At halftime of their game against Cleveland last
week, Charles Barkley felt the Knicks were so historically bad—and they are—that
the occasion called for making up words to describe their offense. Instead of
triangle he went with blu-blu, or
something like that. The thing was, at the time, the Knicks were actually
winning. They would go onto lose—and they’ve lost twice since—but at the time
not all seemed lost. What makes the Knicks sense of badness so horrendous,
however, is that this current group of players really hasn’t been anywhere of
note, so this cannot be described as a decline. Furthermore, they’re not young
enough for this time spent struggling to be taken as some painful crucible for
the league’s future zeitgeist. They are, besides the occasional flair of wasted
talent and unconceived talent, awful.