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Knicks' circus always in town at Garden

Jim Baumbach

11:58 AM EST, January 15, 2009

One of these days the Knicks are going to make themselves relevant again for reasons other than sexual harassment lawsuits, sleeping pill overdoses or buyout negotiations. You know, for basketball reasons. Though based on the way the Knicks have played this season combined with the salacious off-court stories they're still producing, it won't be any time soon.

The good news for fans is that the presence of new president Donnie Walsh and coach Mike D'Antoni represents hope. You can finally be confident that the people running the team have a clear plan. And these two guys have made their strategy for turning the franchise around rather clear.

They've put so much stock in the star-studded 2010 free-agency class you get the impression they would even hand out oversized "LeBron in 2010" pins at the Garden turnstiles every night if only that weren't considered tampering. But the stain of the Isiah Thomas era can't be erased so easily.

Sure, they've done a good job clearing salary-cap space for the summer of 2010, but that's still a year and a half away. Not only must fans pass the time watching another losing basketball team, they have to roll their eyes at the once-proud franchise generating yet another embarrassing story, which was a staple during the Thomas era.

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The latest example came in the form of a sexual harassment and racial discrimination lawsuit filed against Eddy Curry Monday by his former driver. As much as you were surprised by the explosive allegations, you cannot be surprised that something like this happened to a Knick. There seems to be some kind of magnetic force that attracts these kind of stories.

Quentin Richardson, one of the longest tenured players on this team, said Wednesday about these kind of stories: "You kind of get used to it." And that might be the saddest - and most telling - statement of all. The weird thing is that meanwhile they've quietly sold their fan base on their rebuilding strategy. For so many years all we heard was that you can't rebuild the Knicks - who are owned by Cablevision, which also owns Newsday. The fans are too impatient, they won't wait for a winner. But now that the Knicks' front office has finally swallowed its pride and is working toward two seasons from now, the fans don't mind. If anything, they're completely on board.

That's also a testament to just how far the Knicks have fallen off the basketball map.

This is a franchise that hasn't had a winning season since 2001. That was back when Jeff Van Gundy was a fixture on the sideline downing his Diet Cokes. In the seven full seasons since then, they've had six coaches and averaged 31 wins and a handful of embarrassing off-court stories per year.

The Knicks players learned of the Curry lawsuit Monday when they were in New Orleans on the last stop of a road trip. Richardson knew exactly what was going to happen after Tuesday's practice.

"The next day after something like that happens," Richardson said, "there's always 30 cameras here, with all these media outlets, people coming out of the woodwork."

Again, he's used to it.

"I'm not bothered by it," Richardson said. "But I would definitely say you have to be a certain type of person to play in New York and deal with the scrutiny, being under the microscope and knowing if you turn left when you're supposed to turn right it's going to be plastered across the bottom of the TV. That's what comes with the territory."

Everything plays bigger in New York, the bad and the good. Richardson envisions a day when the Knicks give the media - and, by extension, the fans - a championship team to talk about.

"If you win in New York, you'll be remembered forever," Richardson said. "I look at Walt, Pearl Monroe, Willis Reed, Patrick, all those guys . . . Everybody that played well here, did their thing and won, everybody still knows them and they're still around. This is definitely the spot to be on a good team and win because that will pretty much write your ticket."

If all goes as planned, the Knicks will be relevant again by 2010 - for basketball reasons, finally.