Jax needs bang for bucks
You might as well think of it as the Big Bang Theory of sports, and when it happens in New York, it always makes the most noise, because, well, it’s New York, where everything is louder, starting with the traffic. And of course some of our Presidential candidates.
You make noise, and headlines, as a way of making your team a winner again, and trying to make it matter again. And you generally spend money like a drunk. Phil Jackson is doing that right now, trying to make the Knicks matter again. Along with himself.
And sometimes it works. No one would ever compare the Knicks and the Yankees. But after the Yankees missed the playoffs in 2008, missed for the first time since 1993, Brian Cashman went out and spent nearly half-a-billion dollars to sign CC Sabathia, and Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett. The year before the Yankees had signed Alex Rodriguez to an insane contract extension (I like to think of it as the gift that just keeps on giving, now that Rodriguez has become a $20 million singles hitter) that doesn’t run out until after the 2017. Or maybe not until the end of days.
But it is the last money that paid off for the Yankees. They won the World Series in ’09, the one and only World Series they have won since 2000. The spending spree really began with Rodriguez, even though Cashman distances himself from that particular contract as if our Alex had suddenly pulled the pin on a hand grenade.
Not long ago, Cashman spent around $350 million on Masahiro Tanaka and Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran. So far, that money hasn’t produced a single playoff victory for a team that remains stuck on 27 World Series. Joe Girardi not only is still wearing “28” as the Yankees continue to chase the next one, he may end up retiring that number someday.
You know the Jets have tried to make the big bang in the past, with guys like Brett Favre and Tim Tebow, even if the money wasn’t close to being Yankee money. But the Jets, especially when Mike Tannenbaum was in charge, were obsessed with making noise. The Mets tried it for awhile under Omar Minaya, signing such guys as Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez, and came within a game of the World Series in 2006. Glen Sather was another big shot who used to spend James Dolan’s money like he was on some kind of shore leave, but then the rules changed in the NHL and so did Sather, and he built a different kind of winning team, even if his Rangers never did manage to win it all. Even Jerry Reese, the Giants general manager who once showed such early speed with the way he drafted, finally went crazy with free agents not long ago, and spent in a way the Giants never had. You saw how that worked out for Reese. Didn’t get much of a bang for his big-bang bucks. And the Giants missed the playoffs again.
So now here we are with Jackson, noted seeker of basketball truth and beauty. Before last season, he gave $124 million to Carmelo Anthony. Now he reportedly spent more than $72 million on Joakim Noah. He only spends three players and $21 million for next season on Derrick Rose, but if Rose works out for him, and is even close to the MVP player he was for the Bulls when he was a kid, then Jackson will happily spend a lot more money after next season to keep Rose.
Even Courtney Lee, who is just another 30-year-old shooting guard, scores $48 million for four years from the Knicks. It turns out that the culture change that Jackson spoke of when he got to New York – and again after his first season in New York — turns out to be a smash-and-grab culture we understand completely in New York sports. Jackson is a smart enough guy to know that even with three years left on that $60 million contract – another big bang – he was out of here after next season if the Knicks missed the playoffs again. In all the important ways, this off-season for Phil Jackson was go big, or go home. Home meaning to his Jeanie in southern California.
By the way? Here is some of the hoo-haw about culture that Jackson was still trying to sell to Knicks fans as recently as last April, in an ESPN.com interview after his first Knicks’ team finished with a sparkling record of 17-65:
“I had to break up the team for us to move forward in the right direction. That means getting talented players that fit with each other on and off the court. Also getting players who understand that while playing basketball is fun, this is also a business. So we need guys who will ice after practice, watch what they eat, avoid having those three extra beers when they party, and get the rest they need. I think we succeeded in getting this particular cultural change.”
No, the change turns out to be a couple of talented guys — Rose, Noah — who used to play for Jackson’s old team, the Bulls. You know about Rose’s physical issues over the past five years, during which he has played a total of 166 games. Noah was a very durable guy in his 20s for the Bulls. Now he plays 29 games last season and 96 over the past two.
If Noah is healthy again at the age of 31, he would seem to be a perfect fit for Jackson’s Knicks. For one thing, he will get you the ball but doesn’t need the ball to thrive. And will guard opposing players all the way across the street to the Post Office. He will also play the game as hard as anybody the Garden has seen since Latrell Sprewell. And you already know the deal with Rose. If he is even 80 percent of what he used to be, he is still the most talented Knicks point guard since Clyde.
Jackson knew he had no shot at Kevin Durant. Durant was the same kind of Garden pipe dream that LeBron once was. So he went out and got Rose, a former MVP. And now gets Noah, an unorthodox, unselfish player who once was such a wonderful teammate at Florida, where he helped Billy Donovan win two straight NCAA titles.
If it all works out, the Knicks might become one of the top four teams in the Eastern Conference again. And if they can’t keep Rose and Noah on the court? You know how that can work out around here. The big bang becomes the sound of the door hitting Jackson on his way out. And the next culture change involves him, just not the way he planned.