Allow me to introduce myself. I am Emir Sykes and this is my first article for Belly Up. I am very honored to be apart of the team. My task is to cover the NBA, and the New York Knicks ( no one forced me to pick the Knicks, I chose them myself. The Knicks have been a funny kind of bad for over fifteen years now. The reason why they have been bad is that well, the wrong people have been in charge. It’s like “Oh I didn’t think it could get any worse?” There was no way that I could ignore this subject. I have concluded that the Knicks have a bright future. Now someone reading this will say “What is this man smoking? He has no common sense, does Belly Up drug test their writers?” To that, I say red light.
Knicks Got A Future – Future Endeavors
The Knicks have two possible future all-star prospects in RJ and Mitchel Robinson, Draft picks and cap space. I’m going to discuss briefly how the Knicks got to where they are now. Everyone should applaud the Knicks for taking time with their coaching search the last few seasons have just been as sad as an orphanage on fire. Derek Fisher can coach… Just not for the Knicks. Fisher coached the WNBA’s Los Angles Sparks to the third seed and went back to the Lakers as *cough* “Senior Advisor”. It also turns out that Jeff Hornacek cannot coach. He has not been heard of since 2018. David Fizdale was supposed to be the guy for the Knicks bright future. He got fired in early 2019, so best of luck for his future. Meanwhile, Marc Gasol won a championship later, I also blame him for Kristaps Porzingis’ departure from New York.
Really Quickly…
I just briefly have to state how dumb that trade was. So we traded (arguably with David Lee) the best draft pick we’ve had this side of Patrick Ewing. For A guy who played less than five games with the Knicks, A guy who years ago didn’t even want to play for the Mavericks but chose to sign with them anyway years later and now is apart of this trade, and worst of all. Trade for the guy that we passed on in the draft the year before and was drafted one pick later…
Back to Our Original Program
If any other team had Steve Mills and David Fizdale running their organization, I’d be going insane. Personally, Fizdale is on my nerves on ESPN. Yes, he is on ESPN as he’s talking about other NBA players (sometimes not all the time). This man was smiling when the Knicks were down 40 to the Bucks last season. Kristaps should have gotten someone to lock him in the practice facility and paint a basketball red and call it Wilson like Tom Hanks in Cast Away. Apologies for the photo and video quality below. It was highly necessary for this to be in the article and it was the only picture and video that I could find. If there was no image posted of this I CAN GUARANTEE, NO ONE WOULD BELIEVE THAT THIS WAS THE STATE OF THINGS!!!
Knicks Got A Future -A Brief Recap of Scott Perry
Please give the Knicks a golf clap for getting rid of all of.. that. Now it’s time for the present. Knicks fans are excited for Leon Rose, including me. It’s an upgrade from Steve Mills if you don’t know who Steve Mills is? You are doing something right in life. People are expecting results. Knick fans please don’t try to rush the process. Every sports team has had to build its roster from the ground up. The Knicks have to stay on course. A good example of a rebuilding team in another sport is the New York Jets. Granted it’s a different sport. They got a GM from the most respected front office in the league (Baltimore Ravens), and are building around the quarterback, and haven’t said anything wrong to the press.
That’s what the Knicks need. No disrespect to Perry. Perry’s draft record is suspect. Victor Oladipo is an all-star player… just not in Orlando. Aaron Gordon had a good start but has regressed over the last couple of years. He also drafted and signed his failed picks in Elfrid Payton and Mario Hezonja. His Knicks draft picks have been better with RJ and Mitchell Robinson. RJ was not a hard choice (even for the Knicks) because he was the best player available at the time after Zion and Ja. Give him credit for Mitchell Robinson. Robinson is a defensive dynamo and an ally oop machine. He’s like a slimmer DeAndre Jordan.
Some Reasons To Be Concerned
This paragraph will mainly be about Scott Perry’s Knick history. Perry has a shaky history in free agency. He didn’t get KD and Kyrie to play for the Knicks, which caused people to cuss like sailors. Now in hindsight, this was actually a good move because both of those players have a reputation of being hard to coach. Second, He just has a weird fixation on the 2014 and 2015 draft classes. 12 players in those two draft classes combined played for the Knicks. Isiah Thomas drafted better than him, If Isiah Thomas is better than you in the front office, you need to really look at yourself. Put money on Scott Perry not being there next season. However. That’s a different conversation of another time. I wish him the best this year. If he has a good and or successful draft he’ll be around.
Coaching…Again
The Knicks should have never fired Woodson. Woodson is back and needs to stay. HE WAS THE LAST ONE TO TAKE THE TEAM TO THE DAMN PLAYOFFS and HAD NO REASON TO GET FIRED IN THE FIRST PLACE. Immediately, Thibs appears in my mind, he did not coach the team well when he was in Minnesota. But, I promised myself that this was going to be positive. My apologies for the Woodson rant, he was stuck on my mind. Thibs is an upgrade because he can coach a team to the conference finals. (That was almost a decade ago.) Woodson is on the staff but is a qualified coach. The Pelicans should have picked him as their head coach. Manhattan seems to be the place where head coaching careers end. Hopefully, Thibs can get it together and not play Taj Gibson about twenty minutes a night.
The Future
We have now reached the player’s portion of the article. The Knicks roster is not solid whatsoever; it’s about as strong as a Toys R Us building in 2020. They got too many forwards that struggle to shoot outside of 12 feet and a lot of injury-prone guards that cannot score points. Get some good players in the draft, and DO NOT TRADE PICKS. I repeat DO NOT TRADE PICKS for a disgruntled star, let the free agents go that they signed last year (outside of the Knick community 70 percent of the NBA community can name at least four players. I can name players worth keeping instead of shooting in the dark. Goran Dragic, Fred VanVleet, Reggie Jackson, who are unrestricted free agents. Some players will not be re-signed by their teams. Any of those guys could give RJ something to work with on offense.
RJ should have been on one of the all-rookie teams. As a result of poor shooting from his teammates, RJ couldn’t be helped. They don’t have to spend a ton of money to get quality players. I want the Knicks to win at least 30 games this season. Hope it’s not too much to ask for. The Knicks have to be really boring for a couple of years in order to see the future. I obviously want the Knicks to get better. As a result of losing fifty games every year, it causes the Knicks to be the laughing stock of the NBA. The Knicks have a future.
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