An Open letter to New York Knicks president and general manager Donnie Walsh

















Dear Donnie,





Considering that you're a Bronx native and have lived your life working in the business of professional basketball, I would never insult you by explaining to you the type of fan base that you've inherited when you undertook the enormous task of rebuliding the organization that Isiah Thomas ripped apart as if it were the low cut top of an office intern. However, from what appears to be happening, it may be time for you to be reminded our need and desire for basketball relevance. We're too loyal a group to accept anything else.





We don't possess the entitlements of New York Yankee or Boston Celtic fans when it comes to championships. We understand that those are few and far between. But our loyalty, appreciation of history, and understanding of the nuances of the game commands basketball relevance. And the product that you put on the floor each night is the polar opposite. As fans, we have been graced with an anti-competitve team of mercenaries who play as if they are waiting for a savior to arrive from the heavens. He actually did arrive two Fridays ago, but the problem was that he was wearing a Cleveland Cavaliers uniform.







I am a 40 year old Knick fan, so I am obviously too young to recall the championship teams of 1970 and 1973. My first recollection of rooting for the Knicks is the 1975-76 team with a young Bob McAdoo in his prime and the last season of the great Walt "Clyde" Frazier. Even at the tender age of 7, my father taught me enough to know that if we had Clyde and Earl the Pearl Monroe, we were relevant, no matter how old they were. The following year, in Willis Reed's first year as head coach, the Knicks advanced to the second round of the playoffs after a 43-39 season. It wasn't greatness, but the Knicks mattered.







In the next few years, the Knicks drafted well, and I got the pleasure of rooting for good young players like Bill Cartwright and Micheal Ray Richardson, who together led the Knicks to a 50 win season after Hall of Fame coach Red Holzman had returned to the sidelines. Unfortunately, we got knocked out in the first round of the playoffs, but as fans, we had hope and confidence about the future. Unfortunately, the following year, we took a step back and had a 33 win season and missed the playoffs. That also ended up being Holzman's last season as head coach.







Now, Donnie, I want you to observe what happened after this. Management was bold and aggressive. The Knicks traded Richardson to the Golden State Warriors for future Knicks legend Bernard King. The Knicks also hired Hubie Brown as head coach. Led by Brown, King, and Cartwright, the Knicks won 44 games and advanced to the second round of the playoffs only to get swept by eventual NBA champion, the Julius Erving led Philadelphia 76ers. But the statement was made. As long as the Knicks had King and Hubie Brown, we would be a force to be reckoned with and Madison Square Garden would once again be a tough place for opponents to play.







The following season was memorable for a variety of reasons. The Knicks won 47 games in 1983-1984 and were also knocked out in the second round of the playoffs. But this was the year that the Knicks beat the Detroit Pistons in a 5 game epic series in the first round of the playoffs. This series was memorable for all Knicks fans because of the classic duel that developed between King and Pistons guard Isiah Thomas. The same Isiah Thomas that exhibited disgusting gall in announcing to Knick fans in his first season as general manager, "Welcome to the Playoffs." Well Donnie, I guess Isiah exhibited his selective memory in forgetting that we beat him that year in the playoffs, so no need to welcome us. Now that I think about it, maybe his methodical dismantling of every aspect of our organization was an elaborate revenge plot, but I digress. The Knicks would lose a 7 game second round series that season to the eventual World Champion Boston Celtics. Again, we may not have been the best team in the NBA, but we were relevant.





The following season was characterized by a stroke of bad luck followed by a stroke of great luck. Bernard King's devastating knee injury defined this 24 win season. And a lucky ping pong ball defined the offseason. The Knicks weren't having such a great season when King went down, so the 24 win total at season's end was somewhat predictable. What we didn't predict Donnie is Commissioner David Stern picking our ping pong ball out of the lottery bucket giving us the right to select Patrick Ewing with the first pick in the draft.





Now I know Donnie that I do not need to recount to you many details of the Patrick Ewing era with the Knicks considering you became the Indiana Pacers general manager in 1986. You lived it in a unique way. You successfully built a team to compete with Ewing's Knicks. As an executive, you understood that the right decisions weren't always the easy ones. Your second year as Pacer GM, you risked getting lynched by an angry mob by selecting Reggie Miller in the first round in 1987, opting to leave Indiana hometown hero Steve Alford on the board. And we all know how well that worked out. However, Donnie, I do feel the need to enlighten you some on what us Knick fans FEEL about Patrick Ewing, because this helps underscore our insatiable desire for basketball relevance.





Patrick Ewing was suppossed to be the Knicks savior. He was the avenue that would return us to the championship glory years of the early seventies. Unfortunately, he was never properly surrounded with enough talent to get us over the hump until it was too late in his career. Whether it was Dave DeBusschere, Al Bianchi, or Ernie Grunfeld, none of our GMs could get the formula exactly right around Patrick Ewing. They all delivered us big time coaches. Ewing was coached by Hubie Brown, Rick Pitino, Pat Riley, and Jeff Van Gundy. (The Don Nelson era NEVER happened, I swear..), but it was never enough. By the time Grunfeld surrounded Ewing with an athletic, skilled group, it was too late. If Patrick played with Latrell Sprewell, Allen Houston, Larry Johnson, and Marcus Camby when he was in his prime, odds are we would have won a title. And we wrongly blamed Patrick for that.





You see Donnie, Patrick gave us every thing he had. When his athleticism started to fail him a little, he re-made his game. He gave us over a decade of excitement and was a John Starks 2-18 performance away from delivering us that elusive title. As a Knick fan, I wish I appreciated Patrick the way I do now. He gave us basketball relevance for a long stretch. From the late 80's through the late 90's, Patrick Ewing was New York Knicks basketball and we mattered. Madison Square Garden was electric every night, no matter who the road team was. As I watch the disaster that you're rolling out night after night, I get a deeper and deeper appreciation for what Ewing delivered. And Donnie, before I detail our demise to you, which is crucially important because you seem to be making many of the same mistakes, I need to point one other thing to you about Patrick Ewing.





Patrick Ewing is currently an assistant coach with the Orlando Magic and from all accounts a damn good one. From what I understand, Ewing has played a significant role in the development of Orlando center Dwight Howard. Before that, he was instrumental in developing Yao Ming. Ewing has also been very public in his desire to return to the Knicks as a coach, whether it be as an assistant or running the show himself. The only former Knick players who have a much historical significance to our organization are Willis Reed and Clyde Frazier. The organization has always found roles for both of them whether it be on the sidelines, the front office, or the broadcast booth. However, when Ewing requested an interview for an opportunity to join Mike D'Antoni's staff before last season, he was rebuffed. Donnie, we have always been a franchise whose history mattered. I would hope that if another chance would arise to be able to bring Ewing back to the organization in a role he's qualified for (assistant coach or head coach), that you'll make it right with Patrick and bring him home, but I digress......





It all started to go down hill Donnie, when Jeff Van Gundy, a coach who I greatly respect and admire, won a power struggle with Ernie Grunfeld and Grunfeld was dismissed as GM. His successor was former Utah Jazz GM Scott Layden. Layden's plan seem to be to build the Utah Jazz east and call them the Knicks. The problem was that Scotty boy didn't have Karl Malone and John Stockton, which is the equivalent of the white tigers performing in Vegas without Siegfried and Roy. Layden took on salary like Isiah Thomas harassed female employees. As opposed to letting Ewing's contract expire and come off the salary cap, keeping in mind that the group he had had gone to the finals with Ewing getting hurt early in the playoffs in 1999, Layden shipped Ewing out and brought back Glen Rice and his bloaded contract and Luc Longley's corpse and the corpse's bloated contract. Layden paid absurd amounts of Cablevision's money to sign free agents Howard Eisley, Shandon Anderson, and Clarence Weatherspoon. He traded Marcus Camby, and the #7 pick in the 2002 draft, which ended up being Nene, for Antonio McDyess cooming off knee surgery. McDyess was never the same player. Nene is currently the starting center on a legitimate title contender and Marcus Camby is still blocking shots, changing shots and pulling down rebounds at the age of 35. And for Layden's final gift, he cornered the market on overweight, undersized power forwards by drafting Michael Sweetney in 2003 who ate himself out of the league. Needless to say, if Layden had been willing to rebuild, we would have been closer to turning it around. Instead, Scotty boy put us on the road to irrelevance.





The thing is Donnie, is that most Knick fans believed that we were on our way out of the woods in December of 2003 when Layden was dismissed and MSG management hired Isiah Thomas on Garden president Steve Mills' recommendation. Needless to say, Thomas descended our proud organization to depths none of us ever thought imaginable. Donnie, I would never insult you by detailing the train wreck that Isiah made of our roster and salary cap situation. After all, you are the one who has taken on the monumental task of turning around this atrocity. No one understands this personnel mess better than you. but I do feel the need to remind you how Thomas dragged our organization through the mud. He took a class organization with a proud fan base and reduced it to the lowest common denominator.



His first year on the job, he humiliated a classy gentleman in head coach Don Chaney by joking about firing him on the David Letterman show 3 days BEFORE he fired Chaney. He created a corporate culture within the Knick offices that was akin to a go-go bar, culminating in a very public sexual harassment trial. Because of Isiah, the name Anucha Brown Sanders has been engraved in New York Knick history for all the wrong reasons. Donnie, it still puzzles me how garden management would pay $20 million to Shandon Anderson to go home, but wouldn't pay $6 million to Sanders to spare the organization epic embarrassment. And as you well know, Isiah couldn't just go away quietly. His convoluted overdose/suicide attempt last year forced you to publicly defend him just because you kept him on with the organization because you personally like Isiah and you are a compassionate man. And of course Isiah handled it in his own unique way by publicly throwing his 16 year old daughter under the bus. Donnie, this mees you have inherited goes beyond the roster. The culture has been poisoned and there is no quick antidote to cleanse it. And I'm sparing the details of the disaster that Stephon Marbury brought home with him.



Donnie, you've done some very good things since you took over the Knicks. Finding takers for Zack Randolph and Jamal Crawford for players with expiring contracts was no easy feat, but you got it done. And your first round pick last season, Italian forward Danilo Gallinari shows a lot of promise, assuming that he doesn't need back surgery. But Donnie, what you've done in your tenure is not inspiring confidence and from all appearances, you are putting all of your eggs in one basket.



You see Donnie, what you have here is a team of mercenaries, with very few building blocks. You brought in a coach who subscribes to an up tempo guard driven system. Yet in this past year's draft, with a draft loaded with point guards who could succeed in running Mike D'Antoni's system, you chose to select yet another power forward. Donnie, I don't think very much of the player you selected, Jordan Hill. He's very raw and is a low energy player. He appears to be the second coming of Jerrod Mustaf. But its virtually immaterial how good Hill is, unless he morphs into Amare Stoudemire. Donnie, you don't have any guards. And you left 4 point guards on the board who all could have been long term solutions at the position. Ty Lawson is a key bench contributor on a title contender in the Denver Nuggets and you left him on the board for Hill. Before you accuse me of 20/20 hindsight, Donnie, click on this link http://deependdive.blogspot.com/2009/06/some-wrap-up-business-on-finals-and-my.html. Brandon Jennings scored 55 points last Saturday night for Milwaukee and is the fastest guard in the league and you left him on the board for Hill. Eric Maynor won a game for Utah the other night scoring 11 4th quarter points against Toronto and you left him on the board for Hill. And Utah has one of the league's best point guards in Deron Williams but deemed Maynor too good to pass up. Darren Collison led New Orleans to a win earlier this week replacing an injured Chris Paul, the best point guard in the league. New Orleans took Collison even though they have Paul because he was too good to pass up. You passed on him for Hill. Your answer was to select Toney Douglas at the end of the first round, who is an off guard in a point guard's body. That #8 pick was a huge key in getting things going on the right track and you squandered it. Even if Hill ends up being productive, he'll never get enough playing time behind Gallinari and David Lee.

This entire formula has created an atmosphere where your players have very little vested interest in team success. Lets use Lee as an example. He made his name in the league through hustle and scrappy play. These days, he hustles one out of every 3 games and plays more like a finesse player. Part of it is the culture, but Lee needs to realize if he approached effort the way Anderson Varejao does on Cleveland, he may have gotten that 5 year $50 million contract he was looking for ths past offseason. Instead he's back in New York on a one year contract praying that you'll find enough value in him to sign him to a long term deal. And while we're talking about one year contracts, Donnie, if you do decide to sign Allen Iverson, which will definitely help, please waive that sideshow clown Nate Robinson. His clown act on and off the court only furthers the classless culture that was pervasive during the Isiah regime. Remember, Donnie, Iverson's a freebie for you this year. He won't hurt your lottery chances because Isiah traded next year's first rounder in the Marbury trade. We'll call that trade the gift that keeps on giving.


Donnie, I know the plan is to use the available cap space to sign LeBron James in the offseason. But frankly thats no excuse for what occurred two Fridays ago at the garden when Le Bron and the Cavaliers came in for a visit. It used to be that if one of the best players in the league came on a conference rival came into the Garden for a nationally televised game, the one thing he could count on was to be knocked on his rear end several times through the course of the game. The way everyone, and I mean everyone Donnie, genuflected at this man's feet made me want to vomit bile. A regular season game against a conference rival turned into a recruiting visit, and the whole country saw it. What happened to the pride of the New York Knicks? And before you blame the fans, remember they're taking their lead from the organization of which you are president. I must say Donnie, it is a new low for our very proud franchise and that begs my last question.

I understand that signing LeBron is Plan A, but what's plan B? What happens if LeBron stays in Cleveland, Dwyane Wade stays in Miami and Chris Bosh joins him there, Amare Stoudemire stays in Phoenix, and Joe Johnson goes to The Bulls? What are the Knicks going to do? Donnie, you have to realize that the Bulls, the Heat, the Nets, and the Clippers all have cap space available for one of these stars. Each and every one of those teams are a more preferable destination for a star who wants to win immediately. We've reached a new low when the Clippers are a more attractive free agent destination than the New York Knicks.

One last thought for you Donnie. You've been around this game and you've seen alot. You know what its like to deal with siginificant organizational adversity. After all, you were the President of the Indiana Pacers when the your players ran into the stands 5 years ago in Auburn Hills, Michigan to beat up fans. Please recognize how dire this has become for your loyal fan base. Implore your coach to play the young guys, or at least guys you think are part of the solution. If you bring in Iverson, surround him with Gallinari, Lee, Wilson Chandler, and Douglas. Let D'Antoni know that Jordan Hill should have a role in the rotation. If he stinks, and I think he does, Donnie, you need to know sooner rather than later. Please get this ship steered in the right direction. As fans, this is what we deserve. We've done our time. Make us relevant again.


Best Regards,


Brian Geltzeiler