Jared Max: Planes Towing Banners Heading For The Garden Next?
By Jared Max
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Now that Rex Ryan has been evicted from his extended stay on the coaching hot seat, there is a vacancy. Don't bother checking rates on Trivago or Kayak. I understand there is a reservation being held for the Knicks' Derek Fisher.
The Knicks are so bad that they make the Jets look relatively respectable.
Now 33 games into the NBA season, the Knicks have one more win than the Jets accrued playing half as many games. While Fisher has yet to be exposed, his immunity from inside Rex's shadow was revoked on Monday. Unlike Giants coach Tom Coughlin, who managed to ride in the blind spot of local football fans' side-view mirror (despite a seven-game losing streak and non-playoff appearance for the fifth time in six seasons), Fisher will pay a price for flying through no man's land, minus protective cover.
Extending their worst start in team history with each game and defeat, the high-priced Knicks may be the worst team -- dollar-for-dollar -- that money could buy. And, now that local fans have finished arguing over the check they had to pay for this football season, they are itching the local Sports Board of Health to tend to another mess in need of professional cleaning.
Phil Jackson was supposed to be the Knicks version of "The Wolf" from "Pulp Fiction" — their master cleaner-upper. But, completing the Knicks' triangular kitchen remodel has had to be placed on hold to patch the living room walls (J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert) and dining room ceiling (Amar'e Stoudemire), as well as tend to their faulty basement bathroom (Quincy Acy) and contaminated soil (Carmelo Anthony) that has leaked as far as the bedrock beneath the foundation of the refurbished Garden.
Between now and the end of April, James Dolan will become Woody Johnson — the owner of a New York-area sports franchise who will be unable to deny his fan base's disgust.
Rex and John Idzik didn't have a chance. The steam that fueled their firing was accumulated over months. Hope was placed on season-ending injury reserve shortly after their Week 1 win. Displeasure marinated from the fall into winter. By the time the Jets left Miami -- their 4-win season bookended by victories over the Dolphins and Raiders -- owner Woody Johnson had no choice but to fire his coach and general manager.
Rex and Idzik may be the headline today, but, tomorrow the airplane banner will start flying over Madison Square Garden.
With 49 games remaining in the adrift Knicks season, it is hard to foresee Fisher coaching much longer. Then again, his boss is the same guy who failed to respond to deafening cries to "Fire Isiah." If Jackson was Devils president Lou Lamoriello, Fisher would be gone before the All-Star break — if not weeks ago. Jackson, the high-priced architect, would return to the bench after firing his foreman, Fisher, who seems like just another worker on a job swinging a hammer. He is wearing a suit, but he still sounds like somebody wearing shorts and a jersey.
After every game, Fisher talks in the tone he did as a player. Probably, sadly, he would have served the Knicks better as an aging shooter. He was a great player. A model teammate. A champion. But, Fisher has yet to prove that he should have been hired as an NBA head coach — the stench from his playing sneakers still strong.
With demolition completed Monday on one New York sports era, construction trucks are ready to depart to another wing of the house. Fumes have been permeating from a basement toilet that hasn't flushed consistently since November. It can no longer be ignored. The toilet may be salvageable, but the plumbing lines appear so clogged that the only option may be to jackhammer the driveway and sidewalk to free the sewage and lay new piping.
Wait, did I just compare the Knicks to a pile of ...?
Somebody call Cousin Eddie and tell him that the you-know-what is full and needs to be emptied immediately, if not sooner. Otherwise, production will begin on the next film in a classic series -- this one called "National Lampoon's Fisher Vacation."
Jared Max is a multi-award winning sportscaster. He hosted a No. 1 rated New York City sports talk show, "Maxed Out" — in addition to previously serving as longtime Sports Director at WCBS 880, where he currently anchors weekend sports. Follow and communicate with Jared on Twitter @jared_max.
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