Watchdog

Interesting stuff here from JVG (around 1:45 into it) in an interview with SNY's Gary Apple, in which he takes issue with a fellow former Knicks coach.

Bill Bradley, Willie Reed and Earl Monroe are scheduled to appear on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 127 at 1 p.m. Tuesday, direct from the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue and 52nd Street.

The 1972-73 season is bound to come up. Maybe the 2008 Presidential election will, too.

This makes three out of four Knicks-related posts. Uh, oh.

I promise my next post will not be about any team or newspaper Cablevision owns.

Actor/writer/WFAN caller (and loyal WatchDog reader) Jim Burns phoned Richard Neer Sunday morning and said this:

"It's going to be pretty sad if Neil Best has to blog about the Knicks City Dancers, every day..."

Hmm. I'm not sure what's sad about that.

Those talented, hard-working young women are my teammates now, so why wouldn't I?

How will Cablevision's purchase of Newsday affect our coverage of the Knicks, Rangers, Liberty and MSG?

A very fair question, and one that should be asked, presumably by me.

So I will.

Promise.

Wish me luck.

(UPDATE: Top Newsday editors have not yet met with Cablevision execs, so all of this is quite premature. But here is what editor John Mancini said when I asked about the Knicks/Rangers/MSG concern on the part of many readers:

“We’re pleased that Cablevision in joining with Newsday cites Newsday’s long tradition of journalistic integrity. These are folks who know the paper well, know the market and understand the journalism Newsday has long practiced. So that gives us great hope for a strong relationship going forward, one that respects our traditions here.

“Our readers demand that we portray situations honestly, and anyone who knows Newsday knows that. And anyone who knows Newsday and is investing in Newsday understands the value of that.’’)

Patrick Ewing spoke to his old coach, John Thompson, on TNT Saturday about the vacant Knicks job and the team's apparent lack of interest in him. Patrick is unamused.

Ewing on whether or not he wanted to be considered for the New York Knicks head coaching position: “Definitely. Obviously I played in New York, I know the area, I know the team, I know the fans, I know everybody. I know the media. So naturally I would have loved to interview.”

Ewing on being contacted about the Knicks coaching job: “No, no one’s contacted me…It did (bother me), but I guess that’s life. I’m in a great situation here in Orlando working with (Dwight Howard). If it doesn’t happen it doesn’t happen. But yes, it did bother me.”

(UPDATE: Here is a thorough story on this from Hahn.)

The Nets aren't in the playoffs but have a playoffs sponsor (see post below).

The Knicks aren't in the playoffs but have a player talking about the playoffs on the Internet.

I could make a cynical remark about the Knicks waiting to ice Isiah until late Friday afternoon - for decades the chosen day and time for public relations people to alert the world to news they would prefer to see lost in the shuffle.

The tradition is particularly strong in New York, where Saturday newspapers long have been afterthoughts, and is most popular of all when teams announce ticket price increases.

But I've decided there actually is something cool - and old school - about the tactic still being employed in this crazy new media world of ours. So I applaud it.

I know this particular angle is not the most important to celebrating Knicks fans right now, but I'm the sports media columnist. What did you want me to say about this?

My Friday newspaper column primarily is about the various New York connections for this year's NBA playoffs . . . on TV, not on the court, of course.

I'm all for Mark Jackson being named the Knicks' coach, but I'd rather see him take a front office position in which Donnie Walsh could mentor him, then hand over the keys in three or four years.

It worked for the Giants. They won it all the year after the departure of Ernie Accorsi, who set the team on its SBXLII course, to be followed by Jerry Reese, who ably put it over the top.

Completely random other stuff before I move on to my Sunday column:

Manny Ramirez was New York Newsday's City Player of the Year back when we awarded such a prize, but I never did get to see him play for George Washington. My colleague, Michael Dobie, did, and I recall him coming back from covering a game in awe over the distance young Manny had driven one particular baseball.

In my mini-review of ESPN's new Derek Jeter DVD, I forgot to mention that in the minors, he wore No. 13. Is this widely known? I thought it was interesting.

In my column about the Knicks' free food giveaway, I mentioned that cotton candy and grilled chicken sandwiches were excluded because they are too labor intensive.

I forgot to mention the banned list also included chocolate/vanilla soft ice cream swirls (one flavor only, please) as well as ice cream toppings.

Barbaric!

I'm going out on a limb here, but after reading this transcript of an interview with Dave Checketts by Andrew Marchand of ESPN 1050, I get the sense the former Garden boss is not a huge fan of the current administration/coach.

My favorite line is the one in which he speculates that Jeff Van Gundy would have spit on Zach Randolph for shooting an air ball on a three-point try.

Yikes!

Isiah Thomas was asked during his final, home pre-game news conference Monday night about his relationship with the New York media.

Here is what he said, based on my longhand scribbles, as I was not taping it because I was there mostly to write about free hot dogs.

"I think I've always presented myself and tried to conduct myself in a professional way. There have been some difficult times, but I haven't taken the things written or said personally. I understand this is entertainment and sometimes you wear the white hat and sometimes you wear the black hat. I'm OK with that."

All-you-can-eat night at the Knicks game went extremely smoothly from what I could tell. Here is my newspaper column about it.

The free eats did not make fans feel any better about the season, but free food always tastes better than the alternative, and few turned down the opportunity.

Let's get the shameless, annoying name-dropping out of the way early today:

I had a nice chat with David Tyree after the game; I had heard he made a nice play in the Super Bowl and congratulated him. I once did a story in which I visited him at home when he was a rookie and living with his now deceased mother in Montclair.

After that, I shared a very crowded elevator with a half-dozen Knicks City Dancers. Not quite as memorable as my elevator moment with Gisele Bundchen at Giants Stadium in December, but I'll take it.

Trevor Immelman was there with his wife. I did not talk to him.

Here is a piece of an interview that is amusing on two levels:

One, it's Tom Brokaw ripping the Knicks. Two, it's Tom Brokaw ripping the Knicks in the middle of an interview with Jim Gray on XM Satellite Radio's Masters coverage from Augusta.

There is no escaping the worst team money can buy!

Brokaw: “The NBA, as you know I am a big fan of the NBA…or have been. I am not very happy with it at the moment. I think that they have lost their way.”

Gray: “Why not…What bothers you?”

Brokaw: “What bothers me is that a lot of the deportment is inappropriate. You know, off the court, and I think that just four or five exceptions they are not being what they ought to be to the country.”

Gray: “And you have such a large voice, I'm wondering if you have spoken to the commissioner or team officials.”

Brokaw: “No…..He certainly knows how I feel about the Knicks…and their ownership. As a season ticket holder for a long time, I won’t renew because I don’t like the attitude that that ownership has brought to the community.”

Gray: “And you have been in the front row or close to it for a long time.”

Brokaw: “I was in the front row for a while and then three rows back but not next year. I just think that they have failed their obligation to the city. I think that we have great sports franchises in New York. I think Fred Wilpon of the Mets and George Steinbrenner of the Yankees measure up and they bring to the community winning teams as best they can and make real statements about being supportive of the community. I don’t think that the Dolans have done that and I think the Garden has lost a lot of its luster as a result of their ownership and this is the first time that I have really said that out loud. But I feel very strongly about it and I think that it's the least we can expect. They get these huge prices for people to sit in those seats, all kinds of tax advantages to owning the Garden and yet they operate as if they were a sovereign country and want to play only by their own rules. So I’m not very happy about that.”

New York Magazine says the Knicks are the worst team in the history of professional sports.

That's an accomplishment. Previously it was the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.

It is Portfolio magazine's assertion that the Isiah Thomas era has not gone well from a financial standpoint for Madison Square Garden and the Knicks.

Discuss.

Strange, but cool:

Earl Monroe has joined MSG's Knicks announcing team for the rest of the season (starting Sunday) alongside Mike Breen/Gus Johnson and Walt Frazier.

Monroe will do every game with the exception of April 11 against the Hawks.

MSG said it wanted to reunite the backcourt of the Knicks' last NBA title team on the 35th anniversary of its championship.

It's one reason to watch Isiah Thomas' squad, I suppose. The only one.

This is weird.

I mentioned early in my Thursday column about Donnie Walsh's plans for a new Knicks media policy that someone at the press conference shouted "woo hoo" from the back of the WaMu Theater lobby.

Then today I was driving on the Belt Parkway and saw a big WaMu billboard with the words "Whoo hoo" emblazoned on it.

Turns out the phrase is part of a WaMu marketing campaign.

Was that woo-hooer the other day some sort of plant?

Yes, of course I know that most fans don't care about the mistreatment of we nattering nattering nabobs of negativism, pusillanimous pussyfooters and hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history in the media.

(Speaking of which, William Safire, who wrote the classic "nattering" line, among others, for Spiro Agnew in 1970, was on Jon Stewart's show Wednesday night. But I digress.)

I simply believed, however, that the state of media relations in Knicks-land had become so toxic and so illustrative of the larger problems at the Garden it was worth a column off of Donnie Walsh's news conference.

So I wrote it. Sue me.

Click below for Walsh's full response to my inquiry on this topic, which he declared a "great question" on live television and radio, thus winning me over for life.

So did his emotional invoking of the names of three former St. John's' coaches: Buck Freeman, Frank McGuire and Lou Carnesecca.

And did I mention the cookies? (See post below.)

Here is my Thursday newspaper column, already available for you to read through the magic of the Internet and free, advertiser-supported (we hope) content.

It's about Donnie Walsh and his promise to clean up the toxic waste spill that is the Knicks' media relations situation.

I forgot to mention in the column that the new, happier tone was set even before the news conference began with a time-tested way to butter up journalists: sandwiches and cookies!

Welcome home, Donnie.

I just spoke to Earl Monroe, a solid 10 on the baby boomer coolness scale.

Here is what he told me when I asked him about Our Knicks:

"I'm just baffled, for the most part. I see great players who are there but not winning. It’s a very baffling situation.

"You have guys who have good years individually. Nate Robinson has played well, sporadically, when he's had the chance to play. You have David Lee who’s been pretty steady most of the year. Randolph has done what he does. With a guy like Jamal Crawford, if he plays the way he’s played this year he’d be mentioned as an All-Star if he was on another team.

"I just hope the ship gets righted. New York really deserves to have some winners here."

Of his own time as Knick, Monroe said, "I arrived with some great teams and left at a time when basically they were only cheering me. I've had a great relationship with the New York fans all along. That is one of the reasons I've stayed in New York."

Pearl is a producer of "Black Magic," a two-part series about basketball at historically black colleges that debuts March 16 on ESPN.

And finally, in closing today (I hope) . . .

During a news conference this afternoon before my exclusive sitdown with Will Ferrell (see post a few items below), the actor was asked what he would do about the 2007-08 Knicks.

Here was his response:

"My advice to the Knicks would be, let's just save money and stop the season right now. Just take the rest of the year off. Maybe do some journaling. Put your feet up."

(Speaking of Ferrell and the Knicks, check out Anthony Rieber's story about Nate Robinson's encounter with the big guy a few hours before mine.)

If the Packers had won Sunday, I would have spent today playing basketball at Madison Square Garden, as Deadspin editor Will Leitch did here.

Since the Giants won, I spent today watching game tapes with Ron Jaworski in suburban Philadelphia instead.

No worries. I understand it's better than having a real job, and I really am happy for all the Giants fans out there. Plus, I am very, very bad at basketball.

I'll get you next time, Oak.

OK, I admit it: The pressure of information overload already is starting to get to me, and the Super Bowl still is 11 days away. Oy.

Good thing others on our staff are keeping an eye on non-Giants developments.

Check out this powerful, calmly reasoned blog post from Ken Berger, our intrepid NBA columnist, on the latest media issues at MSG. It's longish, but worth the trouble.

I'd probably have written about this in the newspaper, if I wasn't dealing with more pressing matters, such as Lawrence Tynes' scheduled appearance Wednesday night on the Letterman show.

Holy cow. It's been quite a day for my two former Newsday football beat teammates, Bob Glauber and Ken Berger.

The former is stranded in Milwaukee.

The latter witnessed some wacky hijinks on the part of MSG security at the Knicks game.

The big excitement in my life today was opening a new package of granola.

Darn it, I thought the Knicks were going to run the table after that three-game winning streak. Oh, well.

I still would be impressed if the guys upset the Celtics Monday, a game that it turns out will be televised on Ch. 4, using the customary MSG production team.

This marks the fifth Knicks or Rangers game this season - all during non-prime time hours - that has been scheduled for a local broadcast station after many, many years of cable-only offerings. The others went to Ch. 9.

MSG's strategy here apparently is to expose the product to the wider audience available on broadcast TV on stations with numbers in the single digits.

It's a great thing for sports fans without pay TV, a tiny population but one that does no doubt exist.

Tonight provided yet another reminder of why we love sports:

The glorious, dramatic, thrilling, unscripted nuttiness of it all. Logic, history, statistics . . . none of it matters, in the end.

The game is the thing, and anything can happen on any given day or night, and often does.

Savor this upset, New York sports fans. Moments like this do not come along often.

Behold: Knicks 89, Pistons 65.

Here is an interesting but strange story from New York Press.

It's about the fact actors are seen portraying fans in ads promoting the Knicks. The weird part isn't that, it's the fact the Knicks express surprise to learn of this from a reporter.

I heard about the actors-as-fans thing more than a month ago but didn't get around to writing it because it didn't seem like a big deal, and because I assumed it must have been reported elsewhere by the time I heard it.

Of course, that's also what I thought when I first wrote Monday night about Kelly Tilghman's comments of last Friday on the Golf Channel, so perhaps it's time for me to stop assuming things.

You know what Felix Unger said about assuming, I assume.

I'd write something about this in the newspaper column if it weren't for the fact one of the local football squads is in the playoffs this week, so instead I'll write it here:

I listened to Mike Breen for most of the second half Wednesday night as he delivered another bluntly honest, thoroughly disgusted account of the latest Knicks debacle.

I'm not sure what more this guy can be expected to do in terms of telling it like it is as a play-by-play man working for a regional sports network owned by the same company that owns the team he covers.

No, Breen has not called Jim Dolan a buffoon on MSG or demanded that Isiah Thomas resign in disgrace, stuff it's not fair to expect someone in his position with a family to feed to do.

But he's said almost everything else than can be said about this sorry excuse for a basketball team, and when the place is properly fumigated, Breen's performance during the dark days will speak for itself, and for him.

There is nothing quite like having Mike Breen on duty when the Knicks suffer their latest embarrassment.

Sorry, Gus Johnson and Kenny Smith, but you just can't match the level of exasperated disgust evident in Breen's voice whenever the Knicks make a mess of things, as they did again Wednesday night on MSG.

Smith did have a great moment in the final minute of the loss to the lowly Sonics, though. As rookie Kevin Durant dribbled just beyond the top of the three-point arc with Seattle leading by four, Smith said, "He's a finisher, so you have to help a little bit. He's a finisher."

As Smith spoke, Durant blew past two Knicks for a spectacular two-handed dunk. Johnson yelled, "Whoa!" and something else unintelligible.

Smith then reiterated: "He's a finisher. You have to get it out of his hands."

(By the way, Mr. Dolan: If you are planning to dump Isiah anytime soon, today would be an excellent day. George Mitchell will provide all the cover you need to have the story buried.)

The ongoing feud between the Knicks and the Daily News took another weird turn Monday.

Beat writer Frank Isola - who has been tailed by Garden security officials for much of the season - wrote in his followup story about Isiah Thomas' job status that it was Barry Watkins, the Garden's VP of communications, that leaked the news Thomas is safe to Newsday, the Post and the Times Saturday night.

I don't know that to be true, but it's extraordinarily unusual for any newspaper to out an alleged source for another newspaper, and it's another example of just how weird things have gotten around MSG.

(Come to think of it, there was a time late last season in which one reporter surmised that the source for a reporter from another paper was Tiki Barber. But that only was in a blog, so maybe it doesn't count.)

Here is tonight's offering from the YouTube gods:

It's our own Isiah Thomas looking much like his Knicks did Saturday night, only instead of it being against the Philadelphia 76ers, it's against a rapper/comedian/sitcom actor.

What will YouTube uncover next? Video of an old one-on-one game between Herb Williams and Gary Coleman?

I forgot to mention this in my post two spots down, but whoever put together the opening sequence for the Joe Benigno and Evan Roberts show on WFAN today did a terrific job.

The station juxtaposed audio of Marv Albert calling Knicks games in 1970 with his call of Thursday night's nightmare.

Extremely cool.

(By the way, it's 2:15 and WFAN's afternoon show hasn't mentioned the Knicks yet. I'm organizing a pool to guess when they do. Get your picks in now!)

(Update: If you had 3:25 p.m., nearly 2 1/2 hours into the show, you won!)

TNT just sent many of the quotes I was unable to fit into the newspaper about the Knicks' nationally televised meltdown Thursday.

The fact Marv Albert and Reggie Miller worked the game and Charles Barkley was in the studio only added to the tragicomic drama.

Here are the highlights:

Barkley on Isiah Thomas' job security: "He’s about as safe as me in a room full of cookies. If I’m in a room full of cookies, the cookies ain’t got no damn chance."

Miller on being quoted calling the Knicks a "joke": “It was a little chilly as the Czar and I walked through (the locker room). There were a few cat calls and boos from the Knicks players, but understandably so. What the ‘joke’ meant is that their record really doesn’t indicate how good they can be. They are a joke because they really should be better than they have been so far. I like their talent, they’ve got size and they are strong at each position. The big problem and question mark with the Knicks is going to be chemistry. Can this team coexist? So far, through November, they haven’t shown that they can.”

Barkley at halftime: “The Knicks are embarrassing. Their body language is like this is the end of the season and they are playing out their games. They’ve got no energy and no emotion and it’s flat out embarrassing. They are going through the motions, period.”

More from Barkley: “You can’t fake it. The players in this league are too good on the other teams. If you go to the building and your mind and body are not in it, this is what happens night in and night out.”

Albert during the second half: “In all my years of broadcasting, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

On Saturday I went to the Garden to research a column on the depressing, bitter, unhappy world of the Knicks beat.

Later, I decided (in consultation with my editor) against stepping into that quagmire at this time, mostly because of the awkwardness of trying to do a fair, unbiased job on a story that involves my own paper and its direct competitors.

I was hoping some sort of independent media outlet would tackle the subject and take it off my hands. Turns out John Koblin of The New York Observer was there the same day I was, asking some of the same questions.

Here are the answers he got.

It's an interesting read, even though it did not delve into some of the more delicate, complicated areas of intrigue behind the scenes on this sorry subject.

Maybe the Knicks will beat the Celtics Thursday and the team and the reporters who cover it will be one, big happy family. Or not.

I just listened for most of an hour to NFL commish Roger Goodell discuss with media writers the NFL Network's battle for wider distribution, which naturally turned my brain to tapioca.

Here is a happier story: MSG announced a partnership with Ch. 9 in which two Rangers games (Nov. 25 against Dallas and Dec. 16 against Phoenix) and two Knicks games (Dec. 30 against Chicago and March 30 against Atlanta) will be on local broadcast TV.

The last time a Knicks game was seen on a local broadcast station was Jan. 19, 1998, against the Celtics on WNBC. I'm waiting to hear when the last Rangers game was on such a station.

Here is what Lydia Murphy-Stephans, MSG's executive VP, programming and production, said in the news release: "Our partnership with WWOR-TV is on strategy for increasing the exposure of our content and making our games available to a broader audience."

Fine by me. When I was a lad, many games appeared on Ch. 9. I remember Schaefer beer sponsoring some of them. Here is a cool Schaefer ad that's even before my time.

Yo, Jets fans, you're not allowed to have more than one (see post below).

I guess I should mention that in addition to the Torre stuff referenced in the previous post I wrote an additional column in the Sunday paper about the Devils' new building in downtown Newark. (That's four columns in three days, boss.)

What struck me most other than the amazing vastness of the place - and the cool decor in the bar/restaurants for club and suite seat types - was how down to earth owner Jeff Vanderbeek is. (That's him on the left in the picture with some other Devils personnel.)

Vanderbeek spent 45 minutes showing me around, along with a media throng that someone told me included 35 (!) people from The Star-Ledger of Newark, and it wasn't until about 30 minutes in that it started to dawn on me that the friendly, low-key, middle-aged tour guide named Jeff was, um . . . THAT Jeff.

I believe Vanderbeek is some sort of investment banker or hedge fund type. But he seemed like quite the regular guy. He even promised to hang out in the one restaurant in the joint that is open to the common folk with seats in the upper deck.

One more thing . . .

What with the ALCS, Rangers and Islanders off tonight and "Pushing Daisies'' just too darn weird for many viewers, why is the much-more-intriguing-than-usual preseason tilt between the Knicks and Celtics not on MSG to help us fill a long, aimless night?

Because MSG only shows home games in the preseason. The teams meet again Monday at the Garden.

I spoke to ABC/ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy yesterday about the Knicks. He's very high on them. Really.