By BRIAN MAHONEY
AP Basketball Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Former Knicks guard Micheal Ray Richardson was
once asked to describe his team’s prospects.
“The ship be sinking,” he said, a quote that has famously
followed him through the years.
“How far?”
“Sky’s the limit,” Richardson said.
Nowhere to go but up now for his former teams – especially since
the winless Nets hope they’ve already hit bottom.
The Hudson River rivals meet Saturday at New Jersey in the NBA’s
most wretched matchup at this point in a season in 15 years.
The Nets are 0-12, about to head out for a four-game western
trip that could put the NBA record of 17 straight losses to open
a season very much in play if they don’t win this game.
The Knicks (2-9) aren’t much better, following the worst 10-game
start in franchise history by snapping a six-game losing streak
Wednesday. They beat the Nets three times in the preseason, so
should feel confident about their chances of putting together a
winning streak.
According to STATS LLC, there hasn’t been an NBA game matching
teams who had each played at least 11 games and combined to win
so few of them since Dec. 3, 1994, when Minnesota was 2-13 as it
hosted the 0-14 Clippers.
Separated by only about 10 miles and just as close at the bottom
of the standings, both teams are being laughed at. But the
troubles of New York basketball aren’t a joke to everyone.
Because if the locals keep struggling, and kids find they have
no players or teams to look up to, what if they lose interest in
the sport?
“I always worry about that,” Knicks president Donnie Walsh said.
Like many others, Walsh used the game to get out, then back into
New York. A Bronx native who earned a scholarship to play at
North Carolina, he spent most of his career as an executive in
Indiana before returning to his hometown in 2008 to rebuild the
Knicks.
And he wants to see winning basketball here.
“Yeah, because it’s a basketball city … that’s why I approach
the job the way I do,” Walsh said. “I really want to see this
succeed because New York should have a good basketball team. I’m
sure all these coaches and athletic directors of the various
entities that are here, they want the same thing.”
Truth is, the New York area hasn’t seen much good basketball in
a while. The Knicks seem headed for a ninth straight losing
season, which would set a franchise record, and the Nets have
returned to their longtime losing ways after reaching
consecutive NBA finals earlier in the decade.
Throw in the struggles of St. John’s and Seton Hall, former Big
East powers who were passed long ago by Connecticut and
Pittsburgh, and there’s not much on the hardwood to pass the
time between football season and spring training.
But Nets coach Lawrence Frank, who grew up not far from the
George Washington Bridge in Teaneck, N.J., disagrees that
basketball’s popularity could suffer when its local teams do.
“There are times where your curve is going upwards and times
where because of whether it’s free agency, draft, injuries,
salary cap, whatever, where you’ve got to retool, you’ve got to
rebuild,” he said. "But the metropolitan area has always bred
great basketball enthusiasts and players, starting from the
recreational level to the AAU level to the high school level to
the collegiate level to the professional level.
“So right now, present day, maybe we’re not the top of the
division or the Knicks aren’t the top of the division. But
things change quickly and basketball, obviously the popularity
of the sport, not just in the metropolitan area but around the
world, is at an all-time high.”
Not at the New York scholastic level, though. There were nearly
200 fewer boy’s varsity basketball teams and 2,500 fewer players
in the 2008-09 season than two years earlier, according to the
participant survey on the New York State Public High School
Athletic Association’s Web site.
Joe Altieri, the organization’s director of marketing and media
relations, attributes the drop more to budget decreases than
popularity ones. He acknowledges it would be nice if kids had
local role models at the collegiate and pro level, but said they
can find them right in their own communities.
“Especially if the high school programs are successful, they
have something to look forward to,” he said.
Around New York, that’s their only choice lately.
In a big market with big money to spend, the Knicks and Nets
both think they can be players in free agency next summer, but
offer little to entice fans now. Plagued by attendance woes
while costing costs and awaiting a potential move to Brooklyn,
the Nets couldn’t even come close to filling its building
Tuesday despite a ticket offer that gave away free seats.
The front row courtside at Madison Square Garden was once loaded
with celebrities. The only time it’s been worth a second look
this season was when some Yankees came from their World Series
parade to watch LeBron James, or when disgruntled former Knicks
guard Stephon Marbury was booted during the home opener because
he was in the wrong seat.
“I think the NBA is missing out on the fact that the Knicks
haven’t been great in a few years now,” James said. “So we all
know the history of the Knicks, we all know what has happened in
this building and what the Knicks franchise has done for this
league. So as a fan, I think it would be great someday or one
day when this franchise can be particularly good.”
Or when any area basketball team is.
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