NEW KNICKS

So we were sitting there at Opening Day this past year, when all the talk of the "New Mets" was going down.

Me, AFOMG, TKID, and JawnJawn730, the best of friends all excited for another season of what would be memorable Mets baseball.

We kept on joking about the New Mets. New seemed to replace New York so that the Mets were now the New Mets and not the New York Mets.

So it only took the forty drinking, wifebeater-wearing, rockport-sporting JJ730 to start chanting about the "New Bears." For some strange reason the kid is a huge Bears fan and was getting excited for football season, which, from where we sat then, was a good five months in the offing.

Nonetheless, JJ730 was fired up and New Bears became a bit of an inside joke.

I tell you this only because of the importance of the word "new." Since JJ's wild Opening Day run, "new" has become a huge part of the vocabulary of me, AFOMG, and Cousin Jason.

New Bears!
New Schubes!

And of course, New Knicks!!!

The irony about it is that the Mets last year remained, for the most part, the same old Mets. They got you excited then broke your hearts and in the end we still love them.

Well, the "New Knicks" under the leadership of Isiah Thomas remain, in fact, the same old Knicks.

Before the season fans got excited.

THE KNICKS SIGN LARRY BROWN, GREATEST COACH OF ALL TIME = THE METS SIGN CARLOS BELTRAN, GREATEST POSTSEASON HITTER EVER

ISIAH THOMAS TRADES SWEETNEY AND 2 TOP 5 PICKS FOR EDDY "12, 9, HEART ATTACK" CURRY = METS TRADE KAZMIR FOR ZAMBRANO

THE KNICKS ARE A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM THIS YEAR- ISIAH THOMAS = NEXT YEAR IS NOW- METS FANS

The comparisons stop there. For the first time in a long time, the Mets appear to be in decent shape. Most Mets fans are more optimistic than I am, but truth is, that's great.

I am a pessismist and as I have said many times before, it is great to hear the optimism around Shea, and it's great that that enthusiasm isn't entirely misplaced. It's not like the hope-against-all-hope enthusiasm that Mets fans entered 2004 with, let's put it that way.

But the NEW KNICKS...The train just keeps on rolling.

This past weekend Isiah "Dumbest Person in the Whole World" Thomas traded Antonio Davis' expiring contract for Jalen Rose (Signed thru 2006-2007) and a first round pick (via Denver) which should translate somewhere in the high teen's low 20's.

The value here was in the expiriring contract of Antonio Davis. The NBA functions under a soft salary cap. Players are allocated a % of the league wide revenue, roughly 57%, which translates to a cap around $45 million dollars for each team.

The Knicks have a payroll well over $100 million dollars. They can do this for two reasons.

"The Larry Bird Rule"- A team may re-sign its own free agent for any amount up to the maximum player salary" if he played for the team for the prior three consecutive seasons (or, if he changed teams, he did so by trade).

It is for this reason that the Knicks were allowed to sign Allan Houston to a $100 mil deal a few years back despite being massively over the cap.

Mid Level Exception: A team may sign one or more free agents to contracts with first-year salaries totaling the amount of that season's mid-level exception, an amount based on the league's average player salary.

Isiah Thomas was smart enough to use this exception, inking Jerome James, the Knicks' 14th man, to a roughly $6,000,000 per-year salary that will feed James' family and incense knowledgeable Knicks fans for the next 5 years.

It is the goal of most teams to get under the roughly $45 million dollar salary cap so that they can sign upcoming free agents. Teams try to clear upwards of $13 million dollars so that they can offer free agents the maximum contract allowed by the league's collective bargaining agreement.

It is for this reason that the Raptors, like so many teams, were willing to part with a mid 1st round pick to swap Rose's contract for Davis'.

This trade will allow the team to get substantially under the salary cap so that they can target a top level free agent (someone who is or potentially will be an all-star)

Isiah Thomas is saying (while smiling and molesting women), "Hey, we get a 1st round pick and its not like we could have gotten under the cap anyway."

Welcome to the world of marginal gains, Isiah. The Raptors free up the money to sign an all-star. You've just gotten your hands on Ersan Illyasova or whomever else you could get with the 18th pick.

There is so much more that Isiah could have gotten for Davis' contract. "Expiring contracts" in the NBA are about as valuable as anyone not on the all-star team.

Come the trade deadline, teams would have been lining up for Antonio Davis. To give you an idea of one trade that is surprisingly plausible, the Knicks probably could have had a shot at packaging Davis, Penny Hardaway's expiring contract and a bunch of their kids to the T Wolves for Kevin Garnett.

This is clearly as good as it would get, but come mid February when Kevin Mchale sees that the Wolves are awful (note: they made the Warriors look like Michael Jordan's Bulls on Saturday) he could decide to blow the whole thing up, get way under the cap, and add some young talent.

Instead, the Knicks get #18 and Jalen Rose, who is rumored to be the least "Larry Brown" type player in the NBA (he plays no defense and in uncoachable). But also, and this is where it gets good, is that Isiah gets to deflect the recent sex scandal that has the Knicks front office in intense shock and embarassment.

So on top of being an awful, and I mean awful GM, the guy gets himself in the middle of a sex scandal.

How does he try to get out of it...By becoming an even MORE AWFUL GM.

Isiah, I truly hate you. You're the reason I stopped being a Knicks fan. That and the courtside Warriors tickets supplied by the official SF of Y2k.

On that note, another reason the Knicks suck is that they don't have any sweet Euros. I sat at last night's game in front of Andris Biedrins' kid brother.

For those who don't know Andris, he is a sharp, long power forward from the lovely country of Latvia known for his rebounding and shotblocking. He is the gold standard of Latvian basketball.

Well his little brother, a 6'5 14-year-old, is truly amazing. He sat there and grunted the entire game, unable to speak English. He reminded me of Sloth from "The Goonies." He got most excited when the Warriors mascot, Thunder, was hopping around the stands on stilts. Forget Sloth, this kid was a giant, Russian version of Artie from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"

So after the game, a 22 point blowout over the Nuggets in which Big Dre had 6 blocks, he and Big Zarko Cabarkapa rolled into the players lounge rocking blazers and tight jeans.

They were the classic Euros except they happen to be close to 7 feet tall each. They sat down on the table next to us and all we could do was sit there, smile, and eavesdrop.

Zarko and Andres were just like Andre's kid brother. They sat their telling potty jokes in Russian and broken English and laughed like deep voiced ogres. They were truly entertaining.

And boy can these guys dress. The Knicks lack these types of talents.

Two years back they got us excited in a pair of second rounders in Maciej Lampe and Slavko Vranes only for us to never see them grow.

Back seven years ago they selected Frederic Weis over a "desperate to play for the Knicks" Ron Artest because they were trying to get Euro.

And what has it got them? The Knicks suck, have no future and most importantly, they have no Euros. I hate you Knicks, Isiah, and all the Yankee fans that support them.

To the Mets fans, as the fired up West Canaan Running back Wendell Brown (played by Eliel Swinton, who thanks to IMDB I know played professionally for the Chiefs) once said, "We cool, Mox."

VCD,

SM