New York Knicks: A look back at the beginning of the fall from grace
By Jade Johnson
Scott Layden fills the vacant GM position but the Knicks just miss out on another Finals appearance
Finally in August 1999 the Knicks, after being without a permanent GM since April 21, hire Scott Layden.
The 1999-00 season would be basically back to the norm for the Knicks especially compared to the previous season.
- Ewing was pretty healthy in the regular season and the Knicks won 50 games
- Allan Houston averaged 19.7 points on the season
- The Knicks swept the Raptors in the first round of the playoffs
- They squeaked into the Eastern Conference Finals after beating the Miami Heat by one point in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals.
- Lost to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals
The aging, injury-plagued Patrick Ewing
The 2000-01 season was the last year of Ewing’s contract and he wanted an extension. That outcome was a little far-fetched since the narrative was circulating that his team had played better during the playoffs while he was out with an injury. Sound familiar? Whether or not the Ewing Theory has merit is a conversation for another day.
Ewing had also just had knee surgery and Layden wasn’t interested in extending the contract of the aging, injury-prone star.
But there was still one more season to go on Ewing’s contract…
And Ewing wanted an extension…
But Layden had already said, “No.”…
Awkward!
Clearly, the only solution was a trade.
It took two attempts to move Ewing with both trade deals involving multiple teams and player totals in the double-digits. A Rubix cube would have been easier to figure out but they were eventually able to get the trade to go through.
While the Knicks ended up receiving a number of players for Ewing, Glen Rice was the only one that ended up providing any value at all. Rice, who was almost 15 points a game below his peak scoring average by that time, still averaged 12 points in 75 games during his one season in New York.
They also acquired:
- Travis Knight, who averaged 3.4 points in 7 seasons in the league
- Luc Longley who averaged 7.2 points for 11 different teams over 10 seasons in the league.
Both Knight and Longley came with hefty long-term contracts and Longley wasn’t even healthy.
Additionally, they got:
- Lazaro Borrell who never took the floor in a Knicks uniform.
- Vernon Maxwell who never took the floor in a Knicks uniform
- Vladimir Stepania who, say it with me, never took the floor in a Knicks uniform
- Two first-round and two-second round picks for the 2001 draft.
Personnel-wise other than Rice, the Knicks’ only return on the Ewing trade was a veritable whos-who of NBA mediocrity.
The plan, if you can call it that, was for the Knicks to acquire Dikembe Mutombo, a move that they felt would immediately return them to relevancy. As we know, that’s not how things went down.
But at least, they got those four draft picks…