Donnie Walsh made his first bad decision yesterday when he decided to hire Mike D’Antoni as head coach of the New York Knicks. D’Antoni, who left the Phoenix Suns, failed yet again this season to get into the finals, despite having one of the most talented teams in basketball. Despite this failure, Donnie Walsh and the 23-59 Knicks (2nd to last in the Eastern conference) thinks that D’Antoni will solve the numerous problems the Knicks face this upcoming season. This is what D’Antoni had to say about his future with the Knicks,

We want to win a championship. I know all the components you have to have. You have to have great offense and great defense.

What the Knicks really needed was a defensive-minded coach to help their awful performance on defense this and the past several seasons. D’Antoni created one of the most effective run and gun offenses over in Phoenix, yet still failed to make it past the Western Conference Finals. As they say, “Defense Wins Championships.” How is bringing an offensive minded coach to a young, immature team going to help?

The Knicks are one of the youngest teams in the league and their inexperience was shown last season when, despite having the highest payroll in basketball, they could not make the playoffs of one of the worst Eastern Conferences to date. The 8th seeded Atlanta Hawks were 8 games under .500 but still found themselves an astonishing 14 games ahead of the lowly Knicks. With useless defenders like Jamal Crawford, Eddy Curry, and Stephon Marbury on the team how does D’Antoni expect to fix this team. Crawford is in the game strictly for offense, which is so sparatic and inconsistent that there is really no need for him to take minutes away from less talented but more consistent players. Eddy Curry is awful on defense and can’t even block spam from his e-mail. Marbury, a.k.a Starbury, has been anything but a star. Someone needs to bury this star six feet under so that New York doesn’t have to deal with his cry-baby attitude.

The only thing that D’Antoni and the Knicks can hope for is to win the lottery. The draft lottery that is. If they can capture a solid position in which they can get Memphis guard Derrick Rose they may have a chance in the future. But that may take several seasons for D’Antoni to develop a team around a young guard. Something that he did well with Phoenix and Steve Nash, but was never done well enough to win a championship.

D’Antoni has no idea what he’s getting into. This team ruined the character of one of the most talented and successful players of all time in Isiah Thomas. Sure D’Antoni has won coach of the year in 04-05. Sure he has led the Suns to 54 wins or more in the past 4 seasons. Sure he has a .608 winning percentage in the past 6 seasons. But where’s the ring Mike? No where. You know why? Because he had Shaquille O’Neal, Amare Stoudemire, Steve Nash, Leandro Barbosa, and Grant Hill on his team and still failed to win. Because he couldn’t handle the ego of Shawn Marion, whose ego would be overshadowed tenfold in New York. And finally because he is 26-25 in the playoffs. A .500 team may get into the playoffs but they will never win the playoffs playing .500.

By Sean Connolly

Technorati Tags: 2008, Amare Stoudemire, Atlanta Hawks, basketball, Defense, Derrick Rose, Donnie Walsh, Eastern Conference, Eddy Curry, Grant Hill, Isiah Thomas, Jamal Crawford, Knicks, Knicks Problems, Leandro Barbosa, Mike D'Antoni, New Coach, New York Knicks, Phoenix Suns, Playoffs, Sean Connolly, Shaq, Shaquille O'Neal, Shawn Marion, Stephon Marbury, Stephon Marbury Trade, Steve Nash, Western Conference

You don’t tug at Superman’s cape, and you don’t ignite a fire under LeBron James. With some careless trash-talk, the Wizards have given LeBron and the Cavaliers more to win for this post season. “He’s overrated…and you can say I said that,” Deshawn Stevenson said of MVP candidate, LeBron James. First of all, Who the hell is DeShawn Stevenson? Stevenson is a nobody. LeBron showed that he’s a nobody by owning him in the first game of the playoff series, winning 93-86. In the game, LeBron scored ten times as many points as Stevenson. Stevenson put up a total of 3 points, compared to LeBron’s 30. Stevenson needs to shut his mouth very quick because already he’s been proven wrong. If you’re going to talk trash about some one, make sure they’re a worse player than you. Here are LeBron’s season stats next to DeShawn’s.

DeShawn Stevenson VS. LeBron James

PPG: 11.2 PPG: 30.0

RBP: 2.9 RPG: 7.9

APG: 3.1 APG: 7.2

SPG: 0.8 SPG: 1.8

BPG: 0.2 BPG: 1.1

FG: 38% FG: 45%

If that’s not enough to make Stevenson shutup than maybe these examples of “Jordanism” that LeBron displayed this season may. In a game against the Toronto Raptors, T.J. Ford had a few fans on the sideline who began heckling James. LeBron, noticing that they were there for his opponent Ford of the Raptors, went on a hot streak which brought the Cavs back to win. He yelled at the hecklers, “it’s your fault!!”

In yet another episode of Jordan-esque like performance, maybe more remniscant of Reggie Miller, LeBron scored 50 against the Knicks. Spike Lee was of course on the sidelines, jarring at LeBron. LeBron mouthed, “50″ to Spike, and then went on to hit a string of three-pointers which gave him a 50 point game in MSG.

Stevenson’s comments even startled Charles Barkley. Barkley went as far as saying, “I think the Washington Wizards have got to be the dumbest team in the history of civilization.” That sounds about right, even coming from Chuck.

Stevenson isn’t the only one talking for the Wizards. Even Gilbert Arenas got into it. He didn’t gave the courage to talk openly so he decided to do it in blog form. “I think everybody wants Cleveland in that first round. They’ve been a .500 team ever since they made that trade and everybody wants a chance at that matchup. We want Cleveland for our own reasons, we don’t think they can beat us in the playoffs three years straight. It’s hard to beat a team three years straight. We want to try our luck.” Arenas said in his seasonal blog he posts on the NBA website. Arenas has posted more blogs this season than he has played games. Isn’t that something? And, just remember the old saying Gilbert, be careful what you wish for. So far, LeBron has made the dream of playing the Cavaliers a nightmare.

Technorati Tags: 2008 playoffs, Cavaliers, Charles Barkley, Cleveland, DeShawn Stevenson, Gilbert Arenas, Knicks, LeBron James, Madison Square Garden, Michael Jordan, MSG, NBA, New York, Playoffs, Raptors, Reggie Miller, Spike Lee, T.J. Ford, Toronto, Washington, Wizards