Dec. 10, 2008 (World News Trust) -- Barack Obama just might be the Mike
D’Antoni of national politics.
For the uninitiated, Mike D’Antoni is
the current coach of the New York Knicks. For the extremely
uninitiated, the Knicks are a professional sports team in the
National Basketball Association (NBA). Then again, if you didn’t
know that, I’m guessing the rest of this article might appear as
incomprehensible as Ulysses.
Moving right along…
A man named Isiah Thomas was the
Knicks’ coach before D’Antoni. Thomas was also team president. He
showed little skill at either position and managed to run the team
into the ground while getting himself (successfully) sued for sexual
harassment. Under Thomas’ stewardship, the New York Knicks became
widely regarded as the laughingstock of the NBA. Knicks fans would
regularly chant for Isiah to be fired but inexplicably, he evaded
this fate for much longer than anyone could’ve ever imagined.
During the Thomas debacle, Mike
D’Antoni was coaching the Phoenix Suns. The Suns did well and never
failed to entertain -- but D’Antoni never managed to get his team
into the championship round. Some might say he was more style than
substance.
Eventually, Thomas was fired while
D’Antoni left Phoenix of his own volition. The Knicks threw
boatloads of money at D’Antoni and he was soon patrolling the
sidelines at Madison Square Garden -- offering Knicks fans some
much-needed hope. Dare I say he represented change they could believe
in?
Long story short, the Knicks are
playing better but due to financial constraints, they’re stuck with
the essentially same roster of players and the results are hardly
awe-inspiring.
But regardless of his won-loss
percentage, Mike D’Antoni has the Knicks dribbling, passing,
rebounding, and shooting. You’ll see a pick-and-roll, a zone
defense, an outlet pass… basically everything all the other
teams are doing. Why? It wouldn’t matter if the coach were Mike
D’Antoni or Isiah Thomas or even James Joyce because the Knicks are
still playing the same game by the same rules. The NBA is run
no differently, the referees blow their whistles, the tickets are
sold at increasingly higher prices, and the players come and go.
Again, despite a much-needed coaching change, the Knicks are still
playing the same game by the same rules.
Thus -- while there may be some winning,
some losing, some new plays, some old plays, some trades, some free
agent signings, and yes, some new coaches hired -- to expect dramatic
change under such fixed conditions is both illogical and delusional.
Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at
http://www.mickeyz.net