Big noise, New York

We want to think that, when a large Boom hits, there exists a studied reason behind that big ol' noise. That, whatever the hell that was, it was well-considered.

Someone or something thought long and hard before, listen, we still don't know, maybe a transformer went. Maybe a truck jake braked off the exit over there and the whole thing dropped.

Because our brain don't know what's up, we assume someone on the other side has double the allowance, enough to remind us not to use "don't know" in that instance.

Usually we fall victim to this uninformed belief when the entity we're crediting has multiple, multiple allowances. They have that money for a reason, we think, and the reason ain't bein' dumb.

We'll never give James Dolan credit for his money, what a dweeb, but the Knick front office earned the pause that roogalates: New York put together a great team, so of course they have a plan behind firing Tom Thibodeau.

And of course the plan ran beyond "fire Tom Thibodeau," right?

NBA news cycles come in the shape of errands. Drive to the dry cleaners, Thibs is still Knick coach.

Fill out information on the dry cleaner's screen, with the nice lady helping you the entire time, tapping in an out of state phone number, Thibs still Knick coach. Hand your coats over, be told by the nice lady that they can't clean any coats before Game 4, take your coats back, apologize for the entire misunderstanding, accept just as many apologies, walk back to the car, Thibs fired.

Unload the top part of the dishwasher, Kyrie Irving's a Cav. Unload the bottom? Kyrie Irving asked out of Cleveland. Push a stroller to the park? Good, they finally traded Davis to the Lakers. Pricing stock pots? KAT is still with Minnesota. Drive to GFS to buy a stock pot? KAT is a Knick. Step away from the computer, gather the boxes to return to your aunt, check your phone, still no Bobby Portis news. Walk from the apartment to the train? Bobby Portis just re-signed with Milwaukee for curiously staid terms. Aunt should get her charger and purse and blouse and book by tomorrow at latest.

Dipping back home between parties to switch costumes? James Harden's out of Oklahoma City. Point is, these NBA blips can happen at any time.

And the blip between "Tom Thibodeau canned" and "Jason Kidd considered" will be all the Knicks have until Mike Brown leads them to the Finals.

The revelation that Jason Kidd of the Dallas Mavericks was New York's best idea ruined everything. Not because of Kidd, personally, but you can use that if you want.

Rather, the contract Kidd is under with another team, and the paucity of plan (Dallas likes Kidd, are we ready to send them three first-rounders?) ahead of Thibs' walking papers. Five years of goodwill extended toward Knick GM Leon Rose, shot to bits the minute we heard "Jason Kidd."

That little space right after Thibodeau was let go – when our brains suggested the Knicks could hire an up-and-coming assistant or swaggering minor league chief or ex-NBA player with a Steve Kerr-sized binder full of ideas – that was when the Knicks were last warm.

Right now, Manhattan in July, streets hotter than Venus in Leona Helmsley's furs? The Knicks are cold. So cold. Mike Brown might lead the Knicks to the Finals, but New York lost that edge. The blade that gave them a break after curious personnel moves.

Like when they dumped four first-round picks (boo) on a non-All-Star (booooooo) for a two-way swingman (eh?) whom everyone on the team adores (well alright) to play 3000 minutes for Thibs (KNICK FOR LIFE!!).

Until someone said "Jason Kidd," I feared the Knicks. Potentially upgrading Thibodeau with someone I didn't see coming, working with unwritten opportunity for the first time since front office chiefs Ernie Grunfeld and Dave Checketts gathered and expired some contracts in 1996, dove into the free agent market.

"I'm talking to everybody," Patrick Ewing said earlier this week, referring to his off-season job as the Knicks' recruiting coordinator. "I expect us to be in the running for Juwan Howard and a lot of guys. Reggie Miller. Allan Houston. No question. We can catch the Bulls."

They didn't catch the Bulls, not even close.

Howard and Miller and Michael Jordan all turned down New York's money, staying with their own teams.

New York instead traded into cap space, Anthony Mason for Larry Johnson, and fortified the backcourt with the aforetampered Allan Houston, also giving Chris Childs his first guaranteed multiyear deal.

New York's bar was somewhat low to start.

"We want to add a consistent scorer," said Ernie Grunfeld, the Knicks' general manager. "That's our main priority."

We want to surround Patrick Ewing with as many non-John Starks' as possible.

"We might also go with two second-tier players, too, depending on what scenario plays out," Grunfeld said. "A lot of teams will be calling the same players, but everything could happen in a matter of days."

Does the busy signal mean they're on the other line, or because they saw the Caller ID and pulled the cord? The summer of 1996 was a strange confluence of technology.

One summer we find out we can order pizza on the internet, the next summer we find out every alien spaceship runs on the same computer network, and that a Quaid can kill it with a plane.

"A lot of guys are just going to stay with their own teams, simple as that," said Jerry Reynolds, Sacramento's player personnel director.

Hey, who the hell let Jerry in?

Dave Checketts, the Madison Square Garden president, said: "Pay attention to the reports that say a guy is staying with the team he plays for, not the other ones. There have been only a few big free-agent moves in the last few years, and Horace Grant was one. Teams just can't afford to let certain players go."

And this was before the NBA and the players' union incentivized players to re-sign with incumbent teams. Before 1999, all teams had the same amount to give, and even after drafting three times in the first-round ...

... New York still had enough cap space to give it all to Michael Jordan.

If, say, the Knicks were so bold (and naive and incompetent) to use all of their money on Jordan, they could dangle a three-year deal worth $34.6 million in front of His Airness, only to have it rejected once the Bulls offer him $40 million for two seasons.

Naive, incompetent, signing Michael Jordan.

When the Knicks traded for LJ and signed Childs with Houston, here was the Times' reaction:

The whole scenario leaves Jeff Van Gundy in a wonderfully peculiar predicament: What to do with so much talent?

Chris Childs and Charlie Ward at point guard? Wow, not since Clyde Frazier and Earl Monroe have the Knicks won a championship!

Immediately, the Knicks became younger, more athletic and, well, a little more personable.

Mason's ornery attitude on the court will be missed, but his mood swings in the locker room will not. Childs and Houston, admired among their teammates in New Jersey and Detroit, apparently fit the company mold off the court, too.

"Chemistry was a factor, that's all I'm going to say," said Dave Checketts, the Madison Square Garden president.

The Knicks got in a fight with the Heat the next postseason and lost in the Eastern semifinals. And Chris Childs is mostly known for punching Kobe Bryant.

Well, at least the Knick front office didn't make the notoriously brusque Bulls GM Jerry Krause look like the nice, normal, personable one:

"Jerry Krause came in for his visit after they beat us," Checketts said, referring to the Bulls' general manager coming in and congratulating the Knicks after a hard-fought playoff series.

"He said, 'What a great series.' Ernie looked at him and said, 'Hey, we don't want to hear any of that. We're going to reload and we're going to come back and beat you next year.'

And Jerry was probably like same, but with Michael Jordan.

And then Jerry went home to watch Jim Shorts:

Leon Rose's New York Knicks were supposed to be the team which made a winner out of Tom Thibodeau. Thibs wasn't supposed to be just another coach Dolan paid to go away.

But Dolan never liked him, and what Thibs represented, Riley and Van Gundy and all that. So the Knicks made the team to Tom's specifications, setting him up to fail. Never let a coach line the locker room.

This is Leon Rose's very good basketball team, make no mistake, but Rose didn't pull gut strings together long enough to tell his boss that there was nobody out there but Mike Brown, an able replacement who will make James Dolan wish for Tom Thibodeau in many ways. And that Mike Brown may deliver a title or he may not but he definitely will be a coach whom the Knicks will pay not to work someday.

Instead of developing a bench for Thibodeau, approximating the sorts of rotations winning third rounds out in Oklahoma City and Indianapolis, the Knicks let Thibodeau trip with his same ol' line. The passive/aggressive streak is painful, New York set up a ceiling for Thibodeau to meet the concrete he cracked with Chicago, Minnesota. Everyone put in effort but nobody challenged themselves, nobody showed the sort of strength they always talk about in press releases and on those stupid t-shirts, doing it for the borough.

Not once did James Dolan reflect upon the idea that, dunno, maybe he's been wrong about these coaches before. Not once did Leon Rose stand up to his boss on behalf of the man Rose and Dolan brought in to lead the Knicks, a franchise they supposedly bleed over.

Surely Rose already stood in front of a dozen would-be Thibodeau firings, those were easy, stopping this one would risk his job. As it was with every Knick GM but Phil Jackson – who squinted and looked down and told Dolan and Irving Azoff where to go and hang their hats – the Knick GM in charge was more in love with being Knick GM than taking the risks needed to Go and Move the Knicks toward a title.

Hey, maybe Leon Rose really thinks three or four or five, six or seven or eight different candidates were better than Tom Thibodeau. There is absolute value to the idea that any orthodox coach would be an improvement over Thibs, whose previous replacements were two guys who haven't coached in the NBA since.

Well, welcome to the archetype: Mike Brown, played a little in college, video room dork, ex-Pop, two decades as NBA head coach with three teams, coaching 90 playoff games.

New York's Knicks worked up 72 postseason appearances in the same span, not nearly as many playoff receipts to toss in Dolan's fedora.

Mike's list doesn't include the six years Brown wasn't a head coach, when he was an assistant for the Warriors from 2016 through 2022, lotta wins there. Two Knick front offices hired three head coaches (Jeff Hornacek, David Fizdale, Tom Thibodeau) during this stretch, Brown was right there for Jackson in 2016 and available for Rose in 2022.

The Knicks passed each time. Why? Flashier tries, bigger swings, applauded hirings. Yes, even Hornacek. Brown, then as now, summarized as a retread. Nothing Brown could do in Sacramento changes this.

And we know what Mike Brown did in Sacramento didn't move Leon Rose. Otherwise Leon Rose would run right to Mike Brown the second MSG security informed Leon that Thibs was off the lot. Instead, Leon Rose used a FULL MONTH inquiring over every available ex-NBA point guard-turned-coach and also a few of the unavailable ones before settling on MIKE BROWN to shake up the offense.

What I said about the 2026 Finals wasn't flip, and it would be without asterisk. If the Knicks do turn the corner under Mike Brown and make the Finals, there would be no reason to believe they weren't equal with the 2025 or 2024 Pacers or 2023 Heat. And we'd wonder about Brown's hypothetical 2023-24 Knicks, up against those title-winning 2024 Celtics.

But the Knicks didn't just fire a head coach, the Knicks repudiated Thibs' style! Paid him $30 million to go away. They think they're trading in the Buick for a faster Pontiac, but this is Mike Brown. Nothing wrong with that, but Mike's the Danny Ferry of head coaches, the Knicks are getting the Danny Ferry of Pontiacs.

And they better line the Knick assistant coach ranks with anyone who can scribble plays on a whiteboard, if they want this thing to go anywhere near as fast as Thibs had his Buick flying.

If this is Worldwide Wes' final payoff, LeBron James a Knick but in his 40s, then why did Billy Donovan come up? Why did we float Rick Carlisle (not after an extension, unlike Donovan) and Michael Malone and interview Taylor Jenkins and Micah Nori and, let me find who else, James Borrego!

When the Knicks win it all in 2026 – and, seriously, why the hell not, East at minimum – I don't want to hear about pieces falling into place. I want to hear about the accidental championship, the eighth choice for coach bringing it home. Wes Westrum hitting the shot heard 'round the world.

And I want to hear that Knick players still hear Thibs, in their ears, all the time. Inappropriate times.

JUWAN HOWARD

Eventually signed with his own team, the Washington Bullets.

But not before signing with the Miami Heat, showing up to his D.C.-area children's camp wearing a t-shirt with a giant photo of himself on it, changing a young Roy Hibbert's life (according to whoever put together this clip), warming the late George Michael over:

Before Howard could re-sign with his own team the NBA required stepping in, voiding his Heat contract. Citing salary cap rules the NBA didn't have rules for yet (cap holds). Pat Riley was upset.

SEVEN-TEAM TRADE

One final indignity for Pat Riley, before he unleashes whatever he has planned for us all.

AYTON TO LOS ANGELES

He'll be perfect for ESPN in the afternoon, an unholy mix of Slava Medvedenko and Kwame Brown and Andrew Bynum. The scrutiny may destroy all efforts to make him into a regular basketball player.

DeAndre Ayton can play ball, this is no James Wiseman we're working through, Ayton is 7-feet tall and can chew dunks at the same time. There's your start, plus people tend to find love or at least guidance through things done repeatedly. Ayton hasn't played good NBA basketball repeatedly, yet.

If the Lakers' best players lead DeAndre Ayton toward that sort of hopeful monotony, he'll start to enjoy being good at being good. But DeAndre's not good, just tall, that's all.

Bummer it takes until Los Angeles for the "spirit" to find him? Sure, but what would we prefer, DeAndre Ayton acting an arse in California as well?

He'll be 27 in a month and I'm being serious when I tell you that for more than a few NBA players these great seasons come down to whether or not there the most recent video game releases are any good, or anything compelling is on TV during summer. Nothing to do, so, ball.

We can't talk about the weather, Ayton was as tardy around the Phoenix cacti as he was amongst Portland's dewy pines. I'm not attempting to be trite when I encourage us to look forward to Ayton on the Lakers because there is a strong chance he learns to appreciate becoming as consistently impactful and reliable on a basketball team as he does with his teammates on the gaming field. I get it, he ain't paid millions to be good at video games, but sometimes it takes a little while to feel bad about that.

Or maybe it takes LeBron, plus Luka on his new, annoying health kick.

What I do know is that, with "national" NBA games chopped up and into streaming services, the Lakers won't feel as ubiquitous even when Los Angeles features in the maximum amount of appearances.

There used to be Important TNT (Thursday), Whatever, TNT (Tuesday), plus those sprinkles of ESPN, sticking games anywhere it could. Under new formats each weeknight will earn its own designation but the blur is too much, the focus is gone. The monoculture took a hit, and only one team ruled the age of All Eyes on One Game.

Doesn't mean the Lakers will win any less or more, or that they will be less profitable, important. Only that we won't feel as stuck with them. Still with the drama, afternoon stuff, but not the games.

In the middle of 2025-26 we will be used to our new, commitment-free, Thursday routine. If the Lakers are bunk0, injured, we will be quick to find something different to do at 11:02 PM Eastern on Thursday nights because we will be used to it by then.

Into this vacuum, the Lakers become League Pass favorites. Can you win Most Improved Player simply by caring a lot more? We're about to find out, DeAndre Ayton will put up massive numbers in this lineup.

BUFFALO GNOME

Asked my wife to find us one, to put outside our home.

So that I could–

That's when she put her headphones back on.

NEW YORK BARS

Thanks for reading!