Writing about Jeremy Lin is a vigorous exercise in objectivity. When it comes to the New York Knicks, I am about as subtle and unbiased as Spike Lee waiving an orange towel from his courtside chair. Intellectually, however, it is necessary to separate partisan passion from sober analysis.
At the risk of sounding overly hyperbolic, the meteoric rise of Jeremy Lin is perhaps
thee most incredible story I have ever witnessed in professional athletics. By now, even non-sports fans know his name and have some idea of why the
world is all abuzz. And still, to further its improbable uniqueness, the more you know about this story, the more incredible it becomes...
For over two weeks, the name Lin has dominated our collective attention and lexicon. Everyone from the White House down to Kardashian was asked to weigh-in. Our adolescent media and the social wildfire that is Twitter, made Lin synonymous with buzz words, trending topics and an overflowing faucet of adjective derivatives.(
#Linsanity.)
What often goes overlooked in the frenzy, are the specific sequence of events, the perfect storm of circumstances, that brought us to where we are now. To put this in proper context from a Knicks perspective (and as a long-time fan, I feel reasonably qualified to do so), this story really begins in April of 2008, when the franchise mercifully demoted team President Isiah Thomas and hired player-personnel guru Donnie Walsh. The Knicks had been in free fall since 1999, when as an 8th seed in a strike-shortened season, they won the Eastern Conference and lost to the Spurs in the NBA Finals. This was the finale of a bittersweet Patrick Ewing era, and the franchise hadn't planned for the future. (Any adoring Knicks fan will tell you Ewing's legacy in New York was the most significant casualty of the Jordan-Bulls-dynasty. Each time the Knicks played for a Championship, MJ was in his first year of retirement.) Isiah Thomas inherited the Scott Layden-built Knicks in December of 2003, hamstrung by bad contracts, a personnel mishmash and boring, mediocre play. Indeed, Isiah entered in a ditch and over the next 4 years, he broke out a forklift and tortuously dug deeper, burying the organization with horrendous signings, mismanaged drafts and a variety of
Page 6 scandals. The Knicks were a punchline to a bad joke, and the prospect of a
savior --or any form of resurrection-- seemed inconceivable. However, (gasp!) looming on the horizon, was the great free-agency class of 2010. This represented the potential for an unprecedented shift of power amongst cities and teams. Preemptively, GMs started stockpiling expiring contracts, draft picks and salary cap space.
A year before Donnie Walsh took over the Knicks, Boston Celtics GM Danny Ainge decided to roll the dice. It was the summer of 2007. The Celtics had just gone 24-58. They finished dead last in the East and his job was on the line. (Although Mormons forbid gambling, I've seen Danny Ainge play awfully fast and loose and Mitt Romney bet
$10,000 like it was chocolate milk.) Ainge whipped out his checkbook and paid Paul Pierce. Despite never even getting to the Eastern Conference Finals, Pierce was rewarded with a substantial raise and a few more years. Most experts saw this as a "bad contract." From afar, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett saw this as loyalty. In spite of their record, the Celtics became an easy sell to the veteran all-stars. (Often times, Championship level players respect the loyalty more than the money, and often times the two are intertwined.) Having finished at the bottom, they leveraged their lottery pick, revamped their roster and less than a year later Kevin Garnett was screaming, "
aaaaannnything is posssssibuuuuuuuuuul!!!" And yet, it was still Paul Pierce's team.
Knicks fans watched this historic turnaround, and we became inclined to believe what KG proclaimed. Walsh (or as I call him, "Donnie Basketball"), grew up in New York City rooting for the organization he was now puppeteering. Astutely, he began by giving the Knicks the Heimlich...then CPR. With virtually no assets to work with, he took pennies on the dollar to unload "bad contracts" in exchange for expiring contracts. (In the bizzaro economics of the NBA, an expiring contract is a bad contract in its last year, which paradoxically becomes an asset. This was only partially rectified by the lockout.) Slowly and miraculously he gave Knicks fans some light at the end of the Lincoln Tunnel. By the middle of 2010, the Knicks had cleared enough cap space to sign not one, but two max contract players, igniting intense speculation that Lebron James would descend upon Madison Square Garden and, like Moses in Egypt, lead the beleaguered franchise and its fans to the promise land. I wrote about this subject
early and
often, not only buying into the narrative, but attempting to
shape it. The Knicks initial move in July 2010, was signing Amar'e Stoudemire to a max deal, partially as bait for Lebron. However, a few days later, King James took his talents to...you know where.
Say what you will about Lebron (and I have), but do not underestimate the importance of loyalty and organizational stability. Pat Riley has been associated with the Miami Heat for almost half of Lebron's life. He can picture him hoisting the Trophy (or five.) In contrast, Donnie Walsh was a glorified wrecking ball, who was barely involved by the time the Lebron meetings took place. Knicks owner James Dolan had Isiah running the show by proxy, and Walsh, who worked tirelessly at the expense of his health, showed up in a wheelchair wondering if he'd be allowed into the room. (I'm exaggerating here but you get the point. No stability. No loyalty.) At that meeting, the Knicks couldn't sell Lebron on the magic of Madison Square Garden because there hadn't been any for a decade, so they tried selling him on the magic of Madison Avenue, with a bean-counter PowerPoint presentation about his path to becoming a billionaire. It was a microcosm of everything that was wrong with the Knicks...and society...at once.
In addition to roster demolition and revitalization, Donnie Basketball put his stamp on the organization by hiring Mike D'Antoni, a savant of the high-octane offense. In press conferences and interviews, Coach D'Antoni seems like a pretty mellow guy, but his basketball philosophy is hyper-frenetic. His system relies heavily on a point guard, who can push the ball, pick 'n' pop, slash to the saucepan and draw 'n' dish. Steve Nash was his muse in Phoenix during multiple 50-win seasons. Knicks fans immediately felt a disconnect with this choice. D'Antoni just wasn't the right fit for New York. Personally, I always felt Walsh deserved the benefit of doubt, but the overall sentiment was that the D'Antoni's style was more "warm weather ball" (he honed his philosophy coaching in Italy) and this was the Eastern Conference (like the old
Big East); gritty, physical, defensive-minded; a grinding halfcourt set that couldn't survive without a prominent post-presence. (If you think about it, all the great "cold weather" teams are defensive-minded, mentally tough and reliably clutch. These are the characteristics New Yorkers respect. The football Giants are the epitome of this example.) In 2009, my shoe connect at the Harlem House of Hoops had this insightful take: "The Knicks are M.O.P. and D'Antoni 'tryin' to make them The Pharcyde. Shit won't work. Plain and simple." I countered with how the Knicks hadn't been "M.O.P." since Anthony Mason was throwing elbows, but I overstood his point.
Still, I credit Donnie Basketball for sticking to the discipline. Amar'e was the right big man for the system. He flourished in Phoenix catching alley-oops from Nash on the break. Continuing in this vein, Walsh signed the best available pick 'n' roll point guard, Raymond Felton. He drafted Danillo Gallinari and Landry Fields and all of a sudden the Knicks were on the right side of mediocre. I had the opportunity to see this team live. The Garden was
The Garden again. It was loud every moment of the game. The booming chants of "DEEE-FENSE" "DEEE-FENSE" pulsated the way they did back when John Starks was tapping the hardwood to let His Airness know he was not about to be Craig Ehlo'd. It was a fun team. I liked all the players. The city did too. But if Knicks fans are honest, we must acknowledged this team's peak was probably around 46 wins and a second round exit. And the Miami Heat looked to contend for the next decade. In a five-on-five sport, where just one player can dramatically change the trajectory of a franchise, teams can remake themselves quickly, via free agency and/or the draft. So, it could be argued that winning 6 games is actually better than winning 46.
Almost a year ago to the day, Walsh completed the demolition by trading most of his accumulated assets for Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups. Without question, this was the best deal available for an organization that desperately needed to close the talent gap set by the formidable "Miami Thrice." Anthony's game, however, just happens to run in direct conflict with D'Antoni's offense. He's a volume shooter, who holds the ball for nearly half the shot clock and contributes best in isolation. Without naming him specifically, detractors of today's NBA cite Melo's style of play as the reason they no longer watch basketball. He also carries the reputation of a temperamental superstar, who has a preeminent ability to put the ball in the basket, but do little else to help his team win. Yet considering the circumstances; it was late February, the Knicks were a .500 team and the fan base was teething, I supported the acquisition of Carmelo by any means. Devotees of Big East basketball remember him lighting up The Garden when he was a freshman at Syracuse, and any college basketball fan knows that he single-handedly carried Orangemen to an NCAA Championship in 2003. Billups was both an expiring contract and a nodding wink to D'Antoni, who lost Ray Felton in the deal. While I have enormous respect for Chauncey's career, it was transparent that age and injuries would prevent any sort of meaningful contribution in New York. When they took the floor, the new-look Knicks were, at best, a discombobulation featuring two of the NBA's top 15 players; and at worst, an irreparable disaster that had just fired all of its bullets.
It was a fairly quiet spring in the City That Never Sleeps. The veteran Celtics dismantled the Knicks in the first round, rather easily after Game 2, and then Walsh went right back to work. Well, for a few months at least. One of his last moves was picking up the $14.2 million option on Chauncey Billups. This gave the team the ability to control him, and the money they paid him simply reflected his value as a bargaining chip. Pointing to health concerns, Donnie Basketball stepped down as General Manager in June of 2011 and was succeeded by Glen Grunwald on an interim basis. With Walsh gone, D'Antoni lost a crucial ally heading into the fourth year on a five-year contract. With no job security, the FIRE D'ANTONI movement gained momentum and fueled the NY tabloids with constant speculation.
A significant development of the lockout and new Collective Bargaining Agreement was that now teams could rid themselves of a bad contract through what's known as the "amnesty clause." The Knicks used this on Billups and promptly turned him into free agents Tyson Chandler and Baron Davis. Certainly, this seemed like an improvement, but not necessarily something that would work with the head coach. Chandler had just helped the Mavs win a Championship, and brought the Knicks a frontcourt toughness they had sorely been missing. Davis was the wild card. If healthy and motivated, he might thrive in New York and reinvigorate his career. It was a big IF... Nevertheless, the 2011-2012 Knicks appeared to be headed in the right direction after years and years of embarrassment and hopelessness. The pundit consensus pegged them as the equivalent of a 48-win team and, if everything broke right, perhaps a three or four seed in the East.
Things did not break right. On January 4th, New York gave up 118 points at home to the woeful Charlotte Bobcats and lost by 8. In the stands, a fan decked out in blue and orange, sporting a Carmelo Anthony #7 jersey, was captured on MSG TV repeatedly yawning. It was an indelible metaphor. Things got worse. After 23 games, the Knicks had just 8 wins. The once nervous chatter about how Melo was not the right player or personality to lead the franchise, grew louder and louder. With every loss, D'Antoni took another step towards the guillotine, and more weight was piled upon the fragile back of Baron Davis, who was still in street clothes nursing his nagging injuries. A major problem with the team was that D'Antoni is (and will always be) a system coach: meaning, he does not try to adapt his style to fit his roster, instead he coaches his roster to adapt his style. The Knicks backcourt of Toney Douglas, Mike Bibby and Iman Shumpert were simply square pegs in round holes and D'Antoni was figuratively Claude Monet, asked to deliver an Impressionist masterpiece using only grey pigments. The results were horrible. Restlessness and despair set in. The Knicks had moved mountains to get here, yet their record was no better than it had been under Scott Layden or Isiah Thomas. Essentially, nothing had changed.
December 27, 2011, a day that will live in infamy... With a glaring need for any backcourt player with a pulse, the Knicks scooped up an unknown Taiwanese-American guard off the scrap heap. Only hoop junkies had ever heard the name Jeremy Lin. He was a four-year letterman at Harvard (not exactly a Division 1 juggernaut) and his scouting report read something like: high basketball IQ, raw agility, reckless abandon. An undrafted free agent recently cut by the Warriors and Rockets, he was like hundreds of marginal players fighting for a roster spot, bouncing between teams and 10-day contracts, moonlighting for minutes in the D-League, constantly contemplating whether basketball would ultimately be a career path worthy of pursuit. While on temporary assignment with the Knicks, Jeremy
couch-surfed at his older brother's apartment on the Lower East Side. With a grueling game schedule and limited practice time, this season has been especially difficult for the unestablished player to showcase his skills. For Lin, the alignment of the stars was more than happenstance. It was almost mystical. First, Iman Shumpert went down with an injury and Baron Davis suffered a set back in his recovery. Amar'e Stoudamire's older brother was tragically killed in an auto accident in Florida and Carmelo Anthony strained his groin and was expected to miss a month. The Knicks were exhausted, utterly depleted and visibly in crisis mode. During a game against the Nets on February 4th, Mike D'Antoni looked down at the end of his bench and saw Lin, essentially a warm body who could handle the ball for a few minutes. What's the worst that could happen?
It would be foolish to heap aimless praise on Coach D'Antoni (or Glen Grunwald) for "discovering" a phenom. Lin sat on that Knicks bench for over a month before anyone even noticed he was there. However, we cannot overlook how
the system became the magic elixir for #17. Everyone who called for D'Antoni's head, anyone who claimed his approach will never win a Championship, might want to consider how it is virtually inconceivable Lin would have ever been given an opportunity, as the 12th man on a roster, to play with reckless abandon, turn the ball over, take 25 shots a game and somehow emerge as the most popular athlete on the planet. Simply, if you enjoy watching Jeremy Lin, you are inadvertently endorsing the philosophy of Mike D'Antoni. He deserves a lions share of credit and Lin himself has not been
shy about this, calling his coach "an offensive genius." Beyond his physiognomy, Lin has infused the NBA with much-needed enthusiasm. Casual basketball fans are gravitating back to the game, which is particularly unusual following a prolonged labor dispute. His presence is refreshing and exciting. He plays with an organic passion and energy that is infectious, and he redistributes the praise throughout his locker room, constantly reminding us that basketball, in its finest form, is team sport.
The Knicks have a long way to go, which can be difficult for a rabid, impatient (some say self-entitled) fanbase. We've seen our chief rivals, the Heat and Celtics quickly remake themselves into perennial Title contenders. Perhaps unrealistically, we expect the same. Plenty of questions remain: Can Lin continue to perform at this level? Can Melo play effectively within this offense? Can Amar'e stay healthy throughout a playoff run? Can the Knicks get enough 4th quarter defense to win games when they score in the 80s? Can the New York fan embrace a high-scoring, offensive-minded, "warm weather" style? (That last question was a lob pass to myself.) Of course. The aesthetics are far less important than the results. But for a team that plays a few blocks from Broadway and shares the building with the Big Apple Circus, we obviously love a good show.
Now that this is Jeremy Lin's team -- in style if not in spirit -- he has the unenviable task of proving D'Antoni's system can win in May and June. Certainly the Knicks are a work in progress, but this actually feels like the beginning. Donnie Basketball cleared the path. For the first time in over a decade, they have a complete squad. Stoudemire and Chandler provide versatility and depth in the front-court. Anthony is one of best swingmen in the game. Fields is a nice counter. They have dead-eye, spot-up snipers like Steve Novak and JR Smith. Shumpert, Jared Jeffries and Bill Walker add a little defense off the bench. Baron Davis may be far more effective as a back-up point guard; and Jeremy Lin is the floor general who knows how and when to get everyone involved. He can also go out and get you 30 points if you need it. As of February 20th, the Knicks are finally whole. Sure, they lack cohesiveness, rhythm and familiarity but (fortunately) our expectations are only slightly over par while their record is only slightly under. The roster jambalaya still needs to gel and settle, and since it seems to be the right mix of ingredients, they'll have plenty of time to heat up before the playoffs.
Inevitably, Knick-haters will tell me that I am a delusional kool-aid guzzler, so I'll leave y'all with this little morsel for thought: It was far more improbable for Jeremy Lin to get to where he is right now, than it would be if he led the Knicks to a Title... I'm just sayin'...
@HebrewRational
Happy
Oscar day world! Reminding all my of east-of-Sepulveda friends not to
venture north of Melrose between La Cienga and Vine, unless you're prone
to masochism. Today in Hollywood we celebrate...the French? Between
Woody Allen's mystical Parisian escapade, Scorsese's love letter to
George Méliès, and the cast and crew of The Artist, it's time put away the Freedom Fries and break out a beret, a baguette and your fruitiest Bordeaux. Off we go... 
