Having lived in this town all my life there are several certainties when it comes to sports, not one of which ranks higher than what’s happening with the Zach Randolph saga.

When the athlete is subjected to trade rumors in NY, even in the off season, by the time the media comes barking to the player it’s an indicator that said talks are at an advanced stage. No quotes from a player means the rumor is fictitious. Granted Z-Bo hasn’t spoken publicly, but he’s well-aware that he’s being shopped.

What has always interested me is the player’s response, which can be categorized in three reactions.

1. Indifference- “Hey if I get traded I get traded, I can’t worry about it.”
2. Bitterness- “I really wanted to stay here. I love NY and would have loved to finish my career here.”
3. Reality of the Situation- “the NBA is a business, and trades are part of it. I understand that.”

Again, while it appears Randolph has been preparing for his exit, history will show that by the time it gets to this point, where he knows he’s being actively shopped, he should be packing his bags. It’s tough for a team and the player to coexist once the player feels the team is shopping him. You’ll recall D’Antoni singling out Curry and his plans to use him in his offense this summer, but can anyone remember a similar vote of confidence for Z-Bo? All I heard was Walsh saying that Randolph is worth more than what the Clippers were offering. Not exactly a huge example of support, wouldn’t you say?

That silence speaks volumes and leads me to believe 100% that Randolph will be gone in the next few days/weeks.

For Donnie it’s twofold.

• He has Memphis nibbling and can’t let them off the hook.
• Should Z-Bo stay, he’ll be an even bigger distraction on and off the court.

Take Jeremy Shockey for example. Upon learning he’d been shopped he lost his mind, thus dissolving the relationship between player and team.

Jason Kidd was rumored to have forced a trade, and you knew once Dallas started talking a deal would get done as soon after rumors started Kidd became a locker room and on-court distraction.

David Cone with the Mets, Anthony Mason, Mark Jackson, there are a ton of examples of players who’ve dealt with long-winded rumors, just waiting for the other shoe to drop, and to a man they were each eventually moved.

Why? Because there is a “point of no return” that the player/team relationship passes and I believe that just happened with Z-Bo.

There’s simply no turning back.

Is Carolina on Donnie Walsh’s mind?

Always.

One has to wonder if part of this holdup is because of Walsh’s relationship with fellow inked- Heel brethren Larry Brown.

Brown, as you recall, coached here for a year, and before then led the Pistons to a championship while his young Serbian big man sat the bench.

It wasn’t until Brown left that Milicic began to see the light of day in Detroit. What’s clear to me is that Brown was trying to motivate Darko via the benching feeling he wasn’t doing enough to earn his minutes or getting the most out of his young talents via hard work.

Brown’s MO is that he leans on his veterans and often puzzles people with the way he treats rookies, see how he treated David Lee in the kid’s first campaign: 20 productive minutes some nights, DNP-Coach’s Decision the next.

My firm belief is that regardless what Brown thinks, Walsh is intrigued by Darko, he’s just too talented not to take this chance on. And Brown’s opinion has little merit at this point having coached him so long ago.

Call it a hunch, but knowing Walsh’s due dilligence, he’s at least placed a phone call, but if you think I’m saying Walsh would neg any deal based on what Larry Brown says, I’m not.

If that were the case these rumors would not have gone this far. Walsh wants Z-Bo gone, and Darko, a former #2 overall pick who’s still under 25, is solid bounty.

Speaking of Brown and Milicic, here is satirical a piece I found from August 2007.

So it appears that the deal is on the man’s table. It’s a deal that is better than the one he passed on with the Clippers. At that time, many desperate fans wanted to dump Randolph’s contract and couldn’t believe there was an actual taker.

Donnie held firm.

I, for one, would not have made the Clipper deal either, but, like those fans I am desperate to rid Randolph’s contract, I think it’s move one. That said I believe Donnie thinks so too and over the past few weeks we have learned a few things about Donnie the executive and negotiator, and they are worth noting.

• Unlike his predecessor, Donnie will not make a deal for deal’s sake. Can you imagine walking into this mess, your hometown team, with your career in early in its 4th quarter
  and not wanting to rush into doing something? Walsh has done the exact opposite and clearly has a plan. We know about the cap, but what comes with it, is making sure to find takers for a huge chunk of this roster while identifying which players to hold on to.

• That said, he did make one swift decision and that was on Balkman, and what he did was a very smart move, despite what fans of Taz think. He traded Balkman for roster flexibility and cap space followed by exchanging the Ghost of the Phantom for Ewing Jr. all the while adding another second rounder. Even if Ewing doesn’t pan out, it doesn’t really matter, the team would never have re-signed Balkman so to get a young player with NBA potential and a 2nd rounder for a free agent whose stock would have plummeted even further, is a very productive move, albeit not a sexy one.

• Which leads us to the Randolph situation. What Walsh is doing here is continuing to build Randolph’s value. Make no mistake, Randolph’s is a franchise-killing contract. And he has his issues, we’ve heard that his house recently has looked like the location of a Cheech and Chong movie, without all those trailers, pesky actors and cameras. Granted plenty of players smoke weed, that’s not breaking news, but Randolph’s off court issues make him less desirable to a franchise than his strapping contract. Players in this league get paid that much to win, but more importantly to LEAD (see Garnet) not just to put up solid numbers. So, if the rumors are true, and we know they are, Walsh has broken the deal down into getting back a potentially impressive big man who has to showcase for another contract, and a decent bench player with a bad contract in exchange for paying a big chunk of Z-Bo’s remainder.

I’d bet anything that Donnie would have already agreed to pay a chunk of Z-Bo’s deal in exchange for Walker instead of Jaric, or if the Grizz were to include a young guard, Lowry or Crittenton, along with Jaric - hence the holdup. Right now the Grizzlies are being smart and trying to gauge Walsh’s desperation, but Donnie hasn’t shown any and there is no reason to believe that he will. Both teams need to deal, so I’m sure something will happen, but you can bet it will be in the Knicks’ best interest and at worst an even trade on the surface.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but as the Big Fella reflects on how things should have gone at the end of his career, he admits he should have stayed in New York, according to the Boston Globe.

Ewing regrets leaving the Knicks after 15 years (he played a year with Seattle and a year with Orlando) but appears to have accepted the team’s defeats in the 1994 and ‘99 Finals.

“Looking back at my career, I feel I had a great career,” Ewing said. “Naturally, I’m disappointed I didn’t win a ring. But I don’t think that defines me. What defines me is my whole body of work, from grade school to high school to college, the Olympics, to the pros. I consider myself a winner. There are a lot of people who have won who aren’t winners, and a lot of people who haven’t won who are winners.”

As for leaving New York? “Sometimes, you make decisions, and with hindsight you probably wouldn’t have done,” Ewing said. “[The Knicks] probably feel the same way. At the time I thought it was time to move on. You get tired of hearing the same thing over and over again, that the team would be better off without you. With hindsight, I should have stayed and finished my career in New York.”

Well Patrick, I can’t blame you for leaving at that time, management really did a poor job with a lack of forward thinking.  It was a respect thing, and granted, it’s difficult to hang on to great old players and to move on, that was the decision. But what bothers fans was that management didn’t have a plan. It’s almost like they were forced into trading Ewing, not preparing for it. Thus your departure was the beginning of the end. Had they prepared better they could have received more than Glen Rice, Luc Longley and Travis Knight along with a couple of picks.

My first memories of Patrick Ewing were in 1982 when he was a raw freshman at Georgetown who blocked everything in site.

Fast forward a few years later and the memory that stands out  was listening to the radio in my dad’s Dodge Aries driving home from a soccer game and hearing the news that the Knicks won the NBA lottery. The news was earth shattering, Ewing was a Knick.

What followed was a historic career, and although that elusive championship never came, to me, the Big Fella represented all that was right about being a Knick.

Sure he guaranteed wins, and yes he missed a layup against the Pacers, but the man defined professionalism.

Moreover, all that’s wrong  to fans today about the media and beat writers is directly associated to their treatment of #33 and vice versa. They were wrong, and I’m sure they know it.

The man came to work EVERY night, played hurt even when an achillies tendon came barking.

Congrats on your years here big fella, and for being inducted into basketball immortality.

You’ll always be a champion in my mind because hundreds of guys have rings that didn’t have one millionth of your professionalism.

And as far as Riley, what can I say, he’s the Parcells of basketball: immense genius with severe adult ADD.

He made us a factor who wanted to run the show from the top, thus the reason for the sudden exit. I can’t fault you for that. But, while he may exude class on the outside,  New York fans see right through that front.

That said from day one on the job the team believed it could be champions, and so few coaches have that convincing ability to get that across without having to make a trade. They can convince players they’ve never met to run through walls face first. It’s a gift.

Springfield deserves you both, and you both deserve today.

Congrats.

According to ESPN’s Andrew Marchand, the Grizzlies and Knicks have a proposed deal on the table that would send the talented forward, Zach Randolph, to the Grizzlies in exchange for Darko Milicic and Marko Jaric.

Tommy and myself have kicked around the idea of trading Randolph to the Grizzlies for a long time. While I am a big fan of Zach Randolph, I would be willing to deal him. However, Donnie Walsh better think long and hard before pulling off a deal such as the one mentioned above.

While Zach has his imperfections, he also has some serious skills. Zach is an offensive force that can kill you on the block as well as knock down the 20 footer. With Coach D’Antoni’s new offensive system, Randolph figures to be pretty productive. Randolph, while a “ball-hog”, is also a “ball-hawk”. Randolph demands the ball on offense, and will go through walls to get the ball off of rebounds. I know that his $17 million bill in the final year of his deal figures to restrict the Knicks ability to go after a player such as LeBron James, but for the next two seasons, Zach definitely has the ability to be a key contributor in the Knicks hopeful turn-around.

On the other side of the equation, I have mixed feelings on who the Knicks will receive. I like Darko. At 23 years old, Milicic is older than Patrick Ewing Jr., a Knicks rookie. Even if Darko continues to be an 8 ppg and 8 rpg contributor, I will have no problem so long as he continues to block shots. The Knicks need a shot-blocker, and if given the minutes, Darko figures to average about 2 blocks per game. I view Milicic as a poor man’s Raef LaFrentz of old. Like Raef, Milicic is a bit slow footed, but has a knack for blocking shots and can hit the outside jumper.

Jaric is a different story altogether. Jaric, at 6’7 is a big guard, but is also a true point guard, and a good defender. However, his contract extends into the 2010-2011 season at nearly $7.5 million. If the Knicks are looking to deal Zach, it is clear that they are trying to rebuild. Bringing in Marko Jaric does not fit with this plan or this team. The Memphis Grizzlies have three young point guards in Conley, Lowry, and Crittenton. The latter two seem fairly expendable and would fit better into the Knicks’ future plans than would Jaric. If Walsh makes a deal with Memphis and does not attain either Lowry or Crittenton, I will be upset. Even if he has to throw in the 2^nd round pick that he acquired from the Nuggets, Walsh has to do what it takes to get one of those two young points.

For the record, I would prefer to see Eddy Curry dealt to Memphis in a similar deal. But I understand the finances behind the deal, and thus dealing Randolph makes more sense.

Amidst the NBA rookie symposium, the one that made for national news and countless Kansas jokes at my sales meeting, was plenty to talk about regarding these Zach Randolph to Memphis rumors.

What I’ve learned most is that when dealing with a team in a small city, it seems NY beat writers have no contacts as all the buzz is coming from Internet sites and from a Memphis beat writer, who incidently doesn’t return emails.

Either way, we at TKB have been on this deal thanks to nothing but our own logic. Rumors surfaced weeks ago that Darko and Walker would be the package and that made little sense to us. It was just too one-sided for me to believe, personally.

You would have to think that in order for such deal to go down, Jaric’s contract would have to be a part of the deal, and probably another player from the Knicks for roster’s sake.

The latter is less important, who knows, maybe Dolan would agree to mass dead weight buyouts if Randolph’s deal is moved.

But what it comes down to is how willing is Walsh to take on Jaric’s deal it’s one that goes past 2010, but it’s 10 million dollars cheaper than Z-Bo. Moreover, what impact will that money have on keeping Lee and Nate, free agents both at the end of the year.

If the ball is in Donnie’s court, expect this deal to happen sooner rather than later.

Logic tells me this one makes sense and should happen.

Hahn makes a great point on his blog that Donnie wouldn’t overshadow Ewing’s induction.
He’s dead on correct about that.

Stay tuned.

Quickly, the ping pong table saw a lot of action and a spirited match between DeAndre Jordan and Jerryd Bayless caught everyone’s attention.
(Jordan is freekishly long and anyone would take a chance on him based on his size and length, he needs to put on weight for sure)

But the highlight was one of my sales directors battling Hakeem Olajuwon on ther court before 34 had to head up to Springfield.

My sales guy returned serve after serve to the surprise of Hakeem, then proceeded to wonder aloud,
“That’s all ya got dream?”

Also Clyde Drexler had this gem to the valet after the young man thanked him for his generous tip, mentioning he usually gets $1s and $5s.
“I forgot what those looked like,” joked the Glyde.

Memories from Doral Arrowwood.

Grizz beat writer Ron Tillery, who recently reported the team is mulling a Zach Randolph for Darko/Walker deal, has an interesting quote from GM Chris Wallace this morning.

“We took care of some of the things we needed to do,” general manager Chris Wallace said. “We got more talent in, which is the overall job. We got more athleticism. We picked up some size with a variety of big men who have different skills. At some point in time, we’ve got to get some veterans that will take us to another level. That opportunity wasn’t there this summer.”

Sounds like any deal with the Knicks is a longshot.

“We’ve got certain holes,” Wallace conceded. “We could use some backup help at small forward behind Rudy. We need more shooting and another big banger at the power forward spot. We’re still a work in progress.”

And one that can use a 20 and 10 guy.

According to the Arlington Heights Daily Herald, Ben Gordon has had discussion with the Russian team CSKA Moscow about a one year deal.  The Herald is reporting that the Russian offer is believed to be for $5.5 million, while Gordon’s camp is seeking roughly $7 million, much like Josh Childress received earlier in the off-season (and much like what Leonardo Barbosa, a player who puts up similar production to Gordon, is receiving here in the United States).  Gordon still has the option to sign the Bulls’ one year qualifying offer for $6.4 million.  In any case, Gordon would be an unrestricted free agent next off-season.

Admittedly, I have an infatuation with the Ben Gordon situation.  I understand that the Bulls and Gordon’s camp have not been able to reach an agreement, and I also understand that Gordon probably is not worth the money that he is seeking.  But the fact that he is not signed yet is ridiculous.

In a recent post, I claimed that part of me still wants Walsh to go out and pluck Gordon.  While he might not be the greatest fit on this team, the man has serious offensive potential.  With Stephon Marbury potentially being bought out, Ben Gordon would look real nice as the Knicks’ sixth man behind Duhon and Crawford.  I can’t even imagine the schemes D’Antoni would be able to draw up for him.  But Walsh is not looking to add a contract that will impede his intentions during the Summer of LeBron.  Would Gordon be willing to accept a two year deal from the Knicks at a steep rate?  Would $12 million per year for two years entice him, knowing that he would be an unrestricted free agent in an off-season when many teams may potentially have cap room?  This is far-fetched and would probably not happen, but it is definitely worth a thought.

So I have to wonder, how available is Gordon?  How is it that a player of his caliber could still be unemployed, especially with plenty of teams out there looking for an upgrade at the 2?  I would not expect Walsh to go after him because he is not looking to add salary passed the next two seasons, but what about the other teams in the league?  Are the Bulls’ seriously considering a sign-and-trade with him, or are they simply trying to retain him at the lowest possible cost?  Maybe other teams have not shown interest, which is puzzling to me.  I am curious to see how this ends, and I will be upset if Gordon ends up abroad, albeit for one season.