Basketball season gets under way

The calendar has changed from October to November and in the sports world that indicates that the world champions will soon be crowned in baseball, football is starting to get serious and basketball is beginning.  New York and Philly are two cities that can boast a basketball tradition few can match, unfortunately you wouldn’t be able to tell based on the performance of these two cities pro basketball teams the last few years.  New York is regarded as the “Mecca of Basketball” the playgrounds of the five boroughs and beyond have produced legends and created a cut throat level of competition that made players from New York different in the eyes of coaches and scouts everywhere. The Knicks represented that prideful attitude for years, in the glory days of the late sixties and early seventies and their run as Jordan’s Bulls bruising foes in the 90’s under Pat Riley. Philadelphia has its own basketball tradition and culture that helped produce star players and the Big 5, now sometimes regarded as the “City 6” is one of the deepest pools of college basketball talent anywhere in the country. Despite this both teams have toiled in futility for about a decade now. The Sixers made the finals in 2001 only to run into the juggernaut that was the Shaq-Kobe Lakers, The Knicks also made it to the finals in 1999, but were bested by the budding dynasty of the Tim Duncan lead Spurs. Besides these close calls these two teams have been putrid and the Knicks had fallen to the point of NBA laughing stock because of the leadership of James Dolan and Isaiah Thomas. This deterioration of one of the proudest franchises in sports is criminal in the eyes of Knicks fans, but hope appeared in the form of the summer of 2010, where we were all but guaranteed that King James would ride down Broadway and return the Knicks and New York basketball to its rightful place. However consistent with the disappointment Knicks fans have grown accustomed to experiencing, Lebron, Wade, Bosh, Joe Johnson and most of the other stars in the vaunted free agent class declined to come to the big city. Amare Stoudemire did, but without many other pieces to work with most Knicks fans remained skeptical. The season has now started and things haven’t exactly been going great but there are signs of hope. The knickerbockers have played the Celtics and Blazers tough, both playoff teams, but they have to start winning some of those games and not just keeping them close. Amare has been pretty good, but for some reason he keeps getting the ball at the top of the key and tries to drive it to the hoop, leading to turnovers, a lot of them. Hopefully Mike D ‘Antoni can correct this and get Amare to work the pick and roll that made him an all star in Phoenix. Granted, Raymond Felton isn’t Steve Nash, but the pick and roll is one of the most basic and effective plays in basketball and if your 6’10 and as athletic as Stoudemire is you should be able to pull it off. Speaking of things you should be able to do if your 6’10 and athletic: rebound. He’s never averaged double digit rebounding figures and that’s something he’s going to have to do if the Knicks are going to be a playoff team.