By J ZO                   July 17, 2001
Contributor

Time to pick up the six-string, slip the medicine bottle onto ring finger, court grooved steel with juke-joint finesse, and coax those offseason blue-notes out of your tired ol' sign-and-trade guitar. For, it's gonna be a long summer, fellow Knicks-folk, a long summer short on possibilities.

Nature, in its intricate wisdom, provided the vernal months for celebration, for relaxation, for rejuvenation -- to shake the wintry shroud off cold souls still dented by the memory of mid-February gloom. These few, rare months are for iced tea, beaches, all kinds of verdant funkinesses, shimmering skin, daisy dukes and death-carrying mosquitoes, stove-hot asphalt streetball combat, domino-slapping tank-top roof-top block party bhangra galas, booty-call sweat sessions, too-hot-to-move no-AC-chillin-cause-you-got-no-choice afternoons, and grand ol' primeval ritual barbecues. They are supposed to be everything winters aren't, jammed together like that -- one big summertime jambalaya gumbo goulash, where the emphasis, as touted by every green thing, is, "Rejoice! Renew! Rebuild!," all in the hopes of rectifying winter's inimitable slump by preparing for the climactic changes to come in following months.

In light of this, the Knicks' (and many other ballclubs') offseason decisions, thus far, become all the more difficult to understand. I can't claim psychic prognosis when it comes to the enigmatic minds of the front-office pubahs, yet a few things do split the surface and shake a stick at me:
 

• Last month's draft, otherwise known as the carousel of relative absurdities, proved once again the power of subjectivity. One man's "contributor" is another man's "flop." The whos and whys are too difficult to glean, particularly for outsiders such as ourselves. Someone has a bum-foot, another has a bad back, or a bad attitude. Go figure. We can only call 'em like we see 'em. The choice of Mason look-alike, Arizona's Michael Wright was one thing. A surprise, though not necessarily a disappointment. A solid player. A short player. Perfectly respectable feet. The Eric Chenowith bomb-drop, conversely, was from beyond left-field. Seven-feet one-inch, two-hundred and seventy pounds of plodding, apparent disappointment. Then again, maybe Layden and his boys know something we don't. Like I said, subjectivity is king. 
• The sizable $100 million contribution to the Allan Houston Welfare Fund, seems to me, like many others, excessive. It averages out to be around $16.5 million a year -- the largest contract in Knicks history. Is this a logical sum for nineteen points per game, a notorious disappearing act, and two left-feet? When compared to other max players throughout the league, he just doesn't stand up. He has neither the presence nor impact attributable to max players. McGrady, Iverson, Kidd. These are max players. Don't get me wrong, he can shoot, he can score, he's given us some of the Knicks' greatest (and not-so-great) memories of late. But, at the very least, he should be docked a few million for his role as Tweedle-dee in the Charlie Ward Ignorance Escapade. 
• The recent (imminent) signing of Knicks ex-adversary, Cleveland's Clarence Weatherspoon, is, well, exactly what it is -- the acquisition of a decent, undersized power forward adding to an already extensive assortment of solid, serviceable power forwards. On the roster, we now have Weatherspoon, "Hurt" Thomas (kudos to JW for that moniker), Harrington, an enfeebled LJ, Camby (our non-center center), and second-round pick Wright, who I assume will make the club considering the Knicks' predilection for truncated four-men. When Sprewell and Van Gundy stressed the need for size after the Game 5 loss last season, I don't think they were talking about this accumulation of redundant bigness. Size is not size is not size; it's not an absolute value. More isn't necessarily better. If it was, the Knicks would be wearing Shaq's rings. Our "imbalanced" ballclub is now capable of putting an entire team of power forwards on the floor, or a team composed completely of wings. No whisper of a center or point guard. This is not the stuff dreams are made of. 

We can only imagine, and perhaps hope, that management has a few portentous tricks up its sleeves. I think we all understand the difficulties in the offseason, with cap-concerns and luxury-taxes, but without other moves, I envision strange, Van Gundy, defensive set-ups with the implementation of the new zone rules, dreading the various and daily iterations of last year's smallball that'll surely come into play. The self-proclaimed, perennial, Comeback Kids might have to do it again. 

With the free-agency door nearly closed, we stand at the sign-and-trade crossroads, the instrument of our particular b-ball blues strapped across our backs. Unless a Shammond Williams, or some other comparable subject from the rosters of Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Orlando, or elsewhere materializes (using the vet-minimum or possible Longley-bestowed med-exception), the sign-and-trade will be our only recourse to improve the team, considering that the other big-name free-agents are tucked away out of reach, nestled into new deals. 

In the absence of any major trade -- utilizing some of that "depth" we hear so much about -- what I see before me is mediocrity piled atop mediocrity. I feel us moving laterally, see the feet shuffling as if on cue, without a glimmer of the forward momentum necessary for progress. As Van Gundy proclaimed last season in Mr. Miyagi-esque fashion, either you're moving towards a championship or towards the lottery. It makes no sense being in-between.
 
 

[ InsideHoops Home  |  CRASH THE NBA MESSAGE BOARD ]