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Inside the NBA
After failing to dump their veteran center, can the Knicks fly with a broken Ewing? By Ian Thomsen
When Patrick Ewing was on the verge of being traded to Seattle in a four-team, 13-player deal last week, the New York Post proclaimed PATRICK'S LEGACY: EGOISM, WHINING AND CHOKING. "I've never seen such scathing articles," says players association executive director Billy Hunter. "I can't imagine what the man has done to deserve such treatment."
At first glance, Ewing is an unsympathetic figure: an old man demanding that he remain the center of attention. In fact, according to a source involved in the aborted trade, Ewing agreed to a reduced role with the Sonics. "He feels he took all the heat in New York," the source says. "He was the scapegoat, even though he wasn't the focal point of the team. He's taken a lot of flak, and he's fed up with it." Central to Ewing's frosty relations with the Knicks is the collective bargaining agreement he helped negotiate. In the 1990s New York might have awarded him a contract extension as his gold watch, but in the new NBA economy it is harder to rationalize sentimental payoffs. Starting with the 2001-02 season, the Knicks will face the likelihood of having to pay a luxury tax of one dollar for every dollar they spend on players in excess of $56 million. The Knicks might be more willing to extend Ewing's contract if he would agree to accept the salary of a diminished player who has missed 43 games (including 11 in the playoffs) in the last two seasons. Ewing is likely balk at that because he knows that when healthy, he is still among the half-dozen best centers in the league. Unless Ewing's agent, David Falk, can broker a trade -- a long shot -- one of the greatest Knicks must return to New York knowing he isn't wanted. In the meantime, his teammates should think hard about a future without their big man. If Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston and other Knicks seemed liberated by Ewing's absences during the playoffs, it was in no small part because they weren't expected to go far without him. The countdown has begun on that free ride: Soon the New York pressure will be entirely on them. Let's see if they handle it as well as Ewing did. Issue date: September 4, 2000
For more Inside the NBA see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, August 30. Click here to subscribe to SI.
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