Donnie Walsh Please! Spare Me The Bull

There are only a few things worse than insulting my intelligence.  I can guarantee most sports fans feel the same way whenever they are served a piping hot platter of crap.

As a transplant New Yorker, I've had a front row seat to the biggest circus disgracing not only Madison Square Garden and the city of New York, but the NBA league as well. I wont lie, as a Bullls fan, this has mostly been amusing through the years.  The mismanagement of the Knicks has benefited not only my ballclub (# 4 and #9 picks in 07 and 08 respectively) but many others as well.  Scott Layden the GM preceding the Isaiah Thomas regime 1st caught my attention with his questionable acquisitions and free spending.

Thomas?  Well he deserves his own special place in Knicks history.  His theactrics have been so well publicized that I feel it to be redundant to summarize the high (singular) and low points of his tenure here.  And I really tried to support him. Hey we're from the same neighborhood and same H.S. in Westchester, Il, albeit 12 or 13 years apart. I felt embarrassed for him, embarrassed for the organization and its fans. 

Now here comes the savior, the chosen one of GMs/Presidents, Mr. Donnie Walsh.  He's a respected and competent leader, a basketball genius.  No one expected him to transform the Knicks into a contender or return them to a respectable franchise overnight.  I for one can appreciate the huge task that lay before him as he continues to attempt to undo years of mismanagement and place New York in a position to once again shine as the mecca of basketball.

He has unloaded some bad contracts, trimmed the payroll some, and somehow snatched a proven coach from Chicago's grasp in Mike D'Antoni. (And no, I'm not bitter.  The incompetent, strategically challenged Vinnie Del Negro is the best thing to ever happen to us:(

On the other side, the team is an underchieving disaster yet again.  The draft picks the last two years have been inexcusable.  But Walsh, sticking true to form, has offered his "excuse" for the last two picks going so wrong - in particular, this years pick.  In a draft that featured more quality and talented point guards than we've seen in ages - a position the Knicks are in desperate need of, they go with yet another forward.  The excuse Walsh offers for passing up Brandon Jennings?  "We just didnt have enough scouting information to feel comfortable with that pick"

That statement goes more to confirm his ineptness than his suppossed precautioned strategy.  Uh, excuse me, is this the same well financed franchise that could afford to pay Jerome James a King's ransom (some pun intended there) to sit on the bench and count the number of fans in the arena wearing blue?  Why wouldnt you have adequate scouting on the former number one player in highschool just a year prior?

Now the Eddy Curry comments Walsh has made recently are where the insults began to beat my brain.  He stated today that the team is no longer seeking the services of Allen Iverson, because of the re-emergence of Curry (after 1 game).  All of a sudden, Curry is lauded in praise and support for his new found commitment to the game. He goes on to label him an integral part of the Knicks future.

 For one, we all know that the Knicks want more than anything to raise Curry's trade value. His contract coming off the books will give the Knicks the salary cap relief that they seek in order to persue this pipe dream of Lebron and Wade or Bosh or John Stockton and Malone or whoever to a team that has no other components to win. Theres just something wrong with tanking your seasons by stripping your team of most of its talent in hopes that some saviour will come along and return this team to the promised land.

Im not taking anything away from what progress Curry has made, the weight and conditioning are a step in the right direction.  He has definitely had enough motivation of late to take his career and body more seriously. 

However, Walsh's attempts to annoint him as the catalyst for the Knicks, the piece that they've been needing or missing reaks of the same feces that Thomas, Dolan, and those preceding them have shoveled upon the fans for years. 

The city, MSG and the league and its fans deserve better.