The New York Knicks: Ready to Die or Ready to Win?
Last the Knicks lost yet again, this time to the Sixers and combining that with the sexual harassment charges of that their General Manager faces, things look ugly. Will they regroup and make the playoffs like I predicted in an earlier post or will they just crumble and give up hope on the season?
Good questions indeed. First, I predicted that without injury to Marbury and Curry, two of their key players, the Knicks would make the playoffs. This current losing streak actually started with an injury to Marbury, and they lost 4 games in a row without him. Secondly, now he is back but now we have the charges/lawsuit against Isaiah Thomas, the teams general manager.
Taking the above two things into consideration, making the playoffs will be harder since they now have such a big distraction to deal with. The Knicks play in the biggest media market in the world, a market that thrives on scandal, which was evident by the fact that as soon as the scandal was known, the general manager's face was on the front pages of several of the newspapers here for several days. On some papers like the Daily News and The Post, Mr. Isaiah was on the Front side and on the Back side, the Back side usually deals with sports, but our dear friend was on both sides of each paper and on consecutive days.
True, some of my readers will say, "hey, these guys make millions so there should be no distractions," but the reality is that these guys are humans and as a team, the Knicks were just starting to get their confidence together and now with this situation it will be quite difficult to stay focused on basketball and ignore this situation. One of the papers actually had a headline that demanded that Mr. Thomas be fired! And we must remember, at this point, the charges are allegations, and he has not won or lost this case.
I am not going to make any predictions now but we will see how this guys handle the next game.....
PD
Good questions indeed. First, I predicted that without injury to Marbury and Curry, two of their key players, the Knicks would make the playoffs. This current losing streak actually started with an injury to Marbury, and they lost 4 games in a row without him. Secondly, now he is back but now we have the charges/lawsuit against Isaiah Thomas, the teams general manager.
Taking the above two things into consideration, making the playoffs will be harder since they now have such a big distraction to deal with. The Knicks play in the biggest media market in the world, a market that thrives on scandal, which was evident by the fact that as soon as the scandal was known, the general manager's face was on the front pages of several of the newspapers here for several days. On some papers like the Daily News and The Post, Mr. Isaiah was on the Front side and on the Back side, the Back side usually deals with sports, but our dear friend was on both sides of each paper and on consecutive days.
True, some of my readers will say, "hey, these guys make millions so there should be no distractions," but the reality is that these guys are humans and as a team, the Knicks were just starting to get their confidence together and now with this situation it will be quite difficult to stay focused on basketball and ignore this situation. One of the papers actually had a headline that demanded that Mr. Thomas be fired! And we must remember, at this point, the charges are allegations, and he has not won or lost this case.
I am not going to make any predictions now but we will see how this guys handle the next game.....
PD
posted by Pete Duhon at 1/29/2006 06:01:00 PM
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