QUESTION: Is The WNBA's N.Y. Liberty Cursed By The Knicks and the MSG/Dolan/Thomas Troika?
SULLIVAN: What foul winds blow down Seventh Avenue on these sultry summer days. The Knick's 2005-06 disastrous season is well behind us yet the stench of that wasted year is still on New York. Pity the poor female hoop players of the WNBA'S New York Liberty. They seem to be collateral damage to the man war waging at Madison Square Garden. They were always a decent team during their 10-year run but this season they are now one of the worst teams in the WNBA. Coach Pat Coyle is getting that frazzled Larry Brown look about her and the Liberty's point guard, Becky Hammon, is as clueless as the Knick's Starbury on how to right a floundering ship.
Hope might be on the way. While James Dolan fronts his blues band like Nero, Knick fans are taking drastic action. After watching the coronation of Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat as NBA Champs, they finally have had enough. Today, Wednesday, June 28 at 3p.m., an NBA Draft Day Protest led by a Mr. Orange, from Selltheknicks.com, will march from the ESPN Zone in Times Square to the Garden to shout anti-Dolan chants and protest just what this fool has done to one of the NBA's storied franchises.
I cannot recall New York rising up against an owner and actually holding a protest against a team. This is a first and a good sign that maybe New York has finally had enough. Maybe the Liberty still have some time to get out from under the Dolan curse.
HOLLANDER: The only foul wind that blows in this city is that which emanates from the calloused aperture between your nose and chin. The only women Dolan thinks about are the one's filing court papers against him and Isiah Thomas. He couldn't care less about the Liberty. But some of us do care. The Liberty as WNBA doormat deprives a critical mass of committed fans of at least some winning professional basketball in Madison Square Garden.
They should've never fired Head Coach Richie Audubato. After three tips to the WNBA finals ('99, '00, '02) and four straight trips to Eastern Conference Finals, Audbato was shown the door by Liberty GM Carole Blazejowski in early 2004. The guy built a dynasty. Then during the team's rebuilding year, he got the door. Did the Buffalo Bills fire Marv Levy after losing 4 Super Bowls? Did The Atlanta Braves shit-can Bobby Cox for winning only one World Series after 13 Division Championships?
"Blaze" handed the Liberty over to Pat Coyle with mediocre-to-poor results. Audubato, who was an assistant with the Knicks during the Hubie Brown-Bernard King nirvana, now leads the Washington Mystics who are battling for first place atop the WNBA Eastern Conference. The Liberty's player personnel needs fixing too. You're half-right about Becky Hammon. She's feisty but she's not "New York." She's Rocky Mountain freshwater. Blaze should deal for pugnacious Long Island native Sue Bird or pull from the city playgrounds. I bet there's a girl in Brownsville right now who can get the job done. How about Epiphany Prince who scored 113 points in a game this year for Lower East Side's Murry Bergtraum High School? Whoever it is, they need to inject NYC personality into the team.
How about a change of venue? I loved it when the Liberty played a handful of games at Radio City Music Hall during the 2004 Republican Convention. That was pretty hip. Dolan should make Radio City their permanent venue. Failing that, all that can be said about James Dolan was said well by Oscar Wilde: "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go." I wish your Mr. Orange every success today.
SULLIVAN: Once again you throw insults and don't deal with the matter at hand. Dolan may not care about the Liberty but his poor management style has caused the team to suffer. The Liberty are cursed and it is a shame. They reached the playoffs in seven out of their first nine years and now the cellar awaits.
It is a shame that the women of MSG couldn't pick up the fallen banner of hoops at MSG and make a title run this year. Then we could taunt Isiah and the rest of them that women rule the Garden. Maybe that is why the Liberty are tanking: If they did well, Dolan and Thomas would look even more foolish-as if that is possible. Mr. Orange needs to storm the Bastille on June 28 and force Dolan to sell the Knicks so once again this city can have a basketball team. Dolan's Dance of Death cannot last much longer.
HOLLANDER: You're tripping. Dolan's management style has nothing to do with the Liberty. Even during their salad days, Dolan never sat courtside cheering T-Spoon and company. In fact, I'm willing to bet that, if not for David Stern's insistence that the New York market have a WNBA franchise, Dolan would have nothing to do with the WNBA.
You may recall a brilliant piece of reportage by Scott Clair in dear departed New York Sports Express (7/8/04, "Airtime Airball") exposing the appalling lack of televised Liberty games on MSG and the fan outrage because of it-that was definitely Dolan. Now that the Mets have their own network, what the hell else does MSG Network have to show in the summer?
If you think James Dolan schedules more than one meeting a year about the Liberty you're way out of touch. The guy spends more time agonizing over his choice of side dish at Nick and Stef's than thinking about progress of the New York Liberty. The spoiled Prince of Cablevision likely sees a Liberty game as some roving, godless pick-up scene spilling over from Henrietta Hudson. He can't understand it, handle it or know what to do with it. And that's a shame.
You see, the great John Wooden once told me that the women play the "purest" game of basketball. He said that their "ball handling and spacing" are better than the men's game. If Dolan did get involved with the Liberty, he'd only do damage. But if he'd study the Liberty (even in their current state of woe) he might learn something-something the Knicks have long lost and forgotten.