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SHOOTAROUND

“It’s a great honor for me to be joining the Knickerbockers.”

-Casey Stengel, at his first press conference as manager of the 1962 New York Mets

Greenburgh, NY -October 2, 2006 marked a day of change for both a league and one of its charter members.  For the first time in 35 years, and just the second time in the 60-year history of the National Basketball Association, a new ball was implemented.

The NBA, in a press release, briefly explained the new model.  “It is a microfiber composite with moisture management that provides superior grip and feel throughout the course of a game.”  Additionally, the league stated that this ball, unlike its predecessor, will not need to be broken in.

There is something to say about a comfort zone.  Whether it’s the feel of a new and shiny basketball, or players that can be counted on to perform, a margin for error is a luxury in the entertainment business.

And, more than anything else, Madison Square Garden, Incorporated is about entertainment.

Inside the New York Knicks’ spacious Westchester County training facility, Media Day offered the opportunity to meet new faces, as well as greet old ones.

“With so many players coming back,” Jerome James astutely noted, “a lot of people will assume it’s going to be the same team.

“Except that nothing could be further from the truth.”

Exactly fourteen months earlier, James had signed a whopping five-year, $30 million deal with the Knicks, which was largely predicated on one specific playoff performance as a member of the Seattle SuperSonics.  In 11 postseason games against the Kings and San Antonio Spurs, James averaged 12.5 points and 6.8 rebounds.

But, during an injury-plagued 2005-06 campaign, James totaled just three points and two rebounds per game in 45 games.

“There was no significant amount of time last year where any one unit played healthy every night.  Or, for that matter, practiced healthy,” the 7’1”, 272, center reflected.  “To this day, we still don’t know which unit is our most cohesive.”

James’ assertion is proven by a recount of the starting line-ups.  Only ten of the forty-two different combinations resulted in .500 or better basketball, and not one of them lasted ten games.

Of the 19 players who suited up, only Jackie Butler, Anfernee ‘Penny’ Hardaway and Ime Udoka did not start.  Butler, a 6’10, 260, power forward who signed a three-year pact, valued at $7.128 million, with the Spurs in July 2006, was the most effective of the three, having appeared in 55 games, and averaging slightly better than five points in 13 minutes played.  Hardaway, once a star in this league, was limited to a mere four games before the Orlando Magic accepted his $15,750,000 contract as part of the Steve Francis deal; Udoka, a 6’6”, 215, swingman who was ninth in the NBA Developmental League with 17.1 points, was the first such player called up by New York.

All of which meant that the Knicks were so desperate for frontline help that Matt Barnes, already on his third team since 2003, actually started five games before he was waived on December 3, 2005.

Such news was relatively tame compared to what was happening off the court.

Just fourteen weeks earlier, James Dolan, the MSG Chairman, and Isiah Thomas, the New York Knicks’ president of basketball operations and newly-appointed head coach [the team’s fifth in five seasons] had convened with local reporters to discuss the future of the organization.

However, before either man could move past June 26, each needed to revisit the immediate past.  This, most certainly, included the firing of the previous coach.

On July 27, 2005, one month after leading the Detroit Pistons into the NBA Finals for a second consecutive year, 64 year-old Larry Brown signed a five-year, $50 million deal to coach the Knicks.  The gloss on that blockbuster announcement lasted all of eleven months.  By the time the calendar flipped to June 22, Brown was out the door.

“There were a lot of things that came into play,” Dolan revealed.  “First off, this was not an easy decision to make.  I never received a phone call from Larry asking for a meeting.   It wasn’t like he didn’t know how to get hold of me, and it wasn’t that we hadn’t talked before. When we were in Cleveland [on April 13], and he had health issues [what was initially thought to be acid reflux turned out to be the flu], I sent a company plane to get him.  So, it wasn’t that we didn’t have a relationship; it’s not like he couldn’t have called me.

“Larry had first asked to meet with Isiah.  Then, he went over Isiah’s head to Steve [Mills, MSG’s president and chief operating officer].  Isiah called Larry back, but the calls were never returned.

“From a team perspective, as well as a business perspective, we didn’t need to make that decision [to fire Brown] until we did.  There was nothing going on basketball-wise, or business-wise.  One employee was not returning the phone calls of his boss, and I wasn’t going to react until I needed to. There was some hope that this would clear up without me; I deliberated whether I should get involved at all.”

But the clock was rapidly winding down.  Not only was the NBA Draft -scheduled for June 28 inside the Theatre at Madison Square Garden- rapidly approaching, but a stipulation in Brown’s contract called for David Stern, the league commissioner, to resolve any disputes.

However, much of Stern’s attention was focused on the epic six-game battle between the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks, which would decide the championship.

In the middle of this tornado, the press continued to beg for answers.

“Throughout the season, we had issues with both our coach,” Dolan recalled, “and our press policy.

“Let me say something about that.  Before Larry was hired, he and I had a very specific discussion about that.  We never communicate with our employees through the press, and we don’t use the press as the medium by which we talk to each other.

“We had come to that decision back in the days of Jeff Van Gundy and Ernie Grunfeld [1995-1999], and the circus that was.  I think it’s a well-founded policy.

“Larry had absolutely agreed to it, and thought it was the right thing.  He understood that we had a press department, headed by Barry Watkins, and that they would be with Larry whenever he was available to the press.”

Brown, who was unusually forthcoming during Q and A sessions, was not known to mince words about his players.

According to Dolan, it wasn’t difficult to prove Brown’s intent to be insubordinate.  In fact, the Garden boss intimated there was a stack of evidence to support this.

“To have him talk to our players through the press was a surprise.”

After one month of tolerating the coach’s indifference, Thomas approached him.  Then, Mills.  Finally, Dolan made an appearance.  The objective was to highlight what the policy outlined.

“I went into our last meeting,” Dolan said, “hoping we were going to have Larry Brown as our coach for 2006-07, and that there was a way this could work.  I, literally, wrote down how we could make it work, and how we could get past the problems. If we could get past the problems -and get back the guy who is supposed to be the Hall of Fame coach, who would nurture our team, and do the things he’d said he was going to do- there’d be every reason to expect he would help build this team.

“Why else would we pay someone $10 million to do this job?

“We were rebuilding. We’re still rebuilding.  Larry Brown had a reputation of building a team.  Going into that meeting, I thought if we could get him to cooperate with the rest of the organization, it would be a great thing.”

As New York finished 23-59 during Brown’s first season, there was much room for improvement.  And, it began with management staying on the same page.

“I’ll tell you what happened.  I couldn’t get Larry to acknowledge one of these things.  Not one of them. If he was willing to acknowledge them, and tell me how he would correct them, and how he would go forward…

“[These things] are not in our head, they are not fictional.  They have happened.”

But, Dolan said, Brown would not even admit there was a problem.  The coach, already skating on thin ice, wanted five or six players waived.  Then, he proposed to take on another $180 million of salary.

“At our meeting,” related Dolan, “Isiah and I told him that we didn’t know if we could make all the moves he wanted.”

“Well,” replied Brown, “if you’re telling me that I’m going to have to play all of them…”

And, from this conversation, the consensus was that Brown knew he wasn’t coming back.  Not at this price.  Not if his conditions weren’t met.  He had surmised that, if the team couldn’t use the midlevel exception, or trade away expiring contracts, then the Knicks really don’t want to improve the team.  In his eyes, they just didn’t want him as a coach.

“He was saying to us,” Dolan reasoned, “that we would have to fire him.”

The New York press immediately jumped all over that implication.

“Couldn’t you force him to resign?” they inquired.

“His agent [Joe Glass] told us that he wasn’t about to resign.”

“So, if he never intended to go beyond one season, wouldn’t you be describing criminal fraud?”

“You’re not getting that out of me,” an adamant Dolan responded.  “I’m not saying that.  But, I think, [Brown] walked into that meeting knowing he wasn’t going to coach this team.  And, he wasn’t interested in finding a way to coach, either.”

“Was there ever a point when you said Larry doesn’t want to coach this team?”

“He said,” relayed Dolan, “we had to do all these trades in order to be better; we needed to prove that we wanted him.

“But, there were real misgivings in my mind. I never really thought this would end with him being gone.  I had signed him for $50 million over five years. I was very motivated to keep him.”

As time moved forward, however, Brown became edgier when management’s position stalled.

“We made a mistake hiring Larry,” Dolan reflected.  “I’ve gone over it in my head a bunch of times; Isiah and Steve have gone over it, too.  But, the fact is, we made a mistake.”