The four teams I root for in each of North America's major professional sports, have won 17 championships in my lifetime. The Yankees have won seven, the Steelers six, the Islanders four consecutive. The Knicks however, have not won an NBA title since about six months before I was born. I grew up with the echo of those early 70s teams but I have never seen a ticker tape parade for an NBA team and I fear that when I do, it will be for the Brooklyn Nets.
But my most intense sports memories belong to the Knicks. I was in sixth grade when they won the Patrick Ewing lottery and a jaundiced adult when they traded him to Seattle 15 years later. This book is a loving and thoughtful record of the best of those teams. Chris Herring finds the right balance of the personal and the professional. He also give just the right amount of coverage to all of the personalities that made this team of contenders so beloved in a city famous for its obsession with winning.
Anthony Mason, John Starks, and Pat Riley are the biggest personalities associated with these teams and Herring gives great insight into each of them. Mason's death at 48 gives extra poignancy to his life but I like how Herring centers him as the only New Yorker on those teams. He's sort of a half-fan half-NBA star in this telling. Maybe sources felt a little more free to speak truthfully about him since he is the only character that won't read these accounts. But he comes across well on balance, despite some horrible misbehavior along the way.
Starks is easy to write about. He will always be the most beloved member of this team, his failings quickly forgiven by Knicks fans, even if they dominate his legacy among every other group. What I wouldn't give for the chance to watch him play in today's game.
The portrayal of Riley is some of the best stuff in this book. It will always frustrate me that Riley had so much success before and after his Knicks tenure. I've long thought that he should bare most of the blame for the losses in 1993 and 1994. How could a coach of his caliber trust Charles Smith to be on the floor in closing time while Charles Oakley was on the bench? And how could he not see that John Starks needed to be pulled in Houston when he had Rolando Blackman sitting right there?
The truth is that Riley in the 1990s was a bit of a poseur. A lot of his success with the Lakers came easy. He had Magic and Kareem for god sakes. As much as he projected the cool image of a handsome man in perfectly tailored suits, he was still a crank who could whine about not being reimbursed for $10,000 he gave to his players at a casino and to contemplate leaving his second best player off the playoff roster in a fit of pique. Herring does get across that Riley has since matured. I was touched to read that he has sent Blackman multiple handwritten notes over the years and that he eulogized Anthony Mason.
And then there is the other Pat. Patrick Ewing. (Did you read that in the voice of Mike Walczewski?) Much as Paris Hilton is famous for being famous, Ewing is famous for not being famous. At least not as famous as he should be as the centerpiece of a New York sports franchise for 15 years. Ewing is almost always short-changed in the memories of this team. His greatness had a quiet consistency that never raised eyebrows and is now most remembered perhaps for not winning a championship. But this team would have been nothing without him. And Herring does him justice-writing about the work ethic the principled stands he took for his teammates and coaches behind the scenes and the difficult years of his life as a Jamaican immigrant in Boston.
I was left wanting more of Patrick Ewing, but that is the way Ewing will always be. Herring interviewed 204 people for this book but Patrick Ewing's name is not among those listed in the very helpful post script about sources. I can't think of another athlete who is less interested in correcting the record about his legacy.
So let me do a little bit of that. Some years ago a dipshit Celtics fan with a podcast coined a scurrilous phrase "The Patrick Ewing Theory" to explain the phenomenon when a team does better without its best player. This was supposedly inspired by the 8th seeded Knicks run to the NBA finals in 1999, which Ewing had to sit out with an injury. But the facts say otherwise. Ewing was a huge part of that run. He played heroically on an injured leg in game one of the Eastern Conference finals, stealing home court away from the Pacers. He had 16 points and 10 rebounds. The next game he left the game with an aggravated the injury and was not able to play the rest of the playoffs. Without him, the Knicks went just four and six.
I'm not saying the Knicks would have won the finals with Patrick that year. But he would have been 2 points better than Chris Dudley in Game 5, and that series goes back to San Antonio for at least game six. The next season Patrick led the Knicks to the Eastern Conference finals. Then he was traded and the Knicks have stunk ever since.
Some "theory", asshole.
As you can tell, this team brings out my passions. And this book brought to life so many of their most important moments, both good and bad. Highly Recommended!
OKAY, A LITTLE MORE GEEK STUFF
The history of the New York Knicks can easily be divided in to five eras.
I. 1946-1968. The Early Days. (22 Seasons)
.466 winning percentage
No NBA titles, 3 NBA Finals
9-13 in playoff series.
II. 1968-1974 The Glory Years aka Red Holzman's first coaching tenure. (6 Seasons)
.650 winning percentage
2 NBA titles, 3 NBA Finals
11-3 in playoff series.
III. 1974-1985 The Interregnum(11 seasons).
.476 winning percentage,
0 NBA titles, 0 NBA Finals
3-5 in playoff series.
1985-200 Patrick Ewing (15 seasons)
.556 winning percentage
0 NBA titles, 2 NBA Finals
16-13 in playoff series
V. 2000 - Present Post-Patrick. (21 seasons)
.407 winning percentage
0 NBA titles, 0 NBA Finals
1-6 in playoff series.
I guess you can see why people still love these never champion Knicks of the 1990s so much.
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