Sports 4 Dorks

I held off on talking about the Rockets win over the Knicks in
BtB mainly because I wanted to point out how absolutely miserable New York’s front court
defense is. Yao Ming had his way in the
paint all night (36 points on 21 shots, 11 rebounds), and when he swung the
ball out or took a blow, Luis Scola (19 points in about 29 minutes) just ran
circles around both Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry.

We joke about how the Suns won’t guard teams from time to
time, or how the Nuggets take nights off in spite of their superior defensive
standing, or the way Kobe
will alternate between dominating defensively and dismissing that side of the
ball entirely … but these are relative cracks.

The Knicks, last in the NBA in defense, play like your
stereotype, bad late-1970s defensive team. They might as well start wearing
knee socks and doing horrible things in the bathroom of a disco, because this
team just doesn’t care. It’s incredible to watch, because they stick out so
much.

You know who also sticks out? Mitch Lawrence of the New York Daily News. Let’s
listen in:

"[Isiah] Thomas, of course, would
welcome [Tracy] McGrady to New York with a ticker-tape parade. He
drafted T-Mac in Toronto,
so he has a history with him. And there are a few things that make McGrady perfect
for the Knicks.

He’d come with a huge contract - two
years to go at $44 million - but that’s never scared off Jim Dolan, if you know
anything about his approach to filling his roster. This season, he’s paying
almost $120 million in salaries and luxury tax, meaning he’s getting less bang
for the buck than any other owner.

McGrady would come with a history of
back problems, but that didn’t keep Thomas from trading for Quentin
Richardson."

OK, so here’s a list of reasons Tracy McGrady could end up in New York:

1. The team’s personnel boss and head coach drafted him 11 years ago.

2. The team’s owner doesn’t mind paying exorbitant salaries and going way over
the luxury tax.

3. His back often hurts, just like Quentin Richardson, whom the Knicks traded
for in 2005.

OK. Here’s a (truncated, really, because I had to stop from banging my head
on my desk while trying to come up with the top three obvious reasons why
McGrady won’t end up in New York, and reading columns like these is
headache-inducing enough) list of the reasons he won’t end up in New York.

1. Houston doesn’t want New York’s crap.

2. Houston and New York
would have to match McGrady’s 18.3 million dollar salary with Knicks players
making roughly that amount, and Houston doesn’t
want New York’s
crap.

3. Houston doesn’t want New York’s crap.

Really, some columns should just stop after the fine
first page, because the
second makes no sense at all.

That’s why I’m stopping here, just before wondering aloud if, say, the
Boston Celtics wanted to match Ben Wallace’s 15 million dollar salary (with,
perhaps, Paul Pierce) and take on the Chicago Bulls center mainly because he’s
too small to play center (just like Glen Davis!) and once played on Boston’s
summer league team.