Keidel: Death, Taxes And The Knicks Being Eliminated From Contention
By Jason Keidel
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While the days peel off the calendar, we inhale a little more deeply, leave our homes less mummified in coats, sweaters and shirts. Sunlight lasts a little longer each day, and the thermometer inches up every week.
Our city's favorite sport, baseball, is about to start in earnest. The Mets are rare chalk to reach the postseason, if not the World Series, while the Yankees should pine for a playoff spot. Even the Rangers have hockey fans stoked about another deep Stanley Cup Playoffs run. Just don't expect the same from their co-tenants inside the "Mecca" of basketball.
Indeed, there are only two things we're assured of every spring: the warm weather checking in, and the Knicks checking out.
Like the asters popping pink in Central Park, the Knicks always remind you of their place in the NBA -- rock bottom.
On Sunday, the Knicks clinched their 43rd straight year without a world title. In a moment of irony, or humor, or both, the Knicks didn't even have to play Sunday in order to get bumped from the playoffs, in a league that all but begs every team to qualify.
The Knicks should be grateful for one thing beyond the weather -- that they play in the pungent Eastern Conference. They went 17-65 last year without walking the hardwood minefield of the Western Conference.
The Timberwolves, who went 16-66 last year on the more ornery side of the sport, are now 25-49 , a palpable improvement for a team with two stellar, young players in Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, and athletic wonder Zach Lavine, who has his mail forwarded to the slam dunk title.
And though the Knicks are 30-45 this season, do you doubt they'd be about 10 games worse in the West?
What would the Knicks do if they had to play the Spurs four times a year? Or the Thunder? Or the Warriors?
Speaking of the Warriors, the defending NBA champs are a surreal 67-7, and, not coincidentally, flanked by two fine minds tethered to the Knicks. Last year, Steve Kerr turned down his friend and mentor, Phil Jackson, who offered Kerr New York's head coaching job.
Prudence.
Golden State is 134-22 since Kerr rejected Jackson's overtures.
The Knicks are 47-110 over the same span. Say that again. 47-110 since October 2014. If not for the Philadelphia 76ers (27-130), the Knicks would be the most laughable franchise in the NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, MLS ...
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Kerr's assistant coach, Luke Walton, assumed the helm while Kerr was nursing a back problem, and sprinted to 39-4. Walton's famous father, Bill, recently admonished his son to stay clear of Gotham, and enjoy the fragrant hardwood air in Oakland rather than take the gig and gag inside the World's Most Overrated Arena, which may offer him the head coaching job this summer. Listen to him, Luke. Father knows best.
It's quite a slap in the corporate face for Kerr to spurn his old coach, and turn down an NBA head coaching job in America's media vortex. It would be hard for most fledgling coaches to resist. It speaks to Kerr's prescience and the state of the Knicks, which have been a running punchline for four decades.
The Knicks have Kristaps Porzingis, a fine young talent who is still a ways from leading an NBA franchise, and Carmelo Anthony, a (supposed) franchise player who came here to bring a ring to the Big Apple, yet has been what he always was -- a sublime scorer with an allergy to passing, defense and winning. It's not his fault the Knicks haven't won a championship. He simply had none of the qualities you projected upon him the day he arrived.
The Knicks, of course, don't have a first-round draft pick to pair with Porzingis. Or a second-round pick, which belongs to Houston. Hard to develop young talent when you can't sign it.
A child scampered onto the court during the Knicks' last game, darting right to Anthony. We don't know exactly what was said between the veteran and the youngster, but maybe he had some advice for the old basketball soul. Heck, maybe the kid could have cracked the lineup.
The last time the Knicks won a world title, gas was 38 cents a gallon. The median American income was 12 grand. The top song was "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" by Tony Orlando and Dawn. The top films were "The Sting" and "The Exorcist."
Indeed, perhaps a hardwood cleric can perform another exorcism, to rid the ghosts, ghouls and garbage from the World's Most Overrated Arena.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel