Pivot Points: "The New York State of Mind"

You can't help feeling bad for the New York Knicks, because the franchise must be cursed. How else do you explain the lack of success from the team in the NBA's largest market?

I'm not a Knicks fan, but I do have a soft spot in my heart for them, and it's probably because most of my family hails from the "City So Nice They Named It Twice".

None of my relatives are Knicks fans, and considering their mostly sad history, who can blame them? Being a Knicks fan has to be a constant exercise in futility and disappointment.

One of my friend's greatest Knicks' memories is when an injured Willis Reed emerged from the tunnel in Madison Square Garden, and helped lead the Knicks to their last championship.

I am too young to remember that, but my memory does hold a few Knicks moments and none of them are quite so grand.

I do recall seeing a young Phil Jackson residing on the end of the Knicks bench. Who could imagine that the potential for greatness was sitting on the end of the bench looking stoned?

That pretty much sums up the Knicks, because Jackson's destiny would lead him elsewhere, while the Knicks were forced to languish in relative mediocrity.

The cruelest twist of fate may be that the reason New York was never able to capitalize on the wealth of talent they possessed in the 90's was because of Jackson and his Chicago Bulls.

Michael Jordan was the main reason that a very good Knicks team was never able to realize its full potential. Even when Jordan departed on a brief hiatus, New York remained engulfed in the hands of fate.

Who can forget Game 7 of the Finals in 1994, when a Knicks team on the verge of greatness managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?

The image remains in my mind of sharp-shooter John Starks having one of the worst games of his career as his shots could never manage to find their target, and he finished 3-for-18 shooting in the biggest game of his career.

The Knicks still could have defeated their opponent, the Houston Rockets, but once again fate had other plans.

New York legend Patrick Ewing had a chance to ice the game with a point-blank shot at the rim, and for reasons unknown to me, decided to finger-roll the ball instead of dunking it.

Of course he missed, and thus went the Knicks' best chance of winning a championship in the 90's.

New York would return to the Finals in the strike shortened season of 1999, but they really had no reason to be there and the San Antonio Spurs proved it by sweeping the Knicks in four games.

That Finals team led by Allen Houston, Latrell Sprewell, and Marcus Camby may be the last good memory that a lot of Knicks' fans have, because since then, New York has been a below average team.

The fact that New York has failed to field a competitive team must give commissioner David Stern nightmares. It's not like they haven't tried, it just seems like every move the Knicks have made has been worse than the one before it.

After suffering through the Isaiah Thomas fiasco, New York finally seemed to be on the right track. They purged most of their ridiculous contracts and hired fast-break guru, Mike D'Antoni.

The hiring of Mike D promised to instill excitement to the boring Knicks and finally bring the franchise a level of respect that it had been missing.

Seems like someone forgot to tell management that although D'Antoni's style of play was successful in Phoenix, it depended on the skill of players like Steve Nash and Amar'e Stoudemire who were noticeably absent from the Knicks' roster.

Furthermore, that kind of play can get you by in the West, but in the East the teams play a slower pace with an emphasis on defense. Defense is still a foreign concept to the Knicks.

All of this led to a lot of high scoring games in which the Knicks still came out on the short end. All signs point to New York biding its time until the unprecedented free-agent class of 2010 becomes available.

This once again seems like a deluded vision, because who in their right minds would want to sign with the Knicks just to remain an average team?

The culture of the team has to change, and D'Antoni must come to the realization that offense wins games, but defense wins championships. His style of play will never bring more than a six through eight seed in the competitive Eastern conference.

I don't know how many players in that class of 2010 are historians of the game, but if they know anything about the Knicks and their star-crossed past they will be running as far away from New York as they can.