HARD FEELINGS
Disaster Noah signing will linger
I T’S easier to not hold a grudge, of course. It’s probably the right thing to do, the noble thing to do, the pathway toward good karma and better health. Grudges are ugly. Grudges diminish us. Grudges can turn the lining of your stomach into acid-washed torture.
But in this case, there’s really very little choice. The Knicks have moved on from the Phil Jackson Experience and seem to be better off for it. We’ve yet to really see the firm of Mills & Perry in action (excluding the Carmelo Anthony deal, which they executed with a gun to their heads like the poor dog on that famous old cover of “National Lampoon”) but so far, despite the team’s inconsistency, it’s hard to muster an anger the equivalent of watching Jackson’s Knicks. Until you think of Jackson, that is. Specifically, when you think of Joakim Noah, the $72 million gift-that-keeps-on-giving, the bust-who-keeps-on-busting, the lovely parting gift Jackson left behind amid the ashes and the rubble. In so many ways, the Knicks won’t really be able to totally break free from the Jackson Era until Noah is somewhere else.
And good luck figuring out where that’s going to be. And, more important, when.
Noah’s is that rare calamitous acquisition of which it’s hard to tell if his negative impact has best been felt on the floor, where he has been so obviously done from the moment he arrived it’s amazing he didn’t show up with a fork in his back, or off, when he ended last season (and began this one) suspended for testing positive for an illicit over-thecounter substance and then decided to clear his throat and air out Jeff Hornacek.
That a fair share of Knicks fans would like to have the same kind of one-sided conversation with Hornacek is beside the point. Noah isn’t just the ugliest mark on a Jackson dossier crowded with them, it’s ac- tually hard to come up with one that’s comparable anywhere else.
Kei Igawa? That was a horrific signing, sure, but for one thing it wasn’t as if he came with an armada of red flags the way Noah did, and for another it was a Yankees signing — they play in a sport in which, if you make a gross miscalculation, it doesn’t potentially ruin you for five years if you’re willing and able to write the checks. Eddie Lee Whitson was a mess and a miss, but he barely registered a blip in his time here.
Jason Bay? Bobby Bonilla? Yes, the Mets have a few blotches in their history, but as awful as Bay was and as disappointing as Bonilla was (twice!) they at least got one guy (Bay) who was a solid citizen and another (Bonilla, the first time) whose numbers here weren’t as bad upon reflection as memory insists they were. Oh, and neither one of them thought it would be a good idea as a first New York impression to disrespect West Point cadets, as Noah did (in case you forgot that he was a disaster before even playing a minute here).
The Knicks have had plenty of bad actors and worse head cases pollute their roster through the years, and the Nets have had more of both, but it’s hard to remember Steph Marbury ever inciting Noah-esque levels of contempt no matter which side of the Hudson he was pouting on.
No, Noah stands alone. There was no clamoring for Noah to come home when Jackson signed him, and anyone who’d seen even a small sampling of Noah’s recent work knew he would barely have been worth the risk as a training camp invitee, let alone carrying a $72 million pricetag. This isn’t even remotely a second guess; this was a nearunanimous first guess by everyone. Except for Phil Jackson. So, yes: the anger lingers. And, no: the grudge has not faded. Not until Noah is exiled, somewhere and somehow ... and maybe not for a year or two after that. What an epic fail that keeps on epically failing.