New York Knicks: Still sitting at rock bottom

54 wins

In the 2012- 13 season, the Knicks had a season that would be the exception and not the rule. After finishing the 2011-12 lockout season with a .545 record, the Knicks won 54 games the following year. It was their best record since the pre-Dolan 1996- 97 season.

I imagine this must have been a little bit like having an entire month where the New York City subway ran with no delays. You’re not sure what’s going on, but you’re excited. You don’t how it happened, or why and you don’t care. You’re going to enjoy it as long as it lasts. Which in this case was until the Indiana Pacers eliminated the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

Also, pretty surprisingly, there was very little drama during the season. Imagine that. Less drama translated into more winning. Who woulda thunk it?

Unfortunately, the next season would be back to reality for the New York Knicks.

By this point, I’ve begun to think about the Knicks organization and their fans as Lucy and Charlie Brown and hope for something better as the football that the Knicks keep snatching away. To me, the 2012-13 season seems like the biggest example of hope given a real chance to grow only to be crushed because the Knicks were terrible again in the  2013-14 season.

Glen Grunwald is fired

First of all, the Knicks, for some completely inconceivable reason, decided to fire General Manager Glen Grunwald who took the position in September of 2011.  The ESPN article I read about Donnie Walsh‘s departure makes it seem like he was just too tired to continue in his position with the Knicks.

This is an argument that seems totally feasible since Walsh was 70 years of age when he left New York. But the fact that he would take a position with the Indiana Pacers the following year suggests that maybe his fatigue was Knicks specific. A Bleacher Report article speculated that Walsh had been forced out.

In Grunwald’s case though, I could find no such report, speculative or otherwise, that would explain why the Knicks would fire a general manager who had been in the position during a season that was the Knicks’ best since their 57-win season in 1996- 97. Plus, the Knicks had to win 28 more games than in the previous season to get to 54 wins.

The absolute defiance of logic in this decision sent shockwaves through the Knicks organization and the NBA in general. And why not? This call made absolutely no sense. One Executive provided clarity saying:

"If you’re looking for logic within Dolan’s Knicks, you’re looking in the wrong place"

How depressingly accurate. Dolan had made one logic-defying decision after another since he gained power in the Knicks’ organization in 1999. And as if the decision itself wasn’t bad enough, he made the call just days before the start of training camp in 2013 after Grunwald had spent the summer adding talent to round out the Knicks’ roster and did it with low-risk deals.

Oy vey.