BIGGER is better, in English, in French, in Brooklynese, wherever hoops are spoken.
Le plus grande is the way to go, and if you don’t think so, you are either a jockey or have a frighteningly short memory.
And although the natural reaction of Knicks’ fans on Wednesday was to exclaim “Quelle dommage!” (What a shame!) upon seeing their team choose Frederic Weis, from a city famous for exporting not men made of iron but boxes made of porcelain, over Ron Artest, a kid with his roots deep in Queensbridge and Alumni Hall, the right reaction should have been more along the lines of “Oui! Oui!”
That is not pronounced Oy! Oy!, although that is undoubtedly what most New Yorkers were moaning, head in hands, when they learned the Knicks had passed up the player who cured St. John’s of its case of Terminal Mahoneyism in favor of a French pastry chef with a sore back.
Instead of blue-and-orange, Artest will remain in red as a member of the Chicago Bulls.
Mon dieu! (My God!)
But repeat the mantra – bigger is better, bigger is better – and remember the lesson of other local kids who tried to make good in the pressure cooker of Madison Square Garden (think: Mark Jackson), and suddenly, things will start to make a lot more sense.
After all, Artest is 6-7. Weis is 7-2. And believe it or not, it might be easier for someone who grew up across the ocean to play in New York than for a kid who grew up just across the East River.
In fact, no less an Artest authority than Fran Fraschilla, the man who persuaded him to stay at home and forego the overtures of Miami and Kentucky, thinks the Knicks did the right thing, for themselves and Artest.
“I would have loved to see Ronnie play for the Knicks,” said Fraschilla from his office in Albuquerque, where he is preparing for his first season as head coach of the University of New Mexico Lobos. “But this may be a better fit for him in Chicago, because he would have been much more in the limelight with the Knicks. It might be a good time for him to get away from home and all the distractions.”
Artest brought 60 people with him to Washington for the draft. Can you imagine the number of tickets he would have needed for each home game?
Besides the loss of revenue to the Garden, think of the pressure that would have brought to bear on a young man who left school early and has a history of emotional, even (in Fraschilla’s word) “volatile,” behavior on and off the court.
“Remember how tough it was for Mark Jackson to be a Knick,” Fraschilla said, “He’s wound up having a very good career, and if anybody could have looked ahead 10 years ago to see what he would become, I’m not so sure the Knicks would have dealt him. But would he have had the same career if he had stayed a Knick?
“Clearly, that wasn’t the right time for Mark to be a Knick, and this might not be the right time for Ronnie to be a Knick.”
Still, the easiest thing to do, it seems, is to second-guess the 15th pick of this year’s draft, unless your name is Ed Tapscott.
“To me, it was an easy choice,” said Tapscott, the Knicks vice president of player personnel. “We have a lot of guys who are 6-7. We have no 7-footers in our pipeline. We needed to get bigger and we had an opportunity to do so.”
If the outcome of the Knicks-Spurs final proved anything, it is that it is very difficult to win in this league without at least one guy who has to crouch to get through a doorway.
San Antonio has two, which should be illegal, but with Patrick Ewing on the sidelines, the Knicks barely have one, which is at the very least, illogical.
And as heart-warming and intriguing as it would have been to see Artest holding up a Knicks’ jersey Wednesday night, how good would such a move have looked in the cold light of next season?
Except in the area of the heart, Artest-to-the-Knicks was simply not a good fit.
Weis-to-the-Knicks may not immediately be one, either, but at least it has a chance down the road.
Face it, the last thing the Knicks need is another ‘tweener, a player too big to be a two-guard-of which they already have two-and not big enough to be a small forward.
Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Larry Johnson and Kurt Thomas don’t need another guy to see eye-to-eye with.
What they do need, aside from a point guard, is an athletic big man to patrol the paint as they enter the post-Patrick Era.
Tapscott thinks – hopes? – Weis, the lion of Limoges, can be that man.
“To us, the draft was basically point guards and small forwards,” he said. “That was great, except that we knew the point guards weren’t getting to us, and we really don’t need another mid-size player in the 6-5 to 6-7 range, since we already have several in their prime.
“So we thought, where do we have the most age? At center. Patrick is 37, Chris (Dudley) is 34, and Herb (Williams) is 41. Outside of them, nobody is over 31. Myself and the scouts sat down and we all agreed to get a center.”
Trouble is, the center they came up with didn’t play for a Rick Majerus or a Tubby Smith, and just three months ago was on an operating table having a herniated disc repaired.
“We practiced due diligence on that,” Tapscott said. “We got a look at MRIs from March, from June, and from last Friday. We flew one of our doctors, Fred Kushner, over there to examine him. We’re comfortable that the back injury was minor and has been repaired.”
What is still to be fixed, however, is Weis’ game, developed as it was in Europe, where they still play basketball the way it was invented. “It’s a non-physical game over there,” Tapscott acknowledged. “It’s a skill game, a shoot and pass game. What he’s going to have to do is get used to having someone banging on his butt every play.”
He’s also going to have to unlearn some of those skills, which won’t do him any good at all in this man’s NBA. “We didn’t draft him to be a backup,” Tapscott said.
“I think Ronnie’s gonna be a very solid player, perhaps stay in the league 10 years,” Fraschilla said. “But the French kid has a lot of upside, too. If you knew that 10 years from now he’d have the same career as Rik Smits, would you be happy? “
All together now, Knicks fans: “Bien sur!” (Of course!)
