A Knicks Fan's Misery

The New York Knicks on Tuesday night were in last place in the Eastern Conference. This is the same team that finished in second place last year in the Eastern Conference and was projected to make the playoffs again. While watching the classic college basketball doubleheader of Michigan St.-Kentucky and Kansas-Duke, it was impossible to not consider the Knicks never getting good this year and being able to land one of the fabulous freshman in those games. I fully believe that David Stern rigged the lottery to land Patrick Ewing on the Knicks in 1985 and how could I not hope the NBA would do the same and make Julius Randle, Jabari Parker, or Andrew Wiggins the next great Knick.

As I started to consider all of this, I remembered one very important thing: James (Jim) Dolan is the owner of the Knicks.  Jim Dolan, the man who tried to hire Isiah Thomas so many times that the NBA finally said he could not. So I looked and quickly realized the Knicks do not have a 2014 first round pick. It was traded away for Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks’ best player who may walk away in free agency this summer. The reason Carmelo may walk is because the Knicks have nothing to offer him to stay other than more money and the city of New York.

There is minimal championship talent around him, and just this week the Knicks rumored plan to keep him was leaked. The plan is comical, much like James Dolan. The Knicks plan on keeping Carmelo by promising to bring Kevin Love who is a free agent in 2015 to New York. Yes, you read that correctly, the Knicks plan on keeping Carmelo by convincing him they will sign a guy who is a free agent a full year after Carmelo has to re-sign. How does a team that consistently spends over the tax, is in America’s largest market, and plays in the most famous arena in the world fall so far? James Dolan.

This year Chris Smith was described as the worst player in the history of the NBA Summer League. A league where over 75% of the players are not good enough to play in the NBA, yet Chris Smith is on the Knicks bench this year. How did the Knicks end up with such a bad player on their bench? Jim Dolan. If you did not know Chris Smith is J.R. Smith’s brother and only Jim Dolan would force his GM and coach to give a roster spot to someone who did not deserve it simply to make sure his brother re-signs with the team. The Knicks are extremely desperate for an extra big man, yet are stuck keeping Chris Smith on the roster because of Jim Dolan.

Unfortunately this is not the first mistake that Knicks have made regarding roster decisions under Jim Dolan. Jim Dolan was the man who traded away the most popular Knick in 30 years when he dealt Patrick Ewing in 2000. The Knicks could have let Ewing’s deal expire and taken the huge salary cap relief into a summer with Tracey McGrady, Grant Hill, and Tim Duncan all as free agents. No way to guarantee the Knicks would have signed them, but nothing would have been better than Glen Rice, Luc Longley, Vernon Maxell and others.

Jim Dolan was the owner when when the Knicks significantly overpaid for Allan Houston in 2001 despite knowing he was often injured and no one else would pay that much. Sadly the Knicks and James Dolan made the same mistake 9 years later with Amare Stoudemire and his massive deals.We have not even mentioned the fact the Knicks traded two first round picks for Eddy Curry after he had been diagnosed with a heart condition. Those two draft picks were LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah. Either player would be enough to keep Carmelo on the roster past this season, but instead those picks were traded for 222 games of Eddy Curry over a five-season span.

 Sadly the Knicks can do nothing about their owner. It does not matter if the fans rebel, the fans protest, or come up with some other way to show our displeasure because James Dolan OWNS the Knicks. He is arguably the NBA’s worst owner who has driven a premier franchise into the ground. I can write about firing James Dolan all I want, but it will not mean anything because we are stuck with him as our owner. Maybe one day the team can overcome the incompetence of our owner but until then I will simply go to the Garden and chant “FIRE DO-LAN”!