D'Antoni hiring puts Knicks back on course
Tue, 13 May 2008 06:30:00 -0500

For the first time in several years, it is good to be a New York Knicks fan. Rejoice, Spike Lee. Cheer and belch and spill beer with pride, blue-seat denizens. And stop giving those tickets to your bad clients, Wall Street bigwigs. Saturday’s announcement that Mike D’Antoni will be the new Knicks coach brought the franchise a lot closer to respectability, and eventually, contention.

Forget about next season. You can probably write off ’09-10, too. There’s too much driftwood and too many bad attitudes on the payroll to allow D’Antoni to make the Knicks truly competitive. No, that comes down the road, when Stephon Marbury’s infectious disease of a contract is gone, and Quentin Richardson is gone and (God willing) Eddy Curry refuses his player option. Whatever happens with that ugliness is immaterial to the D’Antoni signing. His arrival signals that new prez Donnie Walsh understands the franchise’s problems and is willing to take dramatic steps to solve them.

Walsh is paying D’Antoni $6 million per for the next four years, even though he could have had hometown hero Mark Jackson for half that. He’s willing to suffer through a season or two of bad play, or at best marginal playoff competition, in order to complete the purge of All Things Isiah and move the franchise ahead. He’ll pay the $90 million or so the Knicks owe in payroll next year (or, rather, James Dolan will) — plus a hefty luxury tax — and try with all his might to dish some of the team’s multiple bad contracts off to unsuspecting GMs around the league. Hello, Kevin McHale? How would you like a new backcourt?

D’Antoni, meanwhile, will no doubt be given free rein to play whom he wants when he wants. If that means Steph is relegated to the second team, so be it. Just shut up and cash the check, Number Three. He’ll institute his fastbreak style and then work with Walsh to construct a roster that allows the Knicks to play that game the best way possible. It will take some time, but it will happen. Walsh’s first move, luring D’Antoni not only away from the Suns but also from the Bulls, a ready-made Eastern contender, was a signal he will get it done.

The bonus in all of this is that the Knicks might actually find themselves in the playoff hunt next year. The Eastern Conference has only about five good teams, and the next five are suspect. The Knicks didn’t even fit into that category, but it’s a lot easier to climb onto that branch than it is to join the hopefuls in the West. If D’Antoni can give his younger players extra minutes and is able to scare the vets into thinking their butts could end up in Minnesota or Memphis if they don’t pick up the pace, New York might just be looking at a first-round playoff loss to Boston. Hey, there are worse things, especially when you’re coming from the basement.

Walsh’s next move comes in June, after the draft order is finalized. Barring some lottery shenanigans, the Knicks should have a top-six pick. Given that Portland and Seattle went one-two last year, it’s time to ease up on the conspiracy throttle, because putting Greg Oden and Kevin Durant in Boston and New York would have made more sense than consigning them to the Pacific Northwest. That pick is a piece Walsh can use to entice a trade partner to accept an ugly contract. Think Seattle was dying to take Wally Szczerbiak in the deal for the number five pick? The Sonics did, just for the opportunity to select Jeff Green. So, don’t discount Walsh’s ability to make some moves. D’Antoni needs three-point shooters, and trading a draft pick for an established weapon is safer than taking a risk on a 19-year old.

The team’s ultimate personality won’t take shape for a couple years, so Knicks fans anxious to see what D’Antoni can really do will have to be patient. That doesn’t matter now. After suffering through the Larry Brown debacle and enduring Thomas’ historic incompetence, the Knicks are finally moving in the right direction. Walsh was a great first step, and D’Antoni completes the two-headed monster atop the team’s operation. The players will begin moving in and out before long, and the Knicks will be back in contention within a couple seasons. That’s not a perfect world, but it’s a whole lot better than what the team has had.

GAME OF THE WEEK: Boston at Cleveland, Friday, May 16, 8 p.m.

The Celtics have played five road games during the post-season — and lost all five. That’s no way to win a championship, fellas. Let’s suppose Boston can win Wednesday at home (where it is 6–0). It then heads into Friday night’s game with a clear mission of winning one game on the road before it reaches the conference finals. Sure, the seventh game is in Boston, but nobody wants to take the chance of letting LeBron James go off for 45 or so in a deciding contest. And the C’s have to know they won’t be able to win the NBA title without capturing a couple games away from home. It’s a real test, and one that the Celtics need to pass.

IN THE PAINT

Now that D’Antoni has chosen to coach the Knicks, the Bulls — his other main suitor — are left with a deep but inexperienced pool of candidates, at least from a head coaching perspective. They might try to interview deposed Dallas boss Avery Johnson, but many think he’ll sit out a year. That leaves a bunch of assistants, including the Lakers’ Brian Shaw, the Pistons’ Michael Curry and Boston’s Tom Thibodeau, none of whom (obviously) would make the splash D’Antoni would have.

Don’t be surprised if the Sixers don’t sign Andre Iguodala to a long-term deal this summer. It may still happen, but when team GM Ed Stefanski said, “negotiations are negotiations” during a conference call with reporters last week, he inferred that the team won’t open the vault for the small forward, who turned down a five-year, $57 million offer last fall.

It may all be posturing, but things didn’t start well in the negotiations between Golden State and point man Baron Davis. Davis has one year and $17.8 million left on his deal, but he can opt out and become a free agent before July 1. He wants an extension that will pay him 10 figures a year, but the Warriors aren’t going that far yet. One report had Davis at 50-50 on whether he would return, despite the risk of throwing away about $18 mil.

The NBA doesn’t have to worry about the O.J. Mayo allegations. Even if he took a million dollars from an agent’s rep or whomever, that’s NC2A business. What teams have to decide is whether Mayo was a naïve rube who broke rules unknowingly or someone who brazenly flaunted regulations because he didn’t care. That could influence his future behavior.