Keep On Yammin

Coachie surely had this classic video in mind- from the poster boy of being posterized (to the tune of nearly 70 mil (scroll to bottom of the page)):

Donnie Walsh Admits Knicks Have No Rebuilding Plan and Are a Complete and Utter Failure

 The killing joke.

Surprise Knicks fans! If the Knicks don't sign LeBron this summer, there is no Plan B! A pathetic "Teflon" Donnie Walsh has admitted that he is to blame for the Knicks being one of the worst teams in the league with no bright future ahead.

Try this on for double-speak:

"I didn't say (in) one summer we're going to turn around and become a championship team," Walsh said. "And I'm not asking for time. I won't have that much time. I know one thing. Now at least we have a flexible position, whether it's next summer or the summer after to start adding players to this team that can head you in that direction."

So he's not asking for time, but he is asking until at least the summer of 2011, so maybe, maybe, FOUR years into his plan we'll be a playoff team. This, in an Eastern Conference where it is possible to make the playoffs while being well under .500. This, from a man, who has traded away our 2012 first-rounder while insuring that our 2011 first-rounder is very low by swapping picks with the always-competitive Rockets. 

Other teams build through the draft. The Celtics won by swapping for KG (using a savvy draft choice in Al Jefferson) but had a strong stable of draft choices including Rajon Rondo and Paul Pierce. The Spurs core of Big Funda, Ginoblez and Eva Longoria were all draft picks. The Lakers were savvy enough to swap draft picks with the Charlotte Hornets to nab Kobe. You can go up and down the league past and present and see how every champion was built through the draft.

Meanwhile, even though the entire decade of the 2000s was a complete waste of time for the Knicks, they never once had a high lottery pick because they've never been bad enough! It's the worst kind of hell. Terrible, but not terrible enough. In the NBA, if you are not going to make the playoffs then you must tank, and tank until you are one of the worst teams in the league to ensure that even if the ping-pong balls don't go your way that you'll still pick in the top 5. The Knicks haven't picked in the Top 5 since they drafted Kenny "Sky" Walker, before Kevin Durant was even born! 

Walsh's plan from Day 1 should have been to actively seek trades for the entire roster that brought back draft picks. Instead, we flushed two years down the toilet, and possibly two more, to sign second-tier free agents that just maybe will get us back in the lower half of the playoff pool while robbing us of the chance to draft legitimate superstars that will grow with the franchise.

Read Donnie Walsh's pathetic apology in full here.

How to Save the NBA Dunk Contest; Nate Robinson Dunking over Bill Wennington

I was listening to a Sports Herb's podcast recently, he had on frequent guest Kevin Wildes on to discuss  half-baked ideas. One of them was a fantastic idea to spice up the dunk contest, where each dunker would have to try and dunk on a defender. There's no doubt that after 20 years of solo dunks something needs to change. It's like watching the high jump after a certain point, there are only so many pirouettes one can do on the way to a solo yam.

Years back Biz, Coups and I discussed how much doper it would be if dunkers yammed over doofy white centers, inspired by the illest facial of all time.

The other night, LeG.O.D.D. had a dunk against the Knicks that he personally felt was one of his most satisfying ever, even though it didn't count cuz it came after a foul. Here it is on youtube. It's quite lovely. But what do we really want to see? We want to see Carter stuffing his balls down Weis' throat. We want to see Shawn Kemp dunking violently on fools and then pointing at them.

It's sort of how shoot-outs in Soccer are a complete bore. Tense, but a bore nonetheless. It's a player standing there against a Goalkeeper who doesn't stand a chance (success rate is in the low 80s). He kicks it, more often than not, it goes in. With dunks, we wouldn't need as much acrobatics, so long as they got a decently ill dunk off a doof. Bring back Mureson, Weis, Bill Wennington, Jeff Eaton, Kurt Rambis, Luc Longley, Eric Montross, Bryant Reeves, bring them all back, and let them get dunked on.