All Dulled Up and No Place to Go

Glory days, how they’ll pass you by.

In 1995, Pat Riley, now known here as “Pat the Rat” for deserting the Knicks, returned as coach of the Miami Heat, setting off a classic feeding frenzy with strung-out media packed in a sauna-like broom closet for the postgame news conference, which was interrupted by a resounding crash when a folding table collapsed under the weight of the TV cameramen who had climbed on it.

Sighed Riley, so recently but no longer the prince of this tumultuous city: “I miss New York.”

Don’t we all.

Now the rest of those Knicks are gone, too: Madison Square Garden boss Dave Checketts, once Riley’s sponsor and friend, then his bitter rival; general manager Ernie Grunfeld, coach Jeff Van Gundy, Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Oakley.

In their place is ... nothing.

The team is bad and getting worse. The personalities are bland. Only the Garden remains and some fans, even if they only come out of habit or to reaffirm their faith, when they don’t give their tickets away.

The ‘90s Knicks never won the big prize but were glorious in defeat. Larger-than-life figures with heroic virtues and tragic flaws, they lit up the Manhattan night as they pursued their titles and personal ambitions in all-out competition with opposing teams and, finally, each other.

Riley threw down gauntlets. Checketts pulled strings. Players gave their all, executing Riley’s “game of force.” Once, a Knick staffer working on the media guide cover suggested a crime-scene graphic of a dotted line around a fallen figure in the lane, but cooler heads prevailed.

Internal strife got so intense, everyone had his personal publicist and press ally. Checketts had the New York Daily News’ Mike Lupica, Grunfeld had the New York Post’s Pete Vecsey, Van Gundy had Frank Isola of the Daily News and Mike Wise of the New York Times.

That, of course, meant everything got into the newspapers. At times, it seemed as if the Knicks were run by the newspapers.

Now the strife is gone, internally, which is good, and externally, where it’s missed.

Madison Square Garden is now run by James Dolan, who is, perhaps not coincidentally, the son of Charles Dolan, who heads the mighty corporate parent, Cablevision. As boss of a sports empire, James is more like the would-be mob guy in Jimmy Breslin’s “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,” who “couldn’t run a gas station at a profit if he stole the customers’ cars.”

The GM is media-shy Scott Layden, who was fine running the Utah Jazz but is out of his depth here, where he’s supposed to rebuild on the fly and hypnotize the media into thinking it’s working.

The coach is nice guy Don Chaney, who won his first game, lost his second, hasn’t been back to .500 for a single day and has been given three contract extensions.

Where heads rolled at the first hint of disappointment, the people in trouble now are those who aren’t with the happy-family program, such as Latrell Sprewell, the outspoken fan favorite, whom Dolan tried to subdue and sent away when he couldn’t.

The Knicks still tell each other they can’t start over, which would be too expensive, as if there were another option. What could have been finished hasn’t even begun. The Bulls, whose stars left three seasons after Riley fled Gotham, are on their way back. The Knicks haven’t even gone away yet.

There’s still no mandate to break them up, get younger, create cap space or any other discernible plan, except trying to patch last season’s problems.

They traded Sprewell for Keith Van Horn, whose $14.5-million-a-year deal runs through 2005, one season longer than Sprewell’s. They traded the seventh pick in 2002, which could have gone for a young big man like Amare Stoudemire or Nene for Antonio McDyess, who had played 10 games that season and promptly blew out his knee again in an exhibition.

McDyess is finally set to make his Knick debut but even if they reach the playoffs with him, he’ll be a free agent next summer, putting them in the no-win position of giving him a lot of money or losing him.

They’re capped through the summer of 2005 and won’t have much room in 2006, with only three players under contract: Allan Houston at $20.7 million, Shandon Anderson at $8.5 million and Howard Eisley at $7.4 million.

On the other hand, if they watch themselves between now and then, they can be a free-agent player in 2007, by which time grass may be growing on the Garden floor.

Unlike Checketts, who was out front, James Dolan ducks the media, and his comments in his rare interactions show why.

Last season, after promising the Knicks and Rangers would return to the playoffs -- neither did, nor has, in his two seasons -- he insisted the Garden was better run because it was more harmonious than in the wild, lockout-shortened 1999 season, when the Knicks made the NBA Finals.

Before this season, Dolan reprised his what-me-worry act, assuring the beat writers there was so a plan.

“If the strategy wasn’t working for us, I’m sure that Scott would want to re-look at it,” Dolan said. “He’d have to reassess it. But at this point, that’s pure speculation and I prefer to speculate [on] more wins.”

In other words, if this debacle remained a debacle, someone else was responsible.

The first change they need is at the very top but Dad, er, top management has surely noticed that the Garden hasn’t emptied out, meaning there’s no real pressure on them, assuming they can live with themselves even if they can’t pull a rabbit out of this hat.

The Knicks still average 18,744 with the NBA’s highest ticket scale, yielding a live gate of $1.25 million. With the team as centerpiece of the MSG cable empire, they’re OK, despite a $90-million payroll, highest in the game, that will cost another $40 million in luxury tax.

With a $90-million payroll last season, Portland Trail Blazer owner Paul Allen, one of the three richest Americans, posted a $100-million loss and began slashing staff.

Cablevision just built the Knicks a $30-million practice facility and added $8 million ($4 million salary, $4 million in tax), for Dikembe Mutombo, who plays 22 minutes a game.

So you still can’t say the Knicks have nothing to lose, although that day’s coming too.

Faces and Figures

Orlando’s Doc Rivers went from effervescent players’ coach to a tense, embattled one after Grant Hill went down three seasons in a row and didn’t make it back for this one. By this exhibition season, when the Magic went 1-7, no one, not players, fans or owners, believed in what the organization was doing.

Once, teams couldn’t cover all the Magic’s three-point shooters, but at the end, Pat Garrity was hurt and Darrell Armstrong was in New Orleans, after a run-in with Rivers. Tracy McGrady had a fit when the subject came up but looked as if he wanted Rivers out too, quitting in a loss to Minnesota in which he took seven shots and scored four points, and mused about retiring at 24.

On the other hand, Rivers will be back. Three days after being fired, he landed a plum ABC job, after the network had spent months auditioning other candidates. Possible openings for coaches are coming in New Jersey, New York, Chicago and Phoenix. Meanwhile, the Magic has till the summer of ’05 to turn it around or McGrady will opt out, assuming he hasn’t retired.

Captain Courageous: Byron Scott, who has taken the Nets to consecutive East titles, is in trouble, his struggling team starting a five-game Western trip and bristling at his outspoken style.

“If I got one year left, 10 days or two hours, I’m going to be who I am,” Scott told the Bergen Record’s Adrian Wojnarski. “And I’m going to say what I feel. I’m not going to change because I’m afraid that I’m offending some of my players.”

Did I mention they’re in turmoil? Alonzo Mourning and Kenyon Martin had to be separated after an argument in which Mourning told Martin he should play hurt and Martin responded by yelling, “My kidney! My kidney!” at Mourning, who has a serious kidney disease.

The volatile Martin is fuming about not getting an extension, whereas Mourning got a four-year, $23-million deal and the Nets settled the two remaining seasons at $25 million on Mutombo’s contract to get him to go away.

Even better than “Play of the Week:” San Antonio’s Tony Parker, thinking Jason Hart was coming in for him, took a seat at Washington, whereupon Gilbert Arenas, noticing they had the man advantage, hit an open 19-footer. Parker then ran back in and was hit with a technical foul, which the Wizards also converted.

“We’re looking around ... and Tony’s sitting on the bench with a Gatorade in his hand,” teammate Malik Rose said. “... Thanks to Tony Parker, I’m going to be on ‘Plays of the Millennium.’ ”