Start Spreading the News: the Knicks Are Finished

Case studies in mass hallucination: That was a good one, when people started asking about the New York Knicks’ “title chances” with Patrick Ewing out.

What title chances? With Ewing, they were No. 8 in the East, behind the Miami Heat without Alonzo Mourning, the Chicago Bulls without Scottie Pippen, even the Orlando Magic without Penny Hardaway. Was anyone delusional enough to believe things would improve if the opposition got its stars back and the Knicks lost theirs?

Well, yes.

“Playoff team?” exclaimed the Knicks’ Chris Childs. “We’re a championship team. I mean that. I know that in my heart. Things happen for a reason. We’d love to have Patrick, but this is going to be even sweeter when we do win it.”

Give that man a 120-point banner headline. The intellectual life of New York is so tabloid-driven, reality tends to become whatever appears in their lurid headlines. Thus, the Knicks can’t merely be grizzled competitors who are, collectively and unfortunately, past their prime. They must be champions or dregs of the earth.

After a while, the participants buy in and start talking like characters in “Guys and Dolls.” Even the soft-spoken Ewing has taken to “guaranteeing” championships annually, a New York favorite dating to Joe Namath, which makes Patrick a hero for a day, at least in Gotham.

“It’s messed up that he got hurt,” the Detroit Pistons’ Brian Williams said. “I know he really wanted to make good on at least one of his dozen promises to win a championship.”

In this mass denial, the tabloids are partners with Madison Square Garden, which seeks to perpetuate the illusion of Knick greatness so it can charge Spike Lee, et al., $1,250 a pop for court-side seats.

In real life, the Knicks fell from elite status after losing in the 1994 NBA finals. That season, John Starks had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in March and returned for the playoffs, limping like Chester in “Gunsmoke.” By the finals, he was the best Knick, almost winning Game 6 in Houston--and the title--with a stirring 27-point performance before flaming out in Game 7. In New York style, Starks’ gallantry is passed over, but they’ll never forget his two for 18.

He was never the same player after that, leaving too much on Ewing’s shoulders. The next spring, Pat Riley had his first second-place finish and the Indiana Pacers knocked out the Knicks in the second round. Riley and MSG President Dave Checketts fell out in a struggle over the team’s direction. Having worn himself and his players out while delivering them to glory’s doorstep, Riley wasn’t about to participate in a rebuilding process if he stood to become the scapegoat. He asked for a king’s ransom and complete control--aware he had a suitor in Miami waiting to grant it.

Checketts demurred. Riley fled.

The able Checketts was obliged to protect his position by assuring the ever-changing corporate owners MSG would stay profitable and he couldn’t launch a rebuilding process--though he once talked privately about letting Ewing walk when his contract ended. The Knicks were still the hottest, highest-priced ticket in town. The glitterati turned out and the little people loved them. When New York State began making team license plates, Knick versions far outsold those of the baseball Yankees and football Giants.

Checketts set out to find a big name to keep Riley’s dream alive, without Riley. Chuck Daly said no. Don Nelson took the job, with no illusions about the fading, 33-year-old Ewing. Nelson wanted to plan for a Patrick-less future, but Ewing balked and forced him out first.

“Patrick was at the end of his contract,” Nelson said recently. “He was making $3 million, which made him tradable. It was just conversation, not demands.

“But why not take the money and get Shaquille [O’Neal, then a year away from free agency in Orlando]? He would have played in either L.A. or New York. It seemed kind of obvious. We had the money and it was someplace he might go.”

Instead, the Knicks bumped off Nelson and bumped up Jeff Van Gundy, a former Riley aide and Ewing’s choice, in effect handing Patrick the team. That summer, they took on Larry Johnson’s $84-million contract and signed Childs and Allan Houston for an additional $85 million in a final gamble on rebuilding on the fly.

Long before brave, stubborn Ewing fell in Milwaukee, it was obvious they had failed. Even in their new, salary-cap-busting incarnation, the Knicks were still slow and couldn’t handle the ball or shoot it very well.

Now they’re short too. In their first game without Ewing, Van Gundy had Houston jump center. The Knicks won. Johnson said, “We were so pumped up. it wouldn’t have mattered who we were playing.”

Huh? They had played the Dallas Mavericks, who had lost eight in a row. Someone get Johnson a cold compress.

In their next game, they lost to the Toronto Raptors at home, starting a new evaluation process.

“Now Dave Checketts’ and [General Manager] Ernie Grunfeld’s moves are under the microscope,” wrote the New York Times’ Harvey Araton. “. . . If their $200-million supporting cast can’t even make the playoffs, who can possibly believe the return of a 36 1/2-year-old center next season will make the Knicks a title contender?”

Don’t ask.

Last week, Ewing said he hopes to return for this season’s playoffs, which he assumed the Knicks would be participating in. Said Ewing, conceding nothing to time, injury or the dozen or so teams ahead of them in the standings: “I still think we have a golden opportunity.”

Hope springs eternal in the biggest, baddest city of them all, where they seem to need it most.

FACES AND FIGURES

That Isaac Austin trade talk won’t die if Austin won’t let it: Intrigued by his prospects, Miami’s backup center is happy to keep discussing it. Riley got so tired of it, he had word passed to Austin’s agent to tell his client to knock it off, but nothing has worked. Faced with losing him--the capped Heat can offer about $30 million over seven years, less than Austin would command on the market--Riley is expected to keep trying to deal him for Mitch Richmond. However, insiders say Austin intends to return to Utah, where he broke in and was friendly with Karl Malone, which undercuts his trade value. . . . Meanwhile, Riley doesn’t seem to like a Twin Towers lineup. In the last four games, Austin, who averaged 19 points and 33 minutes with Mourning out, has averaged 7.3 points and 21 minutes. . . . Now the truth can be told: Rick Pitino says he came so close to taking a Laker offer in 1994, he checked out homes in this area. “That’s true,” Pitino said. “The lure for me was really Jerry West. I figured as long as he was the main executive here that they’d always stay near the top. But what it came down to was family. It would have been an awfully big move.” Of course, at the time, Pitino denied point-blank that there had been any contact at all.

Some burgs never learn: Chicago is swooning again at the feet of Dennis Rodman, who averaged 21 rebounds over eight games and hasn’t been in trouble since announcing he wasn’t into this season, what, two months ago? Said Rodman, in a massive understatement: “I’ve been playing like this the last seven years and for some reason nobody has recognized that until now. Maybe it’s because of my persona, the way I act, the way I look and talk.” Comment: You know, he may have something there! . . . It won’t be long now (cont.): The Doug Collins watch heated up again when the Piston coach yanked Williams from a game, disclosing later he did it at Grant Hill’s request, suggesting Williams has been neglecting other duties while padding his statistics in an all-star bid. “I don’t even know where that came from,” Williams sputtered. “Do I look like I’m playing for numbers out there? He [Collins] has got something to say on every play and then he’s going to tell me I’m playing for numbers? [Expletive] that.” . . . Also playing for numbers in an all-star bid--and proud of it--is Toronto’s Damon Stoudamire. “That’s exactly what I’m aiming to do,” he said after scoring 36 points in a loss at Detroit. Stoudamire also wants the Raptors to trade him. . . . Seattle’s Gary Payton on the Lakers: “Let them get all the talk. Two years ago, when we were all talk, everybody was ready for us. That’s the way we like it. We just sit back in the wings. Hopefully we can keep piling up wins and then, you know, it’s going to be us and the Lakers and we’ll see what happens.”