Tuesday, June 25, 2019

How Long It's Been: The Knicks Were In the NBA Finals

The New York Knickerbockers, or Knicks for short, were founded in 1946. They reached the NBA Finals in 1951, 1952 and 1953, but lost all 3 times. They didn't get back to the Finals until 1970, and finally won it. They lost in the Finals in 1972, but won again in 1973. It took them until 1994 to get back, and they blew a 3-2 lead and lost in Game 7.

In 1999, despite having traded away Charles Oakley -- no, James Dolan was not yet in control -- and Patrick Ewing being hurt for the run-in, they made the Finals again. They had to win 6 of their last 8 games just to get the 8th and last seed in the Eastern Conference. But once they did that, they won a tough 5-game series with the Miami Heat. This was a year after they'd faced each other in the Playoffs, with a fight that encompassed even Van Gundy.

Bill Gallo, the great cartoonist for the New York Daily News, began drawing Jeff as a boxer, calling him "Rocky Van Gutsy." The Knicks swept the Atlanta Hawks, and stopped nemesis Reggie Miller and the Indiana Pacers. Each time, Gallo's cartoons showed Rocky Van Gutsy looking more battered, but still winning the fight.
With his fancy suits and slicked-back hair,
Heat coach, and former Knicks and Lakers boss, Pat Riley
made a fitting "Apollo Creed" for "Rocky Van Gutsy."

The dream ended in the Finals: The San Antonio Spurs won their 1st title, clinching at Madison Square Garden in Game 5, 78-77. Thus did Tim Duncan do for David Robinson what Hakeem Olajuwon did for Clyde Drexler in 1995, what Moses Malone did for Julius Erving in 1983, what Walt Frazier did for Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas in 1973, what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar did for Oscar Robertson in 1971, what Billy Cunningham did for Wilt Chamberlain in 1967, what Bill Russell did for Bob Cousy in 1957: Get the great man his title at long last.

Ewing is still looking for that title, Maybe he can win it as a coach somewhere.

Gallo's last cartoon in the series was forced to acknowledge what the original Rocky film did: The protagonist had given his all, and won respect and hearts, but it wasn't quite enough.

The movie public demanded a sequel, and Sylvester Stallone had Rocky Balboa win a rematch, but there has been no Rocky Van Gutsy II: The Knicks lost to the Pacers in the Conference Finals in 2000, and Jeff has never gotten past the 1st Round again: The Knicks lost in the 1st Round in 2001, he quit early in the 2001-02 season, got hired by the Houston Rockets in 2003, and lasted 4 years, missing the Playoffs once and losing in the 1st Round the other 3 times.

He was fired after the 2007 season, and has gone into broadcasting, and hasn't coached again. Maybe he's becoming the new Hubie Brown: He could get the Knicks respect, but not a title, and has found his true calling as a color commentator.

But as valiant as they were, the Knicks fell a little short. In the following off-season, team owner Charles Dolan gave his son James the reins. Since then, 20 seasons, the Knicks have made the Playoffs only 6 times, missing the last 6 times. Since making the Conference Finals in 2000, they have won 1 Playoff series (against the Boston Celtics in 2013), and only 9 Playoff games.

That's right: With all the resources at their disposal, admittedly working within the NBA's salary cap system, the New York franchise has won 9 Playoff games in 19 years. That is a searing indictment of "Guitar Jimmy" Dolan's management. The Rangers have only made the Stanley Cup Finals once under his ownership, too. Think about that: 2 teams at The Garden, 20 years, 1 Finals berth. That's inexcusable.

And the Knicks haven't played an NBA Finals game since June 25, 1999, 20 years ago today. How long has that been?

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The starting lineup, presuming everybody was healthy, was Patrick Ewing at center, Larry Johnson and Marcus Camby at forward, and Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell as the guards. (The joke got around: Sprewell should fit in well with the Knicks, because they always choke.)

Backups included Rick Brunson, Chris Childs, Ben Davis, Chris Dudley, Kurt Thomas, Herb Williams, Ewing's former Georgetown University teammate David Wingate, and Charlie Ward, the Heisman Trophy winner who led Florida State to the 1993 National Championship, but wasn't drafted by any NFL team, so he made the NBA, and led to the joke that "the best quarterback in New York plays for the Knicks."

All of them are still alive. Houston and Thomas lasted the longest with the Knicks, staying until 2005. Oddly, both Thomas and Camby returned in the 2012-13 season, and were the last of the '99 Knicks to still be playing in the NBA.

Ewing, Brunson, Ward and Williams have gone into coaching. Ewing is now the head coach at Georgetown. Houston and Johnson now work in the Knicks' front office. Johnson and, much more infamously, Sprewell went bankrupt, and their finances remain a mess. Not Dudley: He went back to his home State of Oregon, opened a financial management company, and was nominated for Governor by the Republican Party in 2010, but lost.

In the 1998-99 NBA season, the Memphis Grizzlies were still in Vancouver, the Oklahoma City Thunder were still the Seattle SuperSonics, the New Orleans Pelicans were still the Charlotte Hornets, and the current Charlotte Hornets franchise did not yet exist.

Prior to that Finals, the Spurs, the Miami Heat, the Dallas Mavericks, the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Toronto Raptors had never won an NBA Championship. The Spurs, the Heat, the Pacers, the Mavs, the Cavs, the Raptors, and the team then known as the New Jersey Nets had never reached the Finals. (The Pacers and the then-New York Nets had won ABA titles.)

Only 11 of the 29 teams then in the NBA are using the same arenas, including the Knicks. Ewing, Robinson, Miller, Olajuwon, Charles Barkley, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman, Chris Mullin, Arvydas Sabonis, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, Mitch Richmond, Dikembe Mutombo, Shaquille O'Neal, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Ray Allen, Grant Hill, Jason Kidd, Steve Nash and Vlade Divac were playing that season, and are now in the Hall of Fame.

Michael Jordan did not play that season, but would return. Yao Ming was still playing in China, yet to arrive in the NBA, but is now in the Hall of Fame. Vince Carter was a rookie, and might make the Hall of Fame, but he's got to stop playing first. Dirk Nowitzki was also a rookie, and has retired, and will make the Hall. Duncan and Kobe Bryant were also active. Duncan will make the Hall, and Kobe will, because the world has chosen to forget what he did in Colorado in the Summer of 2003.

Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony were in high school. LeBron James was in junior high school. Steph Curry and Brook Lopez were 11 years old; Kevin Durant, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook were 10; James Harden was 9, Damian Lillard was 8, Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving were 7, Anthony Davis was 6,  Giannis Antetokounmpo was 4, Kristaps Porzingis and Karl-Anthony Towns were 3, Ben Simmons was 2, Luca Doncic was 4 months old, and Zion Williamson was a year away from being born.

Current Knicks coach David Fizdale was an assistant coach at the University of San Diego. Current Brooklyn Nets coach Kenny Atkinson was playing in Germany's basketball league. Katie Smith of the Liberty was playing for the Minnesota Lynx.

Barry Trotz of the Islanders was wrapping up the debut season of the Nashville Predators as their head coach. Domenec Torrent of New York City FC was managing Palafrugell in his native Spain. Pat Shurmur of the Giants was an assistant coach with the Philadelphia Eagles. David Quinn of the Rangers was an assistant coach at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. John Hynes of the Devils was an assistant coach at Boston University.

Aaron Boone of the Yankees was playing for the Cincinnati Reds. Mickey Callaway of the Mets was a rookie with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Chris Armas of the Red Bulls was playing for the Chicago Fire. And Adam Gase of the Jets was playing at Michigan State University.

The Spurs dethroned the now-collapsed Chicago Bulls as NBA Champions. The World Championship holders in the other sports were the Yankees, the Denver Broncos and the newly-crowned Dallas Stars. The Heavyweight Championship of the World was divided between Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.

The Olympics have since been held in America, Canada, Britain, Australia, Greece, Italy, China, Russia, Brazil and Korea. The World Cup has since been held in Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa, Brazil and Russia.

The idea that 2 people of the same gender could get married, with all the legal benefits of marriage, was considered ridiculous. But then, so was the idea that corporations were "people" and entitled to all the rights thereof. Three Justices who were on the Supreme Court then are still on it now: Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

The President of the United States was Bill Clinton. George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford were still alive, as were the widow of Lyndon Johnson. George W. Bush had launched his campaign for the next year's election. Barack Obama was in the Illinois State Senate. Donald Trump was in the process of divorcing his 2nd wife and going bankrupt for the 2nd (3rd?) time.

The Governor of the State of New York was George Pataki, the Mayor of the City of New York was Rudy Giuliani, and the Governor of New Jersey was Christine Todd Whitman. Current Governor Andrew Cuomo was U.S. Secretary of Housing & Urban Development, and one of his deputies was current Mayor Bill de Blasio. Phil Murphy was President of the Asia office of Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong; he still owns a home there, though he is now Governor of New Jersey.

There were still surviving veterans of World War I, the Mexican Revolution, the Pancho Villa Expedition, the Buffalo Soldiers, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Easter Rising and the March On Rome. There were still living survivors of the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the 1914 Ludlow Massacre, the builders of the Panama Canal, and the disasters that befell the General Slocum in 1904, the Titanic in 1912, the Lusitania and the Eastland in 1915, and the Britannic in 1916.

Northern Ireland peacemakers John Hume and David Trimble were the holders of the Nobel Peace Prize. The Pope was John Paul II. The current Pope, Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was Archbishop of Buenos Aires -- not yet a Cardinal.

The Prime Minister of Canada was Jean Chretien. The monarch of Great Britain was Queen Elizabeth II (that hasn't changed), but the Prime Minister was Tony Blair. There have since been 4 Presidents of the United States, 4 Prime Ministers of Britain (soon to be 5), and 3 Popes.

Manchester United had just won the Premier League, the FA Cup, and the UEFA Champions League, the only time an English club has done the "European Treble." To win the Champions League Final, they had to come from behind in stoppage time to beat German giants Bayern Munich, a highly symbolic victory considering the 1958 Munich Air Disaster that killed 8 Man United players and injured 2 others so badly that they never played again.

Major novels of 1999 included Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, Timeline by Michael Crichton, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason by Helen Fielding, The Testament by John Grisham, Chocolat by Joanne Harris, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Boston Red Sox fan Stephen King, Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban (the 3rd book in the series) by J.K. Rowling, and Hannibal (chronologically, the most recent book in the series) by Thomas Harris. George R.R. Martin was working on A Storm of Swords (the 3rd book in his A Song of Ice and Fire series).

June 1999 was not a good month for new movies. It featured Disney's cartoon version of Tarzan, complete with a love theme sung by Phil Collins. Me Tarzan, you nauseous. It featured the spy spoof sequel Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. It featured the Adam Sandler gross-out film Big Daddy. It featured the South Park film, Bigger, Longer & Uncut, in which series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were able to show all the stuff that was too disgusting for TV, even by their standards.

And it featured the awful film version of the 1960s TV Western Wild Wild West, including the giant spider (in this case, mechanical/steampunk) that producer Jon Peters so badly wanted to have Superman fight in a movie, a big reason why there were no Superman movies from 1987 to 2006. This movie was so bad (How bad was it?), even Salma Hayek couldn't save it.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough with Pierce Brosnan had premiered the month before, while Star Trek: Insurrection had premiered 6 months earlier. None of these would do its franchise much critical good.

The attempts to bring Superman and Batman back to the big screen were failing, and so the last men to play them remained Dean Cain (a Superman on TV) and George "This is why Superman works alone" Clooney, respectively. Paul McGann, in a one-shot deal, was the most recent man to play The Doctor.

Major TV shows that debuted in the 1998-99 season included Sports Night, Will & Grace, The King of Queens, Felicity, Becker, MTV's Total Request Live, and some shows that weren't set in New York City, like The Sopranos (okay, it was in North Jersey, and some of it happened in New York), Farscape (which didn't even take place on this planet), V.I.P. (which frequently seemed like it was on another planet), The Hughleys, Charmed, the disastrous The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, and cartoons like Batman Beyond, The Powerpuff Girls, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, The Wild Thornberrys, Rolie Polie Olie, Ed, Edd n Eddy, Family Guy, Futurama, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the U.S. premiere of Pokémon.

No one had yet heard of Robert Langdon, Master Chief, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Rick Grimes, Lisbeth Salander, Bella Swan, Don Draper, Katniss Everdeen, Walter White or Richard Castle.

Kourtney Kardashian was 20 years old, Kim 18, Khloe was about to turn 15, Rob was 12, Kendall 3 and Kylie almost 2. Of the Modern Family kids, Sarah Hyland was 8, Ariel Winter was a year and a half, and Rico Rodriguez and Nolan Gould were less than a year old. From Game of Thrones: Richard Madden had just turned 13; Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington and Rose Leslie were 12, Nathalie Emmanuel was 10, Jack Gleeson was 7, Sophie Turner was 3, Maisie Williams was 2, and Isaac Hempstead Wright was 2 months old.

Jennifer Lopez and Ricky Martin had just released their debut albums, the White Stripes were about to, and the debuts of Britney Spears and Eminem were new. For most of us, "Selena" still meant Quintanilla-Perez; "Demi" meant Moore; and "Kylie" meant Minogue.

Christina Aguilera had debuted thanks to her song in the Disney cartoon Mulan, but the English-speaking world had not yet heard of Shakira, and Pink, Destiny's Child and Alicia Keys had yet to debut. Katy Perry was in high school. Lady Gaga was 13 years old, Drake 12, Rihanna 11, Taylor Swift 9, Ed Sheeran 8, Louis Tomlinson 7; Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Nick Jonas, Cardi B, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj and Zayn Malik were all 6; Ariana Grande was about to turn 6; Liam Payne, Niall Horan Harry Styles and Justin Bieber were 5 (Justin wasn't yet a "Boyfriend," he was barely past being a "Baby"); Halsey was 3, and Camila Cabello was 2.

Inflation was such that what $1.00 bought then, $1.54 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 33 cents, and a New York Subway ride $1.50. The average price of a gallon of gas was $1.22, a cup of coffee $1.90, a McDonald's meal (Big Mac, fries, shake) $5.69, a movie ticket $5.09, a new car $20,686, and a new house $189,100. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 10,552.57.

At that point, the leading home video game system was the original Sony PlayStation. We did have the Internet, but not yet Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest. Nor the iPod, iPhone or iPad.

Mobile phones were now quite common, but they were still the flip-open kind, bringing to mind the communicators on the original Star Trek series -- except that show took place 300 years in the future, and the new "mobiles" were smaller. This was around the time that cellular phones began to be called "cell phones" more often, and were already becoming, in some cases, so annoying that New York Daily News writer Pete Hamill described them in his column as "yell phones."

A movie released the next year, Frequency, had a storyline where a 1999 New York police detective found his father's old ham radio set (sort of like the Internet for the middle of the 20th Century), and, through a sci-fi phenomenon, is able to talk to his father, a New York fireman in 1969, and warn him of his impending death in a fire. The Mets' '69 World Series win becomes a major plot point in the film.

Remembering his best friend complaining about not buying stock in Yahoo! when it was cheap, he uses the ham set to tell the 7-year-old version of that best friend to remember the word "Yahoo!" When (spoiler alert) the movie's happy ending happens, the cop is shown hitting a baseball that breaks the headlight of the best friend's car -- a Mercedes with a New York license plate reading YAHOO1. 

In June 1999, America's economy was booming like never before -- and, sadly, like never since. The single European currency had gone into effect. NATO and Serbia signed a peace treaty, ending the Kosovo War, and allowing the independence of Kosovo. The post-Nelson Mandela era began in South Africa, as Thabo Mbeki was elected the country's 2nd President. The Fourth Nigerian Republic was proclaimed, ending military rule in Africa's most populous nation. Napster debuted. A week into July, Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj set a new record for the mile run: 3 minutes, 43.13 seconds. It remains the record.

Mel Torme, and DeForest Kelley, and Marion Motley died. Kately Nacon, and Natalie Alyn Lynd, and Eddie Nketiah were born.

June 25, 1999. The San Antonio Spurs defeated the New York Knicks 78-77 at Madison Square Garden. The Spurs won their 1st NBA Championship, denying the Knicks their 3rd.

Since then, the Spurs have appeared in 29 NBA Finals games, winning 19. The Knicks have appeared in none.

When will the Knicks make it again? I think they're just 1 man away from being legitimate NBA title contenders again.

Unfortunately, that one man is James Dolan.

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