Could Prokhorov's War on the Knicks Be Misguided?

The question has been asked because he fired off another salvo.

What do you think of the NBA trading deadline?

Overall, no one expected this kind of activity, however there were two moves made by teams that were never truly rivals until one Mikhail Prokhorov showed up to Newark… err, Northern New Jersey.

See, the Gerald Wallace trade to Portland will be a huge lift for the Blazers and Kendrick Perkins was a major get by Oklahoma City. The Free Mo Williams Movement didn’t bring him back to LeBron James, but netting Blake Griffin and the Erics* (Bledsoe and at some point, Gordon) isn’t too shabby.

Yet, the move that has this Scribe a bit perplexed is how Deron Williams ended up on the Nets not to improve their playoff hopes (they’re 17-41), but to one-up the New York Knicks.

You heard that all of Prokhorov’s machinations leading to the trading deadline were to drive up the price for the Knicks’ eventual acquisition of Carmelo Anthony. Unquestionably, it worked as Knicks owner James Dolan was convinced to hover over team president Donnie Walsh to make it happen; compelling New York to give up about half of its active roster. Yet, when the Nets quietly traded Devin Harris, Derrick Favors and send some cash to the Utah Jazz for Williams, Prokhorov called a gangsta (or a G), labeled a genius and heralded as a badass.

Courtesy of NBA.com

I was amused, then annoyed and eventually disgusted by the comparisons between both trades, both teams and both players. Williams has been my favorite point guard in the Association since he arrived. While the high wattage smile and Isiah Thomas comparisons made New Orleans Hornets star Chris Paul the most beloved and automatic "best PG in the league" by salivating mainstream media, Williams has been equally, if not more impressive in some respects (a better scorer at that position).

Williams has had more playoff success and while the belief persists that Paul is better because he has less to work with; something has to be said about a young PG having to lead veteran players experienced in the iron-fisted system of former coach Jerry Sloan.

Yet, because of the media-spun Melodrama - there was more talk about the opinions and opinions of the opinions than what Anthony actually said publicly, which wasn't much - it seems as if people were quick to make the statements of how Williams is a better player than Anthony despite the fact that they play two entirely different positions and games.

Never mind that people were still slighting Williams because of the comparisons to the other great floor generals in the league today; Paul, Chicago’s Derrick Rose, Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, Boston’s Rajon Rondo and the old guard in Steve Nash & Jason Kidd. At least for a few days, he was given respect in a backhanded manner by people who decided that all things ‘Melo deserve an extra slice of derision.

Let’s be for real here; saying Deron Williams is better than Carmelo Anthony would have been akin to saying that Gary Payton was better than Scottie Pippen, despite different circumstances and demands on their styles.

That the Nets - a lottery team because of the lack of pieces to help Williams and Brook Lopez - made off better than the Knicks right now is a major stretch. There’s no doubt that players of those skill sets; whether a big PG with lead scorer ability or a SF with an array of offensive & rebounding gifts are not easy to find. Even more difficult is to anticipate that a franchise is going to find worthwhile players in the collegiate ranks, especially with the prevailing opinion that the 2011 draft class is one of the weakest in recent memory.

In fact, these deals proved that the cultures between the Nets and Knicks couldn’t be more different. The Knicks are trying to return to glory after a decade of front office debacles and player misery. The Nets, save for four years of unexpected bliss in the Kidd era, have spent most of its existence struggling for relevance from Long Island to East Rutherford to Newark.

It appears that Prokhorov is trying to bring a Yankees/Red Sox like war to NBA ball here in this area, yet he's approaching it the wrong way. You can afford to do that in other sports where there are more players, therefore more interchangeable pieces. In basketball, moving TWO rotational players (starters or top depth players) is a complete culture shock to a team.

Yes, Prokhorov is the more media savvy of the two NBA owners in this area. Some people love the idea of him being this badass Russian out of the mold of a Guy Ritchie film (could that be more stereotypical?) and starting a war with the Knicks. There is probably an actual plan towards building something around Williams, who despite just six seasons in the league, has missed the playoffs only once (his rookie season). However, trying to one up the rival for the sake of doing it is a far more dangerous gamble for a franchise with no roots.

Say What?!?!: * For those of us who remember the great Louis Sachar book, Sideway Stories from Wayside School, that Erics reference was for you.

Rather

Here is a series of questions to ponder (and you must answer for each). For each, they require you to put yourself in the shoes (or cleats) of any athlete, regardless of the level of play.

Would you rather...

get crossed up...


or dunked on?


Would you rather...

get juked by a running back...


or get burned by a wide receiver? (Forgive the salty language of the song used, but the NFL is pretty good about taking down game footage of original broadcasts)


Would you rather...

allow the game-winning home run...


or cause the error that brought in the winning run?

Clips tough to gather, but the most infamous and widely-accepted error (yet not the final play of the game) belongs to a borderline Hall of Famer.

Finally, back to football, but with no clips: Would you rather...

miss the open-field tackle...

or completely blow your route and watch the ball get intercepted?

Please feel free to add more embarrasing scenarios for the masses to ponder, just as long as you avoid discussing this:


Yeah, OUCH!

Yo-Yo

This isn't to pan on the guy as there are a ton of teams who would love to have him coming off the bench. However, it seems that Jason Terry hasn't had much luck with elite point guards...

First, there was last month in Utah:



And then, there was last night in N'awlins...



I guess there's a correlation between working late and within an hour of coming home, watching someone playing The Jet like a yo-yo.

More coming to the masses all weekend.

Crossed

Something light-hearted after some heavy-handed verbage.

If you haven't had the chance to enjoy this, do so.



Now, as good as that was you're probably considering scouring the 'net for some other greats. Let's start with the end-all, be-all classic that changed the NBA FOREVER.



Of course, there's the player who did help bring the move into the consciousness of many teens in the early 90s, George Takei's favorite (hate him or love him).



And for some recent knee bucklers:



There are a handful of moves in sports in which fans and media of both teams in the field of play actually join in unison to say "oh snap" (or other words of that nature) because they saw something so unbelieveable, so jaw-dropping, so... ridonculous, that for a moment, loyalty to a team logo doesn't even matter. Along with the mammoth home run, the open field collision between defender and ball carrier, the midfielder or star winger going one-on-one with a soccer or hockey goalie and the between-the-legs volley in tennis, the ankle-breaking crossover is assuredly one of those moments.

Thirteen

For those who recall when music was (at least it appeared to be) a comparable passion to sports, consider this a slight return to those days.

Having a fulltime job is kind of getting in the way of keeping the sports gig fresh – I’m kidding, folks. Yet, because there is a ton going on at the moment, it was better to share a few thoughts in the same manner that I did a while back. The titles come from one of the few rap albums I cared to acknowledge over the past three years; One Hunid the debut album from The Product. Please acquire for your musical collection.

Thirteen thoughts, thirteen tracks. Consume.

Get Out: that was the rally cry of several General Managers since the end of the NBA regular season. The most discussed, of course, has been the exit of Isiah Thomas. It would just be wasted space to add any commentary to this – wasted that is if others weren’t so eloquently brilliant about it – but anyone who considers him/herself a Knicks fan should prepare for the media circus that will envelop the head coaching search. Yet, if there is one more that proves to be more puzzling, it is dismissal of Larry Krystkowviak from the Milwaukee Bucks.
While the Knicks have been the national punch line (funny they didn’t get this much attention when they were perennial title contenders in the 1990s), it seems as if the Bucks have gone unscathed outside of the greater Milwaukee area. They have had three different head coaches since George Karl left after the 2003 postseason (Terry Porter for two years, Terry Stotts for 2 ½ and just one year for Krystkowviak). They have more power forwards than a NBA Live free agency pool. They have a little bit of a consistency problem and made a few “WTF” trades (Charlie Villanueva is a nice player, but T.J. Ford – injury aside – was such a great compliment for Michael Redd and Andrew Bogut). If the Knicks weren’t such an albatross, more heads would be swerving towards Wisconsin. Yet, whoever takes over as the next coach will have to deal with an impatient owner who has a slightly more important day job (Sen. Herb Kohl), an injury-riddled roster and an identity crisis. This new coach will have to figure out what kind of team the Bucks want to be.

2 Real: More so about the 2. What’s with the early baseball scheduling? Can anyone recall seeing this many two-game series in April, or at any point in the season before?

In the Hood: Over the years, much has been made about the so-called tanking ratings of the NBA. Despite the fact that anything on network television not called American Idol or the NFL has experienced a dip in that three-digit number, the NBA was the one sporting entity that faced greater scrutiny. Yet, it was always strange to hear that apparently no one was watching the games because I came up in the ‘hood. Every conversation on every corner on every block will start or end with something about how San Antonio and Phoenix played a double-OT thriller or how Boston won’t make it to the Finals, let alone win them. If you are an NBA fan in the ‘hood, this may be quite possibly your favorite time of year.
Of course, you don’t have to be from the Polo Grounds, northeast Philly or Watts to appreciate this time of year. We like you, too.

Read this and this.

Hustle: Shameless promotion – if you are in Midtown, Harlem or anywhere with a somewhat decent newsstand, grab the New York Beacon. PLEASE! That is a major part of my hustle, you know.

G Type: As in John Gibbons, Toronto Blue Jays manager. Not sure if he’s irascible or there’s a very contentious mix up north, but somehow, another player critical to the team’s success has been booted from the team. However, Dave Bush, Shea Hillenbrand and Ted Lilly don’t have resumes comparable to Frank Thomas. If “Gibby” just has bad luck with a few players over a long managerial career, that’s not a big deal. Yet, he has managed to have four confrontations (that the public knows of) in just over three years in the big leagues.
Whoever picks up the Big Hurt won’t be too worried about that .167 batting average to start the season, but will focus on those three homers and eleven RBI in just sixteen games If he was right about Gibbons and GM J.P. Ricciardi purposely limiting his plate appearances in order to avoid paying him a bonus later this year remains to be seen. Expect him to be picked up within the next three days, but also expect him to spout off about his former employer. Just ask Kenny Williams in Chicago (White Sox).

Not a Word about Hopkins/Calzaghe… except that the former middleweight champion has one decision to make: stop BSin’ in the ring (Scribe says he won the fight until the tenth round) or start promoting outside of the ring.

I’m A fan of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Watch them.

Pride: No matter how much media attention, dollars or photo spreads she got, everything could have been deemed irrelevant if Danica Patrick didn’t win a race. Maybe after all the glitter, only pride remains for someone with such hype with little to no success to validate a career. Patrick finally took a race over the weekend with the Indy Japan 300, just at the start of her fourth season in the circuit. It’s been said that it takes three years to get a win under the belt, but many of her critics have said that she spent those years focused more on looking good than being good. It could be an unfair statement, especially having to work so hard to be one of the few women to successfully gain a spot in an uber-male sport. There was definitely some hard work along the way. Yet, the work's far from done. While it may be unrealistic considering the difficulty of the sport, Patrick should heed the words of one of the all-time great baseball managers, the fictional Cleveland Indians skipper, Lou Brown:
“We won yesterday. If we win today, that’s two-in-a-row. If we win tomorrow, that’s called a winning streak; it has happened before “.

The Love of Money: If I had a few dollars, I’d pay top dollar to see Deron Williams. Look, Chris Paul should win the MVP award and I’d Superkick someone if that’s what it took to see Kobe Bryant or Kevin Garnett. However, Williams is the truth. Pay close attention to the Rockets/Jazz series and see how difficult of a time Houston will have stopping or slowing him down outside of putting Shane Battier (more of a big small forward or small power forward) on him.

Dead Broke: Yet, this Scribe is dead broke thanks to MLB Extra Innings. Order it. Trust me.

Don’t Matter: “It don’t matter, I got a ring!” – Keyshawn Johnson, after winning his lone Super Bowl title as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Random, I know.

Life’s Been Good: Or at least manageable. Hope yours is going well.