Sielski: NBA's most shameful? Knicks, not Sixers
The most embarrassing franchise in the NBA has a game at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night, and if your first thought upon reading that insult was, Big deal - the 76ers play at the Wells Fargo Center 41 nights every season, then shame on you for such shortsightedness and parochialism. No, the Knicks are coming to town, and they're bringing a 17-21 record and, as usual, enough dysfunction to keep New York's tabloids in back-page, all-caps, huge-honking-exclamation-point heaven for months.
The most embarrassing franchise in the NBA has a game at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night, and if your first thought upon reading that insult was, Big deal - the 76ers play at the Wells Fargo Center 41 nights every season, then shame on you for such shortsightedness and parochialism. No, the Knicks are coming to town, and they're bringing a 17-21 record and, as usual, enough dysfunction to keep New York's tabloids in back-page, all-caps, huge-honking-exclamation-point heaven for months.
The Knicks, you may have heard, were supposed to be a "super team" this season. That's what Derrick Rose, who was supposed to be their starting point guard, called them last summer. They had acquired Rose in a trade with the Chicago Bulls, and they had signed free agents Joakim Noah and Brandon Jennings, and they already had Carmelo Anthony and Kristaps Porzingis. For a franchise that's had just two more winning seasons (three) than it has had sexual-harassment scandals (one) in the last 15 years, that's apparently all it would take for their team president, Phil Jackson, to wipe out a decade-and-a-half of utter dreadfulness. One offseason, one trade for an injury-riddled former MVP, two signings of veteran rotation players, done.
It hasn't quite worked out. And in the latest bit of melodrama, Rose - having been benched by head coach Jeff Hornacek for rookie Ron Baker - not only didn't show up for the Knicks' 14-point loss to the New Orleans Pelicans at Madison Square Garden on Monday, he didn't tell the team where he'd gone. He didn't answer texts or calls to his phone. Finally, as the Sixers practiced at their Camden headquarters early Tuesday afternoon, Rose showed up at the Knicks' practice facility in Greenburgh, N.Y. After reports that he had returned to Chicago (his hometown) to visit his son, then other reports that he had returned to Chicago to visit his mother, Rose told reporters that he had returned to Chicago to visit "family," a word that covered every possible report and relative. "Things happen," Rose said, and the important thing here was that, no matter who he'd visited, his mysterious sojourn definitely had nothing to do with Hornacek's decision to bench him, oh no, sir.
As it turned out, Rose's disappearance coincided with the Sixers' signing point guard Chasson Randle, whom the Knicks had cut during training camp and stashed in the D-League, to a 10-day contract Tuesday. When asked after practice if he thought the Knicks would have allowed another team to sign him if they knew their point guard would go missing, Randle said, "I'm not sure, to be honest. I really don't know what that situation is." He isn't the only one.
What everyone does know is that the Rose affair is a run-of-the-mill episode for the Knicks - and a tame episode at that, relatively speaking. In January 2015, for instance, with the Knicks about to end a 16-game losing streak, then-coach Derek Fisher was asked if he'd have to reteach many of his in-game concepts the following season, since there figured to be major changes to the roster. "We still have another 41 games in this season where we have a lot of work, a lot of teaching, to do," Fisher said, "and at least for me, the way I view it, the audience won't change how passionate I am."
He was right about his passion, and others'. Nine months later, the New York Post reported that Matt Barnes, with the Memphis Grizzlies at the time, had driven 95 miles to attack Fisher, who was in a romantic relationship with Barnes' ex-wife. Four months after that incident, the Knicks fired Fisher, who finished his tenure with a 40-96 record. Four months after Fisher's dismissal - and without a single pick in the 2016 draft - they traded for Rose, which only reaffirmed the belief that Jackson isn't all that interested in doing the hard work of scouting, finding, drafting, and developing young players. Of course, in that regard, Jackson fits right in with recent Knicks history. Porzingis is a terrific forward with a bright future, but it's a testament to the Knicks' woeful ability to draft star players that he's already their best pick since Danilo Gallinari in 2008 and certainly their best since David Lee in 2005.
That ugly track record exists in symbiosis with the Knicks' insistence on trying to quick-fix their way to their first championship since 1973. Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, Amar'e Stoudemire, Anthony: Any problem can be solved with a splashy signing or trade, and underlying all those desperate grasps at greatness is a pathetic arrogance. To live near and work in New York in the summer of 2010, as LeBron James weighed where to take his talent before settling on South Beach and the Miami Heat, was to witness a kind of collective delusion fall over the city. There was this belief, among the Knicks and their fans and some of the media who covered the team, that James would choose the Knicks because, well, this was New York, so why wouldn't he choose the Knicks?
That's the truly delicious aspect of the Knicks' languishing. Say what you want about the Sixers' tanking and their trust in "the process," but at least they were up front about everything: They were going to be bad for the sake of being good, and it has netted them Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and loads of cap space, draft picks, and options. That plan is better and more honest than what the Knicks have done. It's not that they're bad. It's that they keep thinking they're going to be good. But hey, maybe they'll get it right one of these days. After all, things happen.
@MikeSielski