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Didn’t think I’d make it to the Earl “The Perl” Monroe signing this past weekend at J&R, but I did have some time free up at the last minute, so I hopped on a train downtown at the buzzer so to speak. By the time I got there, they were getting ready to leave and there was basically no line to see one of the guys responsible for last bringing the city of New York “the shiny stuff.” Never met the guy before, it was an honor to meet Knick royalty and he was down to earth and friendly.

I got to chat with him a bit too–should have recorded it so it could have been an interview for Knicksdefense, but then again there was a grumpy looking PR guy sitting right next to him that probably would have prohibited any type of audio/video recording.

First thing I said was good job with the sudden MSG commentating at the end of the season. He said thanks and that it was his first time calling Knick games and enjoyed it. I told him that the Knicks seemed to play better while he was there and he agreed (Pearl’s time as an MSG announcer basically paralleled Wilson Chandler’s emergence towards the end of the season). He does not know if MSG is going to ask him back to call more games next season as of yet. I can see a vacancy opening up, especially if Kenny Smith somehow becomes GM somewhere…

But then I asked Pearl if he thought Mike D and Donnie Walsh will be able to turn it around, and he said “they have to.” I kind of made a remark that anyone could do a better job than Isiah, and then, knowing this guy just got some paychecks from MSG, tried to cover my ass by saying, “well, it wasn’t all Isiah’s fault because they were also a mess when he got here,” but this is all he had to say about the Knicks’ recent failures under Isiah:

“Yeah, but those were all his guys.”

So it turns out I have something in common with Pearl, and from the other Knicks blogs I’ve read throughout the years, Clyde doesn’t think Isiah’s made the right moves in New York either.

I love J&R. I ended up buying a laptop a few minutes later. If it was a marketing ploy to get customers in the door it worked. I should have had him sign the laptop, but then I couldn’t return it in case I end up not liking it for some reason…

Over the past four years, it was my understanding that Isiah Thomas does not think too highly of European basketball players, so why did they recently put him on a plane to go over there and scout them?

Here is a good review of the 2007-2008 Knicks. I’m basically so sick of the Knicks in their current incarnation that I can’t bring myself to write upon this season at this particular moment. Maybe later. There are plenty of links to the right of this page that have more season reviews, but for me, it all boils down to this:

33-23-33-23

No, that is not the combination to my knicks colored luggage. Those are the amount of games the knicks have won in each of their past four years, out of 82.

For whatever reason, some very sick and twisted individuals consider this to be good enough, but for this fan, it will not do. It is not much fun to watch your team be the laughing stock of the league for the past four years, especially when in the previous decade the team was so competitive.

So I look forward to the draft in hopes of a high pick.

And hopefully a better coach too because this team doesn’t want or know how to play defense. How many points did they give up to Indiana the other night, 135?

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In other news, I want to say thanks for nothing to Jim Dolan for pulling out of the Moynihan Station project at the last minute. He could have made up for the idiocy of destroying the old Penn Station for some garbage office space and a dark, cramped and sticky MSG, but instead will dump more of his misused money into gutting the garden and giving it a fresh coat of paint and some new seats. Now if you watch this propaganda by MSG, it will sound so much better, because let’s face it, it is propaganda, but it is my belief that the scrapped plans to build Moynihan and a new Madison Square Garden would have helped the city of New York far more in the long run. Just another blown opportunity by the Dolans to do the right thing at the right time. Their short-sightedness is reaching legendary status in record-breaking time.