The New SteveSilver.net

SUCK MY KNICKS: It was

SUCK MY KNICKS: It was fun to see the Yankees go down to defeat in the first round of the playoffs, but in some ways I derive just as much enjoyment day-by-day from following the greatly diminished New York Knicks. First they waited too long to trade Patrick Ewing and got nothing of value in return, then incompetent GM Scott Layden acquired a parade of highly paid and highly ineffective players who had nothing going for them other than that they had played for Layden in Utah. Their two best players are lazy thug Latrell Sprewell and Allan Houston, who has a $100 million contract despite not being among the top 50 players in the league- not to mention, both of them play the same position. They've got bad ownership (the bumbling head of Cablevision, Chuck Dolan, and his son James) and a coach (Don Chaney) who's in way over his head, and they even had to suffer they indignity of watching their long-dormant cross-river rival, the New Jersey Nets, advance to last year's NBA Finals while the Knicks failed to make the playoffs at all.
Then, last month, Sprewell hosted a party on his yacht in the waters off Milwaukee and allegedly got into a scuffle with the boyfriend of a woman who had had too much to drink, throwing a punch and missing, thus punching a wall and hurting his wrist. Sprewell not only failed to take heed of the "Friends" episode from that week (when the same thing happened in a Ross-Joey fight), but he also ignored the clause in the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement which requires players to notify their teams of off-court injuries (of course Sprewell also ignored the clause that forbids trying to kill your coach, but that's neither here nor there). So now he's been fined $250,000, been asked to stay away from the team "until he can be a positive contributor," and is out for the first month of the season with said wrist injury.
Sprewell strongly denied that the fight took place, since the man he tried to hit was named "Mark," and he said "I don't even know anyone named Mark," apparently forgetting that two of his teammates for the past two years were Marcus Camby and Mark Jackson.
Speaking of Camby and Jackson, they were both traded in the offseason, along with the 7th pick in the draft, to Denver for forward Antonio McDyess, looked at as a player with potential to finally turn the Knicks around and provide the under-the-basket muscle they've been sorely lacking for the last several years. But then- surprise!- McDyess hurt his knee earlier this week, and is out of the season. And adding to the Knicks' wonderful offseason, starting center (and alleged born-again Christian) Kurt Thomas was arrested for assaulting his wife and was ordered to stay away from her, though unfortunately for the Knicks, Thomas is no Jason Kidd on the court.
It was fun enough last year reading watching Knicks fans turn into Red Sox fans, but it's looking like last year was nothing- how much you wanna bet they pick higher than 7th in next year's draft? They're already talking about LeBron James at the Garden...