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Bench Warmer
Memo to LeBron James: Madison Square Garden is ready to welcome you, not only with open arms and open lungs, but with a whole new attitude since you stopped by your favorite arena and dropped 50 on the Knicks in March.
For a couple of reasons.
First and foremost, all they're talking about around these parts is the possibility -- or inevitability, according to the most partisan folks here -- that you'll be calling this place home two Novembers from now.
And when they call your name during pregame introductions Tuesday night when you and the Cleveland Cavaliers come to town, you'd be advised to bring a pair of earplugs if you want to drown out the love you're about to hear.
Second, the Knicks seem to believe they are a playoff team now. If they're right, that should only enhance the Knicks' case, if necessary, by the time team president Donnie Walsh and coach Mike D'Antoni come knocking on your door at 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 2010.
"Our defense [Friday] against the Bucks was good enough to get us into the playoffs. Offense, we sucked," read the message on the grease board inside the Knicks' locker room Saturday night prior to their 122-117 victory over the Washington Wizards, a free-fire free-for-all in which New York used only seven players for the second straight night, went 16-for-36 from behind the arc and humiliated the team that can now safely be called the Eastern Conference's biggest sad sacks.
"This is just the first step," Walsh said, a day after clearing $27.5 million off New York's salary cap for the 2010-11 season in the trades that sent Jamal Crawford to Golden State and Zach Randolph to the Los Angeles Clippers. Walsh brought back three players -- Tim Thomas, Cuttino Mobley and Al Harrington -- whose contracts expire at the end of the 2009-10 season, which will lead into what is already known as the Summer of LeBron. "We're getting ourselves in position, and now we have a year and a half to get the team in shape to get where we want to be, and the object is to put together a title-winning team here."
The Knicks now have only two players under contract for 2010-11: Eddy Curry at $11.2 million and Jared Jeffries at $6.9 million. The team also holds 2010-11 options on Danilo Gallinari ($4.1 million) and Wilson Chandler ($3.1 million) and must determine whether it plans to re-sign David Lee and Nate Robinson.
Still, Walsh estimated that the Knicks are now poised -- even if they don't trade Curry or Jeffries -- to be somewhere within $1 million of being able to offer maximum contracts to two of the premiere free agents that are expected to be available in the summer of 2010. That's when James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade can become free agents, along with Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and a host of other prominent players.
Walsh said he was not engaged in any active trade talks involving Curry, and didn't expect to be until the big man returns from a swollen knee that has kept him sidelined through the season's first 13 games.
Walsh's next task will be to find a way to diffuse the tension being created by Stephon Marbury's limbo. The strain seemed to rear its head for a brief moment in the locker room Saturday when Marbury, after refusing to offer any answers of substance on his state of mind and status with the team, shot what appeared to be a dirty look in the direction of Tim Thomas, who in his last stint with the Knicks called out his teammates as softies after they failed to come to his defense when he was flagrantly fouled by Kenyon Martin during a Knicks-Nets playoff game in 2004. If that glance provided an accurate reading, bad feelings remain.
The three newest Knicks will be in uniform Tuesday night for LeBron's visit, all of them knowing full well that they stand a strong chance of being gone by the time that fateful summer arrives -- although Harrington begged to differ on that point, believing he can prove himself worthy of being a part of the post-2010 core.
"From the time I told Mullie [Chris Mullin] I wanted to be traded, I said this is the team I wanted to be with," Harrington said. "I wanted to be around when this thing turns around, and everyone is starting to look at the Knicks as a team that wants to be on top of basketball. I think that's the way everyone around the league is feeling."
And in the meantime, before the LeBron quest hits full steam, the Knicks are hoping to keep things upbeat enough -- both in the way they operate under D'Antoni's system, and in the way the players approach these two lame duck seasons -- to remove the pall of pessimism that has hung over the Garden since the late-summer day eight years ago when the Knicks traded Patrick Ewing to Seattle, setting themselves on course for what has become a dismal decade of bad contracts and losing seasons. To that end, the Knicks refuse to admit they're writing off the final two years of the current decade.
"I don't want anyone to think the next two years aren't going to be exciting," D'Antoni said. "There's no reason why we're not in the playoffs."
So, with Walsh and D'Antoni at the helm, there's a whole new air of optimism inside the building that might take James by surprise Tuesday night.
And the ovation he'll get?
It'll be something reserved for royalty, something worthy of The King, who'll be walking Tuesday night into what could be his future castle.
For a couple of reasons.
First and foremost, all they're talking about around these parts is the possibility -- or inevitability, according to the most partisan folks here -- that you'll be calling this place home two Novembers from now.
And when they call your name during pregame introductions Tuesday night when you and the Cleveland Cavaliers come to town, you'd be advised to bring a pair of earplugs if you want to drown out the love you're about to hear.
Second, the Knicks seem to believe they are a playoff team now. If they're right, that should only enhance the Knicks' case, if necessary, by the time team president Donnie Walsh and coach Mike D'Antoni come knocking on your door at 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 2010.
"Our defense [Friday] against the Bucks was good enough to get us into the playoffs. Offense, we sucked," read the message on the grease board inside the Knicks' locker room Saturday night prior to their 122-117 victory over the Washington Wizards, a free-fire free-for-all in which New York used only seven players for the second straight night, went 16-for-36 from behind the arc and humiliated the team that can now safely be called the Eastern Conference's biggest sad sacks.
"This is just the first step," Walsh said, a day after clearing $27.5 million off New York's salary cap for the 2010-11 season in the trades that sent Jamal Crawford to Golden State and Zach Randolph to the Los Angeles Clippers. Walsh brought back three players -- Tim Thomas, Cuttino Mobley and Al Harrington -- whose contracts expire at the end of the 2009-10 season, which will lead into what is already known as the Summer of LeBron. "We're getting ourselves in position, and now we have a year and a half to get the team in shape to get where we want to be, and the object is to put together a title-winning team here."
The Knicks now have only two players under contract for 2010-11: Eddy Curry at $11.2 million and Jared Jeffries at $6.9 million. The team also holds 2010-11 options on Danilo Gallinari ($4.1 million) and Wilson Chandler ($3.1 million) and must determine whether it plans to re-sign David Lee and Nate Robinson.
Still, Walsh estimated that the Knicks are now poised -- even if they don't trade Curry or Jeffries -- to be somewhere within $1 million of being able to offer maximum contracts to two of the premiere free agents that are expected to be available in the summer of 2010. That's when James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade can become free agents, along with Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and a host of other prominent players.
Walsh said he was not engaged in any active trade talks involving Curry, and didn't expect to be until the big man returns from a swollen knee that has kept him sidelined through the season's first 13 games.
Walsh's next task will be to find a way to diffuse the tension being created by Stephon Marbury's limbo. The strain seemed to rear its head for a brief moment in the locker room Saturday when Marbury, after refusing to offer any answers of substance on his state of mind and status with the team, shot what appeared to be a dirty look in the direction of Tim Thomas, who in his last stint with the Knicks called out his teammates as softies after they failed to come to his defense when he was flagrantly fouled by Kenyon Martin during a Knicks-Nets playoff game in 2004. If that glance provided an accurate reading, bad feelings remain.
The three newest Knicks will be in uniform Tuesday night for LeBron's visit, all of them knowing full well that they stand a strong chance of being gone by the time that fateful summer arrives -- although Harrington begged to differ on that point, believing he can prove himself worthy of being a part of the post-2010 core.
"From the time I told Mullie [Chris Mullin] I wanted to be traded, I said this is the team I wanted to be with," Harrington said. "I wanted to be around when this thing turns around, and everyone is starting to look at the Knicks as a team that wants to be on top of basketball. I think that's the way everyone around the league is feeling."
And in the meantime, before the LeBron quest hits full steam, the Knicks are hoping to keep things upbeat enough -- both in the way they operate under D'Antoni's system, and in the way the players approach these two lame duck seasons -- to remove the pall of pessimism that has hung over the Garden since the late-summer day eight years ago when the Knicks traded Patrick Ewing to Seattle, setting themselves on course for what has become a dismal decade of bad contracts and losing seasons. To that end, the Knicks refuse to admit they're writing off the final two years of the current decade.
"I don't want anyone to think the next two years aren't going to be exciting," D'Antoni said. "There's no reason why we're not in the playoffs."
So, with Walsh and D'Antoni at the helm, there's a whole new air of optimism inside the building that might take James by surprise Tuesday night.
And the ovation he'll get?
It'll be something reserved for royalty, something worthy of The King, who'll be walking Tuesday night into what could be his future castle.
