Frankly I’m sick of hearing about Lebron this and Lebron that. Enough people have prognosticated about it that one would assume that he’s the only free agent on the market.
Sure it could be because of recent events that have cemented in my mind that unless Lebron’s love for the city is that great that he would take a leap of faith to come to NY, that its now between Cleveland and Chicago for the rights to the game’s biggest star.
To recap, the Bulls have in place, a deal that would send Kirk Hinrich to Washington which would free up enough dollars to allow Chicago to sign two max free agents. Well technically almost a second max contract but a secondary player along the lines of a Joe Johnson or Carlos Boozer. Which make them the prohibitive favorites should Mr James want to venture outside of his comfort zone of Cleveland where he basically is the mayor. What else hurt New York’s chances was an announcement made by James’ manager Maverick Carter that Lebron never intended on going on a recruiting tour, but instead plans on meeting with all the teams in a neutral site. New York reportedly was preparing a huge presentation, not so much on the team which lacks depth beyond Gallinari, Chandler, and Douglas, but on the city. Now, either they bring the celebs and the full court press to Lebron or they have a very clever contingency plan moving ahead.
But even if you consider the alternatives on the market, short of Lebron this off season will be considered a failure. But I’m a bit more optimistic on that front. Think back to just five years ago. The Knicks were mired in yet another losing campaign, headed by Isiah Thomas who loved trading first round picks for players who had very little to no upside. In fact many of his acquisitions were all reported head cases, Zach Randolph, Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry. Need we say more? Worse, he took on atrocious contracts and became a barren wasteland where teams could dump bad players or bad contracts and most times both.
When he was finally let go, it seemed like it was Mission Impossible and even Ethan Hunt couldn’t help the Knicks out. But here we are on the eve of the biggest free agent summer in recent memory and the Knicks are a player. They have the city, the promise of international fame like no other city outside of LA can offer. They have a coach who’s system is fun entertaining and the kind of O that would be appealing to just about any FA and who is wildly popular with all the big free agents. They also have the prospect of giving Lebron his choice of his sidekick.
Its a far cry from where they were and for that Donnie Walsh should be commended. Walsh is a native New Yorker so he knows what basketball means to the city and what a rejuvinated Knicks team would be like in the city. He understands that bringing in a Lebron would instantly revive the now dormant basketball hub of America. Forget Indiana, this is the real hoop dreams. Forget Chicago and LA, those are close seconds and thirds. Sure I may be biased but I don’t hear people calling the Staples Center the mecca of basketball. Ditto for the United Center. Its the home to for what many consider the most fundamentally sound team, ever, the 1970 and 1973 teams. People talk about those teams as fondly as they do about their own families. The most often thing you will hear is “you will never see a team that unselfish ever again.”. There’s an unmistakeable buzz around the city when New Yorks basketball team is good. And Donnie better than most understand that.
That is the message he needs to deliver to Lebron in a way which makes it unmistakeably unique and so powerful that the mission, should he choose to accept it, would be the single greatest achievement. There’s no bigger upside than delivering a title to New York. No one can deny that something like that would catapult Lebron to some other planetary orbit. His hype finally met, and his greatness realized.
No doubt its going to be tough. The knicks don’t have a full roster. They don’t have too many high impact rookies coming in unless Andy Rautins can channel his inner Steve Kerr. But he can pick his sidekick. Donnies job is to convince Lebron that New York is the best place to play and Lebrons will be to pick his Pippen.
Reality says Chicago is his best option to rack up titles. Cleveland is his best option to make good as a hometown kid. But New York is his best option to go beyond legendary. The Knicks rebuilding is concentrated around this summer but even if Lebron doesn’t come there are other options. But those options aren’t as enticing as having Lebron come to save professional basketball in New York.
In closing, if it helps fellow Knick fans, when Lebron changed his number to 6, I didn’t automatically assume that his reasoning was to go to Chicago. It was to craft his own legacy. For kids to wear 6, and think of it like people think of 23. So if that’s the case then its between Cleveland and New York. New York has that legendary team, now they need that one player to come along and deliver titles.
No matter what happens in these Lebron sweepstakes know this Knick fans, if we can crawl out of the crater we were in, then Donnie can get us out. We might not be as good as we hoped but we can be good and for Knick fans like myself that’s all we can ask for.
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