Were Ewing's final seasons in New York more notable for the time he missed? |
And so the time comes for Patrick Ewing to be shown the door in New York, following Willie Mays, and Joe Namath, and Mark Messier (a glutton for punishment, he has come back for more). Fifteen years and good riddance, as the tabloid headline screamed a couple of weeks ago.
I'll let others debate who won or lost in this trade. Frankly, I don't think any of the other players matter in this deal; Glen Rice has his title and so does Horace Grant. David Falk got Rice his payday, and that's the only score that matters to both. The Suns exchanged one burly center with four years left on his deal for one with two years remaining. None of it is as important as the fact that Ewing won't finish his career in Madison Square Garden.
This deal is about Patrick Aloysius Ewing, taking his fading dreams of a title to the Western Conference. I don't think he has a prayer of getting them fulfilled. The Sonics are a good team, but the West is filled with such squads, from Sacramento to Phoenix to Minnesota, and none of them are
getting past Shaq's Lakers or Paul Allen's rent-a-team in Portland. Yet Ewing will no doubt soldier on past this season and add to his bank account in the process.
They will hold no fundraisers for Ewing, as a league wag noted Wednesday, and they shouldn't. He earned millions of dollars in exchange for his labor; he became famous, a Dream Teamer, a two-time Olympian, an 11-time All-Star. But he never delivered what seemed to be a fait accompli when New York made him the first pick in the 1985 draft -- an NBA championship. When he was young, his teammates weren't good enough; when they got good enough, Michael Jordan's Bulls stood in the way. If MJ had played baseball full-time, does anyone not believe that Ewing would have had at least a couple of rings?
But MJ hooped. The one chance that Ewing had to win a championship, in 1994, ended with John Starks firing, and firing, and firing, and missing in Game 7 of the Finals at Houston.
Through the years, though, Ewing was personally held responsible for the lack of Gotham hardware. Too selfish, went the common complaint; more
interested in padding his own stats than helping his team win. At the ends of games, Ewing would demand the ball, clank a shot off the rim and the
Knicks would lose. Stats were kept that supposedly backed up this contention.
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The thousands of gallons of sweat he expended over the years should have counted for something. Playing injured and coming back time and again should have counted for something. |
Patrick could have protested this line, but he never made himself available in any real sense to the media -- local or national; he did the 10
minutes requested of him, giving not the first clue to what he really thought, and then shut it down. Many of Ewing's friends got the treatment,
too. (He also didn't help himself by making predictions he never could honor. Ewing's guarantees of victory in various Game 7s rang so hollow
in the last couple of seasons they became a staple of media get-togethers.)
And, one by one, his friends in the locker room disappeared, until only David Wingate, the Georgetown chum, remained. His chief defender was his loyal coach, Jeff Van Gundy, and at the end, according to friends of Ewing's, even Van Gundy wasn't trusted; Ewing thought the coach ran him down to select members of the New York media horde. It left Ewing isolated, unfamiliar to his new teammates. And it became obvious that the Knicks of
the New Millennium would belong to Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell, not
the aging co-captain.
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LONGEST TENURES WITH ONE TEAM
(only to then go to a new team)
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PLAYER
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TEAM (SEASONS)
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NEW TEAM
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P. Ewing
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'85-00 Knicks (15)
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Sonics
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B. Cousy
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'50-63 Celtics (13)
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Royals
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C. Mullin
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'85-97 Warriors (12)
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Pacers
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C. Drexler
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'83-94 Blazers (12)
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Rockets
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D. Wilkins
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'82-93 Hawks (12)
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Clippers
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S. Lacey
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'70-81 Kings (12)
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Nets
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C. Braun
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'47-61 Knicks (12)
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Celtics
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So what is one to make of the Ewing Era in Knicks basketball? From one perspective, it was the greatest in franchise history. That would be the financial perspective. Ewing's teams made several executives from the various conglomerates that owned the team (Gulf and Western, Paramount, Cablevision, etc.) filthy rich; ticket prices went through the stratosphere on Ewing's watch. The Knicks pocketed a cool million each time they opened MSG's doors, something that was no doubt not lost on Ewing when he presided over the players' union as president during the lockout.
On the court, even New York's championship nucleus that won titles in 1970 and '73 didn't have as sustained a period of excellence. The Knicks missed the postseason twice in Ewing's 15 seasons -- his first two seasons. He is, without question, the best shooting center to ever play the game. But the truth is the Knicks never were able to conquer, not with Pat Riley or Ewing, not with the brute force of Xavier McDaniel and Anthony Mason, not
with the finesse of Houston and Marcus Camby. Only Ewing was the constant.
Was he solely responsible? No reasonable person would make that argument. But was he more responsible? A fair question. Still, it cannot be debated
that anyone wanted a championship more.
Ewing was not beloved like Bernard King was in the early-'80s, or as Sprewell has been the last couple of seasons. Maybe it's ridiculous to
suggest he should have been; I can imagine Ewing's Georgetown coach, John Thompson, howling at the idea that love should enter into any of this when
you're getting $14 million a year. So maybe beloved isn't the phrase. Perhaps he should have merely been appreciated more.
Whatever the phrase, he shouldn't have been shown the door as crudely as he was. This isn't about loyalty; Ewing tried to get out of his Knicks contract years ago on a weasly technicality dreamed up by Falk, and would have bolted for greener pastures if management hadn't coughed up more bucks.
And this trade came about because Ewing wants one more payday, one the Knicks weren't willing to give after committing $68 million to his coffers
over the last four years. But the thousands of gallons of sweat he expended over the years should have counted for something. Playing injured and coming
back time and again should have counted for something. Public relations skills, however, have not been the strong suit of the current suits running
the franchise.
But maybe this is just the way things end for the old athlete, and perhaps that's the way it should be. Like a divorce where neither side contests any of the other's claims. Just pay the two dollars and get out of the relationship. You can always buy another house. The Garden, finally, is no longer Ewing's. | |
ALSO SEE
Sonics get Ewing in four-team, 12-player deal
Breaking down the Ewing trade
Mourning: Ewing felt disrespected
Lakers pleased to get Grant, and rid of Rice
Suns get Dudley from Knicks
Aldridge: The boom is over!
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