Stats Since 2000: New York Knicks
Winning Seasons: 6
Playoff Appearances: 7
Playoff Series Record: 2-7
Championships: 0
New York City. The Big Apple. The City That Never Sleeps. The home to many famous sports franchises. When you think about New York and sports, legends come to mind. Babe Ruth and the countless Yankee greats. The Mets of 1969 and 1986. The elite squads of the Islanders in the 80s and the Rangers in 1994. Joe Namath, Lawrence Taylor with their Jets and Giants teammates as warriors of the gridiron. Even the Brooklyn Nets had a season to be remembered when they surprised everyone during the 2018-19 season.
None of these teams or players, however, can ever say they played at The World’s Most Famous Arena, Madison Square Garden. A place where only the most famous celebrities and athletes have ever performed. Elvis, Taylor Swift, Billy Joel, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mohammad Ali, Hulk Hogan and John Cena just to name a few. MSG is everything that New York is. A home to the elite, the mecca as some may say. Only the greats are allowed to let their prowess shine.
And then you have the New York Knicks. The lowly awkward ginger haired stepchild of all New York teams. The Knicks since 2000 have been an inconsistent mess to say the least. Underperforming while still charging some of the highest prices for home game tickets in the league. How they are run can simply be put as pulling highway robbery against their fans. To top everything off with a nice cherry, they are led by arguably the biggest thief in the NBA. The owner, the man who was gifted this team on a silver platter, the man himself, James Dolan.
Welcome to A Series of Inept Franchises. In this series, well, it’s in the title. I’m breaking down one franchise in the four major American sports every week and I’ll take a quick, yet deep dive into why a franchise has so many problems. For the interest of time and not to bore you with deep history and lore, I will only be diving into a franchise’s history since the year 2000. It’s been 24 years since then, trust me, there’s plenty of history already for teams in this near quarter century.
Just a warning, this series may contain some swearing and yelling, from you, the reader, at your favorite teams. Upon reading this, you may become mad, you may cry, you may want to throw up and you may want to yell at God. Reader discretion is advised. Sounds good? Good.
For this first instance, we’ll be going over one of the NBA’s most underachieving franchises this century, the New York Knicks. They should be great, they should be legends, but instead, they are led by a man who some may consider bold, some may say brash, but I say, he belongs with the trash.
Let’s get into what I feel has been the major issues for the Knicks this century. Poor drafting decisions that may include just not drafting at all, poor free agency decisions and incredibly poor ownership.
Why Even Bother Drafting
David Lee and Kristaps Porzingis are the two best draft picks that the Knicks have made this century. That tells you how bad the drafting for this team has been. Sometimes, they didn’t have any first-round picks, sometimes they only had one draft pick. Then you have the years of 2001 where they had two second round picks and drafted players that never played a game in the NBA (the second time in 3 years this had happened (1999)), and 2016 where the Knicks just didn’t have any picks at all.
Some of the first rounders they did pick, even the biggest of hoop fans probably couldn’t tell you who these guys are.
Donnell Harvey, Games Played: 205
Mike Sweetney, GP: 233
Renaldo Balkman, GP: 221
Mardy Collins, GP: 189
Again, these guys are all Knicks first round picks. Picks that I couldn’t make out even if they were standing in a police lineup with name tags on. All four of these guys played less games combined than Channing Frye did in his entire career. Frye was drafted by the Knicks in 2005, played 890 games total and had a pretty decent career. Albeit most of those games were played for teams other than the Knicks. That brings us to the second part of these draft miscues.
Even when New York did make some good decisions in the draft, they didn’t wait long enough for those picks to pan out. Those picks would be moved and become great players elsewhere. And just like Channing Frye, there are plenty of examples.
Nenê, 2002 R1 P7: ’02-’03 NBA All-Rookie, traded on draft night
Trevor Ariza, 2003 R2 P43: 2009 NBA Champ
Channing Frye, 2005 R1 P8: ’05-’06 NBA All-Rookie, 2016 NBA Champ
David Lee, 2005 R1 P30: 2x All-Star (1 w/ Knicks), ’12-’13 All-NBA, 2015 NBA Champ
Danilo Gallinari, 2008 R1 P8: solid role player, career 38.1% 3PT shooter
Iman Shumpert, 2011 R1 P17: solid role player, ’11-’12 All-Rookie, 2016 NBA Champ
Tim Hardaway, 2014 R1 P24: ’13-’14 NBA All-Rookie, solid role player, 14.1 PPG
Kristaps Porzingis, 2015 R1 P4: ’15-’16 NBA All-Rookie, 1x All-Star (w/ Knicks), 19.7 PPG
I’m going to stop it at 2015 because some of the Knicks draft picks since then are still making their mark in the NBA. Porzingis has been in the league for nearly a decade, so I feel he’s a good cutoff point. However, these players mentioned above never lived up to their full potential in New York because the Knicks lacked the patience to see them grow up in the league.
On a minor note, I couldn’t fit this in anywhere but it’s hilarious to bring up. Never forget when this Knicks fan freaked out on the drafting of Kristaps Porzingis.
Who the fuck is this / tingis pingis / tingus pingus pic.twitter.com/DweMxext2O
— reaction memes ➡️ @VideoReacts (@VideoReacts) August 8, 2020
Okay fun over, back to business. Now, when you look at the players the Knicks took, you’d say, “yeah that’s pretty bad.” When you see what they could have had instead, it’s haunting.
2003: drafted Mike Sweetney at Round 1, Pick 9. Players selected after: David West, Kendrick Perkins, Leandro Barbosa, Zaza Pachulia, Mo Williams and Kyle Korver
2005: drafted Channing Frye at Round 1, Pick 8. Players selected after: Danny Granger, Gerald Green, Jarret Jack and Monta Ellis. They still had a chance at Ellis with their second first round pick but chose David Lee instead.
2006: drafted Renaldo Balkman at Round 1, Pick 20. Players selected after: Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry and Jordan Farmar. The Knicks then drafted Mardy Collins at Round 1, Pick 29. Players selected after: P.J. Tucker and Paul Millsap
2007: drafted Wilson Chander at Round 1, Pick 23. Players selected after: Marc Gasol
2008: drafted Danilo Gallinari at Round 1, Pick 8. Players selected after: Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, JaVale McGee, DeAndre Jordan and Goran Dragić
2009: drafted Jordan Hill at Round 1, Pick 8. Players selected after: DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holliday, Ty Lawson, Jeff Teague, Taj Gibson, Patrick Beverly, Danny Green and Patty Mills
2010: drafted Andy Rautins and Landry Fields at Round 2, Picks 38 & 39. Players selected after: Lance Stephenson
2011: drafted Iman Shumpert at Round 1, Pick 17. Players selected after: Kenneth Faried, Reggie Jackson, Jimmy Butler, Bojan Bogdanović and Chandler Parsons
2013: drafted Tim Hardaway Jr. at Round 1, Pick 24. Players selected after: Rudy Gobert
2014: drafted Cleanthony Early at Round 2, Pick 34. Players selected after: Spencer Dinwiddie, Jerami Grant, Nikola Jokić and Jordan Clarkson
2017: drafted Frank Ntilikina at Round 1, Pick 8. Players selected after: Donovan Mitchell, Bam Adebayo and Dillon Brooks
2018: drafted Kevin Knox at Round 1, Pick 9. Players selected after: Mikal Bridges, Shai-Gilgeous Alexander and Miles Bridges
I’m going to be honest; I was planning on stopping this “missed opportunities” list at 2010 because by then, you guys would get the idea. But as I kept going, the worse it got. I will cut it off at 2018 because the young guys are still finding their footing, but still, I’m convinced that the people who are scouts for the Knicks are all legally blind.
General Managers are responsible for bringing in the winning pieces to the team. The goal is to compete and win a championship. Yet, somehow, the Knicks do the exact opposite. It’s not fair to call some of these players draft busts but when you see who the Knicks could have had instead, it’s vomit inducing. It’s a good thing there are other ways to build a team than the draft. You can get players, big name players in fact, via free agency and trades to come and play for your team. Did the Knicks do that part well? Spoiler alert: they did not.
Moves Of False Hope
So, I lied slightly. The Knicks did bring in one big free agent this century in Amari Stoudemire during the summer of 2010. The only problem was that this was the same summer where LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade were also free agents. Considering the knee problems that plagued Stoudemire later in his career, I’m sure the Knicks would have preferred to sign one of the other three players instead.
They also did trade for Carmelo Anthony and had success. They just never made it past the 2nd round in the playoffs in his six and a half seasons in New York.
Those two players are really the only two moves the Knicks have made since 2000 that have even slightly panned out. Let’s look back at some of those other moves, trades and signings alike. You know, the ones that didn’t pan out.
Glen Rice: Rice was traded to the Knicks in a sign and trade as a part of a bigger 4-team trade that saw Knicks legend Patrick Ewing leave New York. Rice lasted one season with the Knicks and was then shipped off to Houston.
Antonio McDyess: McDyess was part of a blockbuster trade that sent Marcus Camby to Denver and McDyess to the Knicks. The trade was an absolute disaster as McDyess missed the entire ’02-’03 season with knee issues. He only played 18 total games for the Knicks before being shipped off to Phoenix in exchange for the next star on this list.
Stephon Marbury: A move that should have been franchise altering definitely was. It was just done in the wrong way. While Marbury certainly did have the star power at the time, he was anything but. He averaged more than 20 points per game just once and clashed with coaches. The Knicks only made the playoffs once with Marbury, a losing season during ’03-’04 in which they were swept in the first round by the rival Nets.
Dikembe Mutombo: During that same ’03-’04 season, the Knicks picked up Center Dikembe Mutombo after his contract was bought out by the Nets. He was brought in to provide help with New York’s lacking defense, but, once again, this move did not pan out. Mutombo lasted just one season as he too was also hampered by nagging injuries.
Jerome James: An average player at best, James had one breakout playoff series while playing for Seattle. The Knicks saw this, decided James was their guy, and signed him to a five-year contract for $30 million. His best season with the team saw him average 3.0 points and 2.0 rebounds per game. Again, that was his best season with the Knicks and that was also the first year of the contract. The rest of the contract was a disaster as James averaged less points and rebounds a game than in that first year and missed the last year of the contract due to injury.
Eddy Curry: The Knicks swung for more defensive help again as they acquired Curry in a trade. New York was able to get Curry for 3 players and 2 first round picks. Curry had an okay first two years with the Knicks but declined quickly after. This lead to, once again, New York not making the playoffs during Curry’s time with the team. To add insult to injury, the first round picks they traded away turned into LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah.
Steve Francis: Although Francis was in his prime age at the time of the trade (28) he was anything but. Francis had long since passed the best years of his career and only averaged 11.3 PPG at best during his Knicks tenure. To make matters worse, the Knicks traded away Trevor Ariza to acquire Francis. Ariza would end up playing a key role for the Lakers ’08-’09 Championship team.
Zach Randolph: Remember how the Knicks didn’t give some of their draft picks time to grow and evolve? Yeah, that’s the same thing that happened here. The team decided to get Marbury some help and acquired Zach Randolph in a trade. Randolph actually played really well; however, the Knicks didn’t want to deal with his contract and traded him away during the ’08-09’ season to the Clippers. In return New York got Cuttino Mobley, who never played because of a heart issue, and Tim Thomas who ended up being just a role player. After his Clippers tenure, Randolph would become a key piece for the Grizzlies and help take the team to their only Western Conference Finals appearance.
Andrea Bargnani: The Knicks best season this century came during the ’12-’13 season as they won 54 games and made it to the 2nd round of the playoffs. During that 2nd round, the Indiana Pacers were able to take care of the Knicks with their young core of Paul George, Lance Stephenson and Roy Hibbert. New York needed to make a move to get past them and have a shot for the Eastern Conference crown. They made that move in the form of trading for Raptors star Andrea Bargnani thus completing one of their two goals. Let’s see how that worked out.
Fun fact, Bargnani tore an elbow ligament on that missed dunk. Absolutely brutal. The decision to bring him in ultimately backfired as the Knicks finished the next season 37-45 and missed the playoffs. It turned out to be the first year of a seven-year playoff drought and Bargnani would only last two seasons in New York before moving on to Brooklyn.
Joakim Noah: When you trade away your future first-round pick and it turns into Joakim Noah, that doesn’t mean he’s gone forever. In the worst deal for the Knicks this century, they signed Noah to a 4-year $72 million contract in 2016. He only played 53 games for the team as he was held back by injuries and, by his own admission, partying too much in the Big Apple. Noah was released by the Knicks and finished his career elsewhere while he stayed on the Knicks financial books until 2022.
General Mangers have the job of finding players to make the team into a contender. The Knicks GMs have found players that, on paper, should turn them into contenders. They just never did the leg work and the research to find out if any of these players would pan out. They lack the competence of doing anything right and even when they do get it right, they make a move to set the franchise back by years. Now, all the blame can’t be just on the GMs. These moves must be okayed by someone, someone who owns the team, someone who goes by the name of James Dolan.
James F’ing Dolan
Anytime a team’s fan base calls for the owner to sell the franchise, you know something bad is going on. James Dolan is one of those owners who is despised by his fan base. But why is it that the fans are mad? Well, if you’re Dolan, there are many reasons why the fans should be not just mad, but irate. For one, all the draft decisions and free agency/trade decisions would be enough to make a casual fan go insane. When you look deeper into it, as most hardcore Knicks fans would, the controversies become so much that it makes a person want to dive and swim in the Hudson River for days on end.
I’m going to list the categories of controversies and for the sake of all of you reading this, we’re going to keep it to just Knicks issues. Trust me, Dolan has many more controversies outside of the Knicks that you can look up for yourself.
Coaches
As of the time of this writing, the Knicks longest tenured coach this century has been Mike D’Antoni with 288 games under his belt. D’Antoni is only one of only three coaches who have had success for the Knicks since 2000 and the list of coaches behind him isn’t great. Here is the worst of the worst.
Don Chaney, Lenny Wilkins, Larry Brown, Isiah Thomas, Derek Fisher, Jeff Hornacek and David Fizdale all combined to go 312-603 as Knicks Head Coach. This is a list that includes a Top 10 and Top 15 Head Coach in NBA History, three Coach of the Year award winners and 2 NBA champions as HC. None of these men could bring even the slightest amount of success to this abysmal franchise.
Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. More controversies are coming!
A Scandal
Well, there’s no jokes here. In 2007, Knicks GM/Head Coach Isiah Thomas was accused of sexual assault by a Knicks executive. The accuser, Anucha Browne-Sanders, accused James Dolan of firing her out of spite after she complained about Tomas’ sexual advances. Sanders filed a lawsuit against Dolan and MSG and was awarded $11 million. Dolan further caused more controversy during the lawsuit by awarding Thomas a contract extension with the Knicks, a move that Dolan was heavily criticized for. Years later, after Thomas’ time with the Knicks had ended, Dolan appointed Thomas as the President of the WNBA’s New York Liberty. The move was heavily panned by fans and critics alike and at the very least was considered tone deaf in light of Thomas’ history.
James Dolan is going to do what he wants. That’s the easiest way to say it. He doesn’t care who you are or how you feel. If you’ve read this and still don’t believe me, allow me to provide more examples.
“Tit For Tat” With Fans
In 2015, James Dolan received a letter from a fan that criticized his ownership of the Knicks along with his leadership. Dolan responded back with another letter in which he told the fan to “root for the Nets because the Knicks don’t want you” as well as calling the fan “a sad person” and “alcoholic maybe”. Dolan never apologized for his response and referred to it going tit for tat with a fan.
In 2017, Knicks legend Charles Oakley was sitting in the stands and got into a shouting match with Dolan. Dolan then had Oakley removed from MSG by security. Oakley thinks there is very little chance of reconciliation with Dolan and said Dolan tries to bully everyone because he has money and power.
In 2019, a Knicks fan yelled at Dolan to “sell the team”, a phrase that a fan has every right to say considering it is not offensive and contains no swearing. If I was bad at my job in the public eye, I would be fine if people criticized me. It would only challenge me to be better. That is not how James Dolan thinks. He threatened to ban the fan from MSG instead. In 2021, Dolan had another fan removed after he saw the fan sporting a “Ban Dolan” t-shirt.
James Dolan introduced a policy at MSG that stated that any lawyers that are involved in litigation against him, any team Dolan owns or Madison Square Garden, can be refused entry into the famous arena. In 2022, attorney Larry Hutcher sued Dolan for his policy and in return, Dolan banned Hutcher and his entire law firm from MSG, Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theater and the Hulu Theater at MSG. Hutcher was also forced to relinquish his season tickets to the Knicks that he had held for nearly 50 years. Hutcher dropped the lawsuit a year later and was allowed to return to MSG.
James Dolan is not a good person. Plain and simple. He’s a terrible owner and jokingly, I say he should be put up in front of a judge for war crimes against the people of New York. Realistically speaking, there’s nothing fans can do except wait out his tenure as owner. Trust me, this is what I’m currently going through with Arte Moreno as the Angels owner in Anaheim. I feel New York’s pain. All you can do is sit back, relax and enjoy the rollercoaster of James Dolan’s ownership. Feel free to say “you suck” on the ride, just do so at your own peril.
There you have it. The disaster that proves to be the New York Knicks. That’s not just me saying that by the way. Take these two quotes into consideration and tell me if you agree.
When the Knicks we’re struggling in the mid 2000’s, super fan Spike Lee said, “We’ve got the highest payroll in the league, the highest priced tickets in the world and New York City fans aren’t stupid. They’re not going for okey-doke, they’re not going to be hornswoggled or bamboozled. So you got to put a plan in place.” In 2020, Lee also said “I look stupid now” after he realized he had given the Knicks $10 million over the last 30 years.
Regarding the sexual assault lawsuit against James Dolan and the Knicks, then NBA Commissioner David Stern said, “They’re not a model of intelligent management. There were many checkpoints along the way where more decisive action would have eliminated this issue.”
This team is so dysfunctional and has had so many problems this century. And it all comes down to one person. The man who owns them, the man who refuses to sell the team, the man who isn’t fit to own a McDonalds, James Dolan. Yet somehow, he is front and center of one of the most expensive NBA franchises in the league. The fans can only hope that another person comes along to be front and center for them sooner than later. In the meantime, at least New Yorkers can relish the fact that they’ll always have The World’s Most Famous Arena.
Welp, maybe not. Godspeed Knicks fans.
