Knicks, Nixed

In many ways, running a basketball team seems easy. Anyone with a passing interest in the sport knows elite talent wins out: There are a handful of NBA players so good that they simply can’t be guarded. Teams with one guy like that become consistent contenders; teams with two or more are title favorites. It’s just like producing a vampire movie: Get one stud, and you’re set. There aren’t 50 guys on the field like there are in football, and you don’t have to take chances by signing 16-year-old Venezuelans for $50,000 and hope they turn into stars the way you do in baseball. Generational talent is pretty easy to spot—LeBron and Durant were clearly going to be stars—and all you need to get one of those obvious talents is a bad regular-season record and good luck in the draft lottery.

The Knicks, who were eliminated Wednesday by Miami, never got the chance to try the simple formula of star = wins, mostly because they spent the last decade trading away their picks. Shit, it was even a joke on The Wire. The Knicks were technically a competitive team last season, but have way too many flaws to stand a chance against a team like the Heat. Occasional big game aside, Carmelo Anthony isn’t looking like the kind of guy who can win playoff series, and the team doesn’t know what to do with him and Jeremy Lin.

The Knicks’ incompetence is a pretty classic “sports, LOL” story, even when put against other inept New York franchises. Apparently, it’s a basketball city, and there’s a case for that, since any other town would have lost complete interest in a team if they played like the Knicks. The team’s one playoff win this year was more than they’ve achieved in the last 11 years, which included the spectacularly inept Isiah Thomas era. Under Thomas—one of the greatest point guards of all time, and owner of an incredibly creepy smile—the organization flubbed draft picks, chased overpaid veterans, and lost millions of dollars thanks to a sexual harassment lawsuit.

The Knicks, somehow bowing to public pressure, eventually/officially cut ties with Thomas, and the few years since his ouster have been mildly different, both in terms of mood and results. The team drafted good, young players and created cap room in preparation for the 2010 free-agency period, hoping to attract LeBron James, the generational talent, or at least a couple of other guys around as good.

Of course, they didn’t get LeBron, who wanted to go to an actual good team. They didn’t get the next best guy, Dirk Nowitzki, who stayed with the Mavs. They’d eventually get a couple of flawed and near-elite players in Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo, for whom they traded away cap room and young talent, respectively. This is the best they’re going to be for a while.

In a sense, it’s frustrating and counterintuitive. Players should get better. Teams should get better until they’re good. The Knicks, who were dog shit just a few years ago, are now a playoff team, but they’re nowhere near being a championship contender. There’s a shot that a full season from Lin, Carmelo, Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler, together as one, playing for fun and all that, will push them to the next level in 2013, but c’mon, that’s not going to happen. Despite what you might hear on sports radio or find written in a newspaper, it’s not a question of heart, experience, or will. It’s talent. The Knicks aren’t getting any more good players, and the guys they have aren’t good enough. Maybe you should read a book or something instead of watching Knicks games next year?

@samreiss