The Knicks Fix

Carlos Mencia speaks some serious, painful truth. The comedian wrote a song based on his silly “Dee-Dee-Dee” catchphrase – which bothers me to a degree because I have a mentally retarded sister. But if you listen first and react second – something people need to exercise more of – you find out that Mencia isn’t referring to mentally-retarded people. He’s referring to people always looking for the easy way out and then wanting sympathy when things don’t go their way.

And the song talks about everything that bothers me about our society. And the Knicks.

It would be a breach of Tribune/Newsday ethical standards for me to post the lyrics here, so I’ll leave it up to you. But the part of the song that speaks the loudest is a back-and-forth refrain that says things like: “This test is too hard! (So they lower the standards)/ I’m not good at sports! (So we give them all trophies)” and so on.

Sound familiar, Knicks fans?

I grew up a fan of this franchise from the Bernard King days, through the entire Patrick Ewing era. It’s sad to me how things have changed for a team that every year is, in my mind, supposed to be one of the elite teams in the NBA, if not the flagship. No one expects a championship every season. But for a franchise of this caliber, of this fiscal clout and in the epicenter of basketball, what the Knicks are today is just unacceptable.

I can’t tell you if they’re going to be better this season. It’s hard to imagine they will be as bad as last year based solely on the fact that Larry Brown isn’t around to upset a number of players who disagreed with him. It’s hard to gauge this team at all because, truth be told, the media isn’t allowed to watch more than the last half-hour of practice, at most. And usually that’s when they’re shooting free throws.

One thing I do know: during my brief and forgettable basketball career, I hated the preseason. Practices were long and exhausting. I don’t get that vibe from the Knicks.

I can’t get a vibe from the preseason games, either. The Knicks have beaten the Sixers twice without having to face Allen Iverson or center Samuel Dalembert. They beat the Nets once without Jason Kidd or Vince Carter on the floor. They beat the Celtics when Sebastien Telfair left the game at the half and Paul Pierce didn’t dress. Then they got spanked by the Celtics when both players were on the court.

Conversely, the Knick backcourt that has everyone curious has played together sparingly in preseason games because one or the other was out of the lineup.

So it’s all a secret. Maybe that’s how Isiah Thomas wants it.

Until I can see it for myself, I can only talk about what I see right now. And that is a desperate effort to keep everything on a high-note and sweep the trouble under the hardwood court.

I know I’m new to this. But I never believed that a losing attitude could be turned around by the kid-gloves treatment. I saw it fail with the Islanders.

Dee-Dee-Dee.