This is supposed to be a time of basketball celebration, an All-Star Weekend when the best of the best congregate and the very best of the game — well, the very best of the offense, anyway — is on display.
This year in the host city of an established Eastern Conference force (Toronto), it is backdropped by the prospect of one team (Golden State) chasing history and another (San Antonio) seeking to broaden its legacy and a third (Cleveland) hoping to deliver, once and for all, on a city’s desperate need for a championship.
Then there is Los Angeles, bidding farewell to Kobe Bryant while hoping the Clippers can get out of their own way come spring; and Oklahoma City, hoping to squeeze one more run out of their Thunder before the band breaks up; and old reliable Boston, which is bubbling just below the contender surface with oodles of draft picks coming and probably the league’s best young coach firmly in play.
There is, of course, a city notably absent from those two paragraphs: our city, New York City, blessed by two franchises, cursed by the fact neither is any good right now. Both teams have fired coaches this season. Neither team has much hope of making the playoffs and, better, neither will be rewarded for their futility with a No. 1 draft pick this June.
(Goodness, just typing that previous paragraph is enough to make you quit basketball for good and start following something more fun, like day-long cricket games …)
It’s enough to make you seek a better world, a fantasy world, where we can do fantastic things like merge our two basketball fraud-chises and see if maybe that would allow New York to dream of a day when the city game is a real thing again and not just a poetic piece of a nostalgic’s heart. Would it work? Could it work? Could we at least get to a doorstep of a championship that way?
The imagination races …
1. Who would stay?
There is really only one for-sure answer: Kristaps Porzingis. In a merged New York world, there is no need for both Carmelo Anthony and Joe Johnson, so that means one of them would be able to stay as KP’s for-now second banana. No need for both Lopez brothers, either, but one would have to stay. After that …
2. Who would go?
Maybe the best part about a merger would be the ability to actually have tradeable assets. In this case, the best-case scenario with the deadline nearing is to trade both Melo and Brook Lopez for as deep and plentiful a cache of future No. 1 draft picks as you could swing. Johnson and Robin Lopez, left behind, would be useful to keeping at least a watchable product on the floor. But that’s really not nearly as relevant as what’s to come.
3. Who would coach?
That one’s easy. Tom Thibodeau makes sense for both the Knicks and the Nets immediately, and both are in the market for permanent coaches. And Thibodeau also would be a perfect fit for the new team’s make-up, which would revolve around mostly young and mostly impressionable players.
4. Who would run the show?
Also easy, assuming Phil Jackson really isn’t California dreaming (on such a winter’s day), and because he instantly would have substantially more assets on his hands than he does right now, perhaps that would shoo the Mamas and the Papas (and Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow) from his mind.
5. Who would own the team?
Does John Mara have any spare coin or spare time? No? We have to pick between the Russian and the Straight Shot?
Ah, well. We had to get back to reality at some point.
Whack Back at Vac
Stos Thomas: I felt compelled to write regarding your column in [Wednesday’s] Post “Translating Phil Jackson’s Rant” since I am a Knicks (along with Mets and Jets) fan: It doesn’t look like the Knicks or their fans will be getting the Glengarry leads anytime soon.
Vac: They need Durant to sign on the line that is dotted.
Tom Clancy: Cam Newton is neither a monster nor a jerk, just self-important. We shouldn’t demonize him nor should we lionize him. He’s a talented and flawed person, complicated like most people. He’s 26 and needs to be more introspective about his conduct.
Vac: I have a far bigger problem with him blowing off that ball bouncing on the ground than blowing off a gaggle of sportswriters.
@rwmckenna: “Semi-Tough” or “North Dallas Forty?”
@MikeVacc: “Semi-Tough” is the better book, “North Dallas Forty” the better movie.
Scott Kurant: Is it possible this obsession Phil has with the triangle is responsible for taking away the player’s natural instincts and making them think too much? Rambis is a waste of time and he needs a new hairstyle.
Vac: That last bit may be the best takedown in the history of the WhackBacks.
Vac’s Whacks
If you happened upon the last four minutes of Monmouth-Rider on Friday night, then you bore witness to four minutes of what may be as close to perfect basketball as the sport allows, the Hawks going on a 17-2 run to turn a 14-point deficit into a one-point win. NCAA Committee folks better have been watching.
Baseball’s Hall of Fame voting process may be a bit flawed. But next to the way pro football selects its immortals, it’s a model of democracy.
Please don’t let me down, “Vinyl.”
If there was ever a weekend that all but screamed “Pitchers and catchers!!!!” at you, it had to be this weekend (assuming you could hear it between the wind howls).