What in the world is going on with the Knicks?
Danilo Gallinari
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Charles Darwin turned 200 this year, but in all that time he apparently never got around to introducing himself to the New York Knicks, an organization that has in recent years stood as a stubborn exemption to his idea of the survival of the fittest. This is, after all, a marquee enterprise that is even now writing checks to Isiah Thomas, a man who has brought more misery to New York in this young century than engineers of credit-default swaps. Hired as the Knicks’ president of basketball operations in 2003, Thomas embarked on what looked to all the world as a program of sadistic sabotage, hemorrhaging talent from the Knicks roster at an alarming rate and replacing it with overpaid role players who spent more time on the bench than Chief Justice John Roberts.
By Thomas’s third year as president, the Knicks had amassed the highest payroll and the second-worst record in the NBA. Knicks owner James Dolan’s decisive response was to name Thomas the team’s head coach and sign him to a multi-year contract extension. Isiah proceeded to earn a .314 winning percentage from 2006-2008 and, as a sort of added bonus, embroiled the franchise in a costly and protracted sexual harassment trial. Near the end, Dolan’s reluctance to get rid of Thomas was so stupefying that fans started to wonder in earnest whether the compromising photos Thomas must have had of his boss were either more sexual or homicidal in 
Isiah Thomasnature.
Each week, the outrage grew more unbearable, and yet Dolan found new ways to stall. When finally he brought in Indiana Pacers executive/Bronx native Donnie Walsh to replace Thomas as team president at the nadir of the Knicks 2007-2008 campaign, Walsh announced that Thomas would be “reassigned”—not even fired!—from his coaching duties and forbidden contact with Knicks players.
Thus, last year, Knicks fans were introduced to the kind of fragile optimism that is only possible once you’ve hit bottom. Under the regime of president Walsh and new coach Mike D’Antoni, it was the mother of all rebuilding years. With a combination of low short-term expectations and high hopes for the future, the Knicks had the breathing room to turn in a 32-50 season without worrying about the fans storming the Bastille. But New York didn’t become the capital of the world by virtue of its capacity for unconditional love, so as the Knicks open their season (as they did on Wednesday in Miami), they should probably know that they will be expected, at some point in the future, to actually play competitive basketball.
Their hopes for doing so this season rest most precariously on the balky back of the 6' 10", 225-pound Danilo Gallinari. Drafted in 2008, Gallinari is the first great experiment of the current Knicks administration. He represents their best shot at superstardom this season—even if it is a long shot.
That Gallinari came all the way from a village in northern Italy to the NBA is significant in part because Isiah was often criticized for not really scouting Europe’s exploding talent base. And, it would seem, the kid they call “Gallo” is a potential game changer. His coach called him “the best shooter I’ve ever seen.” And he’s a true swingman, capable of moving from the small forward position, where his size and pretty jump-shot make him versatile, to the point-guard role, where his high court IQ could help him choreograph the Knicks offense from on high.
But once his sneakers hit the boards for Gallinari last season, things looked a little different. Just one game in, Gallinari was sidelined with lower back problems that eventually required surgery and months of rehab. In the 28 games he did play, he shot a mighty 44.4 percent from three-point range, but his preseason this year was anemic, and despite his frequent protestations to the media that he “feels good,” fans should be excused for wanting to see Gallinari play 82 games without back problems before they’re ready to believe.
