| | NEW YORK -- If you're looking for a good laugh, check out the latest
Patrick Ewing trade rumor. They get more hilarious by the day.
|  | | Patrick Ewing remains a Knick, and won't be moved unless rebounding comes back. |
We had a few good yuks hearing about Ewing going to Seattle, Horace
Grant joining the Lakers and Glen Rice and a bunch of nobodies coming to
the Knicks. In other words, the Knicks would essentially be trading
Ewing for Rice.
Several reports went so far as to say that the Lakers and Sonics had
each OK'd the deal, and were merely waiting on the Knicks to make a
decision.
What decision?
To get fleeced or not?
The Knicks were quite willing to do Vin Baker and Rice a few weeks back. But in the latest rumored proposal, Baker was staying in Seattle, where he's off the trading block for now. So Knick GM Scott "Stealth"
Layden slam-dunked the Baker-less deal right where it belonged.
In the garbage.
Layden, still in need of a top-rate rebounder, isn't going to trade
big for small, unless the smaller player goes by the name of Kobe
Bryant.
Why not? I'll give you two reasons:
Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond.
Rasheed Wallace for Rod Strickland.
Go ask Wes Unseld how those two big-for-small deals worked out. Great
for the Blazers and Kings, that's how. The Wiz is still paying dearly
for those bonehead moves.
Jerry West once hit the lottery on his Vlade Divac-for-Kobe Bryant swap,
dealing a proven NBA big man for a 6-7 high school phenom. But Rice is
coming off two down years, is already 33 and clearly is no Kobe. As Mrs.
Glen Rice would readily admit.
Not that Layden needs to be reminded. According to league sources
familiar with the Knicks' thinking, New York is still deciding what it
should do with Ewing:
Get anything it can and move him.
Only trade him IF it can get something good in return.
"That's the decision they still have to make," said one source privy to
the Garden's thinking.
From this vantage point, Plan A is about as likely as a Dream Team loss
Down Under.
Layden's first major move as Knick GM is not going to be to dump
one of the franchise's all-time greats. Ewing has not demanded to be
traded, nor did he burn any bridges with Jeff Van Gundy or anyone else
in the organization when the Seattle deal fell through a few weeks back.
The only people who would be bent out of shape if No. 33 plays in New
York would be the lunatic fringe of the media that bid him "good
riddance" when he had one foot out the door for Seattle.
| |  | |
| Rice |
If the Knicks had already picked Plan A, by now we would have heard
Mrs. Rice announcing to one and all that her husband should be starting
and getting the majority of the shots.
As much as the Knicks covet Rice -- they've been after him since last
fall -- they also know he (and the wife) can be a royal pain when he's
not the featured offensive player. Plus, do you really want to put Rice
alongside Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston? That's a potent Hoop It Up
team. But someone would have to come off the bench, making for mucho
back-page fodder. You can't put all three on the floor, unless you
totally disdain rebounding and defense. Glad to report Layden doesn't
think that way.
Layden set out at the start of the offseason to get his team board
help. That weakness was exposed by Dale Davis himself when the
Knicks couldn't even force a Game 7 in the conference finals. With
Charlie Ward raising his play in the postseason to an all-time high,
securing a frontcourt rebounder went to the top of the list, replacing
an upgrade of the point-guard position.
Rebounding still remains priority No. 1. Subtracting Ewing, still the
team's best board man, and adding only Rice, makes them infinitely worse
under the glass. Which is why this latest trade rumor was so absurd.
But the laughs didn't stop there. Once Rice was a Knick, Houston was
supposed to be going to Atlanta, with Marcus Camby, for Dikembe Mutombo.
Fact: The Knicks are not dealing Houston, as long as Van Gundy has a
say. After a sensational '99 playoff run, Houston had a down year, but
he's still seen as more reliable in the fourth-quarter than Sprewell.
The Hawks also are not going to help the Knicks, and have about as much
interest in Knick players as they have in re-hiring Lenny Wilkens.
With less than a month to go before training camp opens, look for Layden
to go with Plan B, especially if Baker becomes available again. And if
worse comes to worse, the Knicks will hang onto Ewing, keep their
fingers crossed when he ambles down court, and hope for the best.
In the meantime, keep the laughs coming.
Mitch Lawrence, who covers the NBA for the New York Daily News, writes a regular NBA column for ESPN.com.
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