| | The New York Knicks may have made a horrible mess of their team, but don't expect the Atlanta Hawks to bail them out.
|  | | Mutombo as a Knick? Don't expect it to happen this offseason. |
The Knicks have unloaded Patrick Ewing and Chris Dudley and put Luc Longley and Travis Knight in the middle. They have mucked up their player rotations with over-the-hill Glen Rice. Longley wasn't worth the money he was making in Phoenix and Rice won't be worth the $9 million average he will get in New York until he is 37 and more immobile still.
And the New York media wants the Hawks to bail them out with Dikembe Mutombo?
Forget it.
Hawks GM Pete Babcock and Knicks GM Scott Layden, a couple of straight arrow guys, share mutual respect. But Babcock is not in the service industry. It's not his job to rescue Layden and the Knicks and scorch the earth for his own franchise.
The Knicks can't have Mutombo, not for Marcus Camby and Allan Houston, probably not for Marcus Camby and Latrell Sprewell -- assuming they would be available. In fact, it is likely a deal could only be accomplished if the Knicks brought another team into the mix to tempt the Hawks with good young talent.
Look at the Hawks with nine of 12 players age 20 to 26 as they head to training camp, young and full of run. This is a team that will chase on defense and run on offense. It needs a full-time center, a guy who can work his 82 and defend the hoop, who loves to board and can score a little. That's Mutombo.
Look at the creaking Knicks. Who have they got to tempt the Hawks?
Not Camby. He's a part-time player, never participating in more than 63 games in four NBA seasons. At 26 he's not getting any bigger or stronger or more dependable, either.
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| Wright |
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| Bowdler |
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| Henderson |
The Hawks already have a cast of "little" big men in Lorenzen Wright, Alan Henderson, Hanno Mottola and Cal Bowdler, cruisers on the NBA ocean. As Al McGuire used to say, you gotta have the battleships. Mutombo is a battleship.
And the Hawks need more than Houston, a fine complementary player, who will not beat double teams and can't carry a young squad. He is hardly an improvement over what they once had.
Sprewell? We remember how his frustrations got the best of him the last time he played for a bad team and if you take Mutombo away from the Hawks and only replace him with Camby and a guard, that's what they are doomed to be.
And this is all moot, according to the best sources because the Knicks have not offered any of these players to the Hawks. They have not put up Houston and they have not offered Sprewell. As far as anyone knows, these players are untouchable, no matter what New York newspapers want you to believe.
In fact, while the Hawks may have been heavily involved in three- and four-team proposals made the last two months, Layden did not make a single run at them this week.
It is also important to put the Hawks as a franchise in perspective.
They got tired of winning 50 and going out in two rounds, so they traded away 30-something guards Steve Smith and Mookie Blaylock. They endured the humiliation of Isaiah Rider so they could get young and, as importantly, get under the NBA's punitive salary cap.
The Hawks paid a terrible price, plummeting to 28 victories, worst record in franchise history. They had to unload a Hall of Fame coach, Lenny Wilkens, who bore too much taint of failure and that cost them a mere $10 million. They lost season ticket holders as well, falling to the lowest point in public esteem since 1984 when things were so bad they scheduled 12 games in New Orleans.
Repeatedly, the Hawks have said they are committed to taking full advantage of their improving cap status.
"We're not opposed to doing something now," Babcock says, "but if we have to give up our cap flexibility it has to be a deal that makes a lot of sense for our future. Otherwise, we went through (last season) for nothing."
It is highly probable the Hawks will stay the course with Mutombo and his kids to see what they've built so far.
They've talked to agent David Falk about an extension and while Mutombo has no problem remaining in Atlanta -- he is in the gym today with his teammates -- it is likely the league's rebounding king will go to free agency next July to test the market.
This isn't bad for the Hawks. They can still sign him and have $5 to $7 million to spend on a free agent.
If Mutombo decides to leave he won't go to a bad team and this automatically puts the Hawks in commanding position to pull off a sign-and-trade of their own design.
By then, they will know if Henderson is going to mature into a very solid player or continue to function on the court like a spoiled child. They will know if the new, slimmed-down Wright -- who is working so hard this summer -- can fulfill his upside potential. They will know if young point guard Jason Terry and even younger scorers Dion Glover and DerMarr Johnson have the talent to bring them forward.
This is not good news for the Knicks. But again, why should the Atlanta Hawks care about that?
Here a couple of other things to chew on:
The Knicks did not trade Ewing because he wanted an extension. He never asked for one. His future was never discussed.
Despite a wild report out of Milwaukee, the Bucks are not committed to trading forward Glenn Robinson before training camp starts. In fact, the Bucks have no intention of trading Robinson, who is among the dying breed of small forward who can actually score 20 points a game.
Jeffrey Denberg, who covers the NBA for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
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