A Blue VaLINtine Story

I have to say that I’ve had a great past two weeks.

When your team wins the Super Bowl, it makes your days a little brighter, the pride from within you beams a little stronger, and you have a little extra pep in your step.  And as I detailed in my Big Blue Pride post, I was fortunate enough to attend the ticker-tape parade and view my squad as they paraded up Broadway on blue, red and white decorated floats.

(You know it just occurred to me – I never really showed the pictures to my family.  They’re not huge fans, but they were rooting hard for the G-Men.  I’ll do that tonight… oops.)

So by the middle of last week (in fact it was last Wednesday), the euphoria subsided some and I turned my focus to my beloved New York Knickerbockers – a team that had been struggling badly during the Giants’ Super Bowl run and were able to go somewhat unnoticed due to that.  But football was over, andthe elation of Big Blue’s accomplishments were about to give way to the disappointment by beloved New York Knicks whose win-loss record had dropped as low as 8-15…

Except that didn’t happen, did it?

This is just a dumb guess, but by now you’ve heard of this kid named Jeremy Lin.  Technically, I’ve heard about him since 2010 when he played for (and graduated) Harvard University.  Some around the Net commented that he might have a shot at the NBA, that they hope he’d have a shot at the NBA.  You probably know his story by now: he was cut by the Golden State Warriors, cut again by the Houston Rockets, and the Knicks signed him right after Christmas as insurance because rookie guard Iman Shumpert had to sit out a few games due to injury.  Lin saw limited garbage-time minutes until Knicks head-coach Mike D’Antoni had practically no choice but put him in the game against the New Jersey Nets on Saturday, February 4th.

He dropped 25 points and seven assists, and the Knicks won.  Huh?

I didn’t watch that game, nor did I watch his first start of the season against the Utah Jazz where he put up 28 points and eight assists in another win.  I was out-of-town that weekend on personal b.i. and still in the afterglow of the Giants’ winning the big one.  So last Wednesday, I turned on the TV after work to catch the team play in D.C. against the Wizards…

Whoa ho-ho…  What is this?  Who is this kid?  What in the… YES!!!

Look at those drives to the basket!  Look at the dishes to teammates for dunks and open shots!  Look at the… HE CAN DUNK! WOW!!!  And the crowd goes wild!

I did say they were on the road, right?

I’m intrigued now.  This Lin dude can play, but I thought he was just keeping the seat warm for when Baron Davis is healthy enough to play.  But then the Laker game came – I’m still watching the highlights from that one, particularly that three-pointer from the corner with 5:39 left in the fourth quarter.  Look at the crowd cheering; look at how the players are all celebrating; look at the renewed enthusiasm; look at me pumping my fist wildly like I was watching… the Giants?

Yes, that same feeling watching the football Giants as they beat the stupid Cowgirls Dallas Cowboys to win the NFC East and make the playoffs and as they manhandled the Atlanta Falcons in the Wild Card Round.  The feeling of watching a team that had previously struggled but was having the missing parts reinserted, the confidence level rising, to come together finally as a team and play to their potential in a timely fashion.  That same feeling – watching my beloved Knicks – bringing a smile to my face.

But that was nothing compared to Tuesday night.  On a five-game winning streak, the Knicks were playing a Toronto Raptors team that seemed to have had enough of the hype.  The blue-and-orange at one point were down 17 points to the dinosaurs whom were determined to take young Jeremy out of his game by sending double-teams at him and getting physical with him.

But Jeremy Lin ain’t no punk, and no longer were the Knicks.  Despite his counterpart Jose Calderon going off for 25 points and nine assists, and the fact Lin had eight turnovers in the game due to fatigue and increased defensive pressure, the team whittled the lead down to single-digits.  Down five points with 1:34 left in the game, Iman Shumpert – who was assigned to guard Calderon in the fourth quarter and had shut him down – picked Calderon’s pocket clean and raced down-court for an emphatic dunk that closed the gap to three points.  After a defensive stop, the ball was in Lin the Dragon’s hands yet again.

He drove the lane… again.  He scored… again… AND ONE!!! WOOOOO!!!  Game tied!

Another defensive stop… Shump-Shump missed a layup but Knicks center Tyson Chandler gets the offensive board and tosses back out to Lin for the final shot.

10 seconds… nine seconds… eight seconds… is Lin sizing up Calderon?

Seven seconds, six seconds… Linfinity begins his move.  Calderon is giving him space to respect the drive to the hoop…

Five seconds, four seconds, three seconds… he’s now right beyond the three-point line.  And with 2.4 seconds left, Linsanity lets it fly from downtown…

Knick play-by-play announcer Mike Breen uses a word to articulate a certain in-momentum event punctuates the moment.  I believe that word is…

…

BANG!!!

The new starting point guard swished a gorilla-balls three-pointer with .5 seconds left to win the game!  I’m leaping from my chair, pumping my fist and yelping – about the same way when I watched the Giants kicked the field goal to beat the 49ers and make the Super Bowl; about the same way I reacted (sans jumping up and down) when Tom Brady’s hail-mary fell incomplete in the end-zone.  It’s been so, so long since I felt such elation for my Knicks.

Who says Eli Manning is the only New York athlete that leads his team from behind to win games?

I couldn’t watch the game against the Sacramento Kings last night because I was at the Schomburg Center in Harlem watching a viewing of 1st and Goal in the Bronx – a documentary about the first Black college football game played in New York City.  But best believe as soon as I got home I turned on the TV to check the highlights, which revealed another Knicks’ win – an “easy” one over the Sacramento Kings.

Did I mention this happened while Amar’e Stoudamire missed last week’s games due to the death of his brother, and while Carmelo Anthony has been sitting out to heal from a groin injury?

I’m downright giddy – the one thing this team sorely needed above all else was a point guard.  In waiting for Baron Davis to get healthy and in game-shape, the season started to unravel.  But what they have now in this Jeremy dude, it seems the possibilities are Linfinite.  They have a point guard now so they – at the absolute worst – don’t have to wait on Davis to get ready, and when he is ready he can take his time getting into the swing of things.

Things might be starting to come together – just as they did with the Giants.

***

I did not have a Valentine per se, but I had a “person of interest” that I wanted to do something nice for.  I called up one of the Cheesecake Factory restaurants out where she lived and paid for a seven-inch key-lime cheesecake for her to pick up.  Naturally, she tried to get me to spill the beans before the 14th, but I held steadfast in giving my clues – she thought she was getting an Edible Arrangement’s basket (ha ha!).  When V-Day arrived, I took a picture of a piece of cheesecake I bought from the cafeteria here at work and sent it to her, along with the location to pick up her gift.

I am now her “favorite person in the world”.  It feels good to give, truly. [smile]

What a great two weeks.  Paying tides really does work, praise Jesus!

Which reminds me – let me write a check out for this Sunday…

That Blue and Orange Feeling

I am a Knicks fan.  I love the Knicks.  The 90’s team of Ewing, Oakley, Mason and Starks were my heart.  I thoroughly enjoyed Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby and enjoyed the surprise ’99 NBA Finals run.  I enjoyed Jeff Van Gundy as coach, although he was somewhat offensively minded challenged.  I loved, LOVED the great defense the teams of the 90’s played.  A couple of weeks ago at an alumni mixer, they had MSG up on the flat-screens showing the 1993 playoff games between them and the Bulls (I still boo Jordan to this day whenever I see him on TV).  I was into the game just like I watched it back when it happened live.  Chuck Spears can vouch – he tried to remind me that it was over 18 years ago.

If you looked through most years of Knick management, the upper office has never been consistently great with player personnel moves and assembling talent, save for the two Knick title years of ’69-’70 and ’72-’73.  Even in the 90’s, they could never get Ewing that one excellent wing player he needed.  I loved Starks, but he wasn’t it, and the Knicks allegedly came close to acquiring Mitch Richmond (whom I feel could have put them over the top in ’94 and ’95) but could never close the deal.  I hated that they couldn’t get Ewing that extra star player.  I say all that to say that with James Dolan taking over the Garden from Dave Checketts, and with Scott Layden and then Isiah Thomas, for most of the first decade in the 21st century, the team became the opposite of what I loved: bad defense, overpaid players, overpaid players past their prime, and bad team construction.

When Donnie Walsh replace Isiah as team president in 2008, there emerged a light at the end of the tunnel.  it was faint and ever so tiny, but it was there.  We sacrificed two seasons to have the salary cap room to make a run at the 2010 free agents, most notably LeBum..err I mean LeBron James.  Despite his flirtations with the opportunity to play for the greatest city in the known universe and perhaps bring an NBA Title home, he opted to take his talents to South Beach in a heinous scheme plotted by Dwayne Wade and that backstabber (also known as Miami Heat president) Pat Riley.

Thankfully, we did not come away empty-handed.  Amar’e Stoudamire decided he wanted our money, our city, and the responsibility of being the face of the Knickerbocker re-emergence.  Stoudamire lived up to the responsibility and the money until the playoffs where he was limited by a back injury.  It then fell on mid-season acquisition Carmelo Anthony to shoulder the go-to-man burden.  He tried mightily, but alas, with Amar’e and “Mr. Big Shot” Chauncey Billups ailing, the team was swept out of the first round by those doggone Celtics.

So then the next phase of the Knick rebuilding plan was to find a third star to pair with our high-scoring but defensively-ehh forwards.  There was a lot of talk about Chris Paul’s toast at Melo & Lala’s wedding – where he intimated that he, Melo and Amar’e form their own Big 3 to take on Miami’s Big 3 of LeBron, Wade, and big man Chris Bosh.  But then, December happened.

Due to the NBA Lockout being resolved right after Thanksgiving (and the season beginning on Christmas Day), December would hold a hellified short free agent period, following by a hellified truncated training camp and preseason.  Then one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I hop online to read that the Knicks are close to signing center Tyson Chandler away from the reigning world champions Dallas Mavericks.

…

Wait a second… Tyson Chandler???

We signed him away from the champion Mavs?  Where the hell did that come from???

So wait… we… we have a center now?

…

Holy seven-footers, Batman!  WE HAVE A CENTER!!!

A center that rebounds, plays excellent defense and protects the rim – three things the Knicks absolutely sucked at last year (and the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that, etc).  People are now talking about us having the best front-line in the entire league.  There’s a saying that goes that in college ball, you win with your guards, while in the NBA, you win with big men.

Now, they had to sacrifice the one good point guard they had (Billups) via the NBA amnesty provision, and with the money used to sign Chandler, it took the Knicks out of the running to woo either point guard-supreme Chris Paul or the NBA’s best center, Dwight Howard at the end of this coming season.  But with Billups’ age and expiring contract, he was never a long-term target anyways.  And word was that the Knicks didn’t have enough assets to flip a trade for Howard or Paul.  I would’ve loved Chris Paul to be a Knick, but the truth is, good defensive centers are extremely hard to find.  And since Howard apparently was not attainable, the ‘Bockers grabbed the next best center available, one who will watch the backs of our two dominant scoring forwards while not needing the ball to score.  We turned a good guard into a darn good center.  You ever have a team and feel like, “hey, just maybe, things are finally coming together for us”?  For the first time in this new century, I’m feeling that way about my favorite basketball team.

But wait, there’s more: Because of other teams using the amnesty rule (or clause,  or exception) to waive their unwanted players, the Knicks eventually signed point guard Baron Davis as a one-year flier.  He’s currently rehabbing a herniated disc, and his celebrated but curious career littered with injury, motivational and fitness issues definitely make him a risk/reward chip.

But then I read reports that A. Davis may not be out as long as originally stated, B.  He really wants to play here in New York, which means that, C. He will likely be very motivated, especially with all our frontcourt talent, which might just also mean that, D. He’ll be in shape.  In fact, a recent New York Times article stated that, “although his weight has sometimes been an issue, he looked remarkably slim Monday as he twirled a basketball and mingled with his new teammates and coaches”.   Oh, and because he signed for the veteran’s minimum ($1.4 million), the Knicks still have their $2.5 million exception to throw at either another amnestied player or perhaps an NBA player who is currently stuck overseas in China (or elsewhere) until March when the Chinese basketball season ends.  Hmmmmmmmmm…

Add to the fact that this years rookies are looking like rotation-worth players, specifically 6′ 5″ guard Iman Shumpert – he scored 16 points in the team’s first preseason game.  In today’s Wall Street Journal, head coach Mike D’Antoni commented that even he was surprised how well Shumpert (aka Shump-Shump) played.  “He’s quick and strong and long and his shot will be fine,” D’Antoni said.  “He’s been impressive so far.”  In fact, many of the bloggers over on Knickerblogger.net – a fan site that I find understandably but sometimes pessimistic – are genuinely impressed by how Shump-Shump looks so far… and he can D-up too.

So let’s add all this up: Two elite scoring forwards, a center to FINALLY protect the paint, a point guard who’s known for playing at an elite level when healthy and motivated, and a rookie combo guard tall and athletic enough to compete out on the wing.  I have to say it – I’m really looking forward to this season, and I haven’t felt this way since maybe the 90’s??  Now, haters will throw salt on the game by saying our bench is weak, or by questioning if second-year man Landry Fields will improve from the first half of last season, or by wondering if Toney Douglas can man the starting point guard spot well enough until Davis is ready.  They wonder what will happen if any members of our starting frontcourt goes down with an injury.

Funny – I remember back in the 2007-2008 season when the Celtics brought in Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to play alongside Paul Pierce; leaving the keys to the offense to a second-year point named Rajon Rondo.  People wondered if their bench was too thin or if the young Rondo was ready for the responsibility – I’m not saying the Knicks will grow to be title contenders this season, but doesn’t all that sound a little familiar?