1958-59 NEW YORK KNICKS
OFFSEASON
The assistant coach I was grooming to take over ended up being hired to the head coach position at St. Louis. Philly C Milt Schoon becomes the first member of the Hall of Fame.
Picking 6th in this year’s draft, we select SF Dave Gambee. In the second round, we take SG Arlen Bockhorn. PF Wayne Embree went #1 overall to Syracuse, and surprisingly, Elgin Baylor fell to #3 to Cincinnati.
Pettit is asking for a 5 deal a little under max, which I immediately offer. I’m willing to go seven years if necessary at max. In addition, Johnny Kerr is available, so I offer a 6 year max offer to him. I will need another PF, but I want to wait and see what happens with Pettit before I offer anyone else. Kerr is immediately offered a 7 year max offer by Detroit (Bird rights), so he’s gone. I offer PF Ed Kalafat a 3 year deal. Pettit signs the highest contract in team history. I offer PG Dick McGuire a 1 year min deal to backup Cousy, and he immediately accepts. Kalafat signs. I offer former Knick C Miksis a 1 year min deal.
PG Frank Ramsey signs with Philadelphia from Minnesota. Miller ended up signing with Boston.
PRE-SEASON
I don’t think Krebs will ever be part of the plans, so I decline the team option on his contract. We are picked to finish third this season, with Philly the favorite. Our lineup will be C-Pettit, PF-Johnston, SF-Guerin, SG-McGuire, and PG-Cousy. Stokes and Bockhorn will be the players getting minutes off the bench. I’m shocked McGuire is picked as a starter. We go 3-3 this preseason, with McGuire missing a little time with a broken finger.
REGULAR SEASON
Stokes is possibly the only player on his last year I would be willing to extend, but only for a reasonable price. He wants to test free agency, so more power to him. This is the last year of Lloyd’s awful contract. He’s the second player to hamstring my finances because I was forced to take him in a dispersal draft. We go through November doing well at home, terrible on the road, and finish at 6-6. Johnston wins player of the month.
We plod through December. Pettit misses a game with a minor finger injury. We end at 10-12, and this is looking like it has the ceiling of a first round exit.
Pettit wins player of the month in January, but we continue to be the definition of mediocrity. We end the month at 17-18. The division is beating itself up though. All four teams are within 4 ½ games of each other, with Boston currently leading.
Right before the break, McGuire picks up a minor eye injury. Guerin, Cousy, Pettit, and Johnston are all named all stars. We continue our trend in recent years of playing well in February, finishing the month at 25-21, still in third place but only two games out of first. Johnston wins player of the month.
March is a bit of a struggle, as Philly starts to pull away from the pack. Cousy goes down with a stress fracture late in the month, which should knock him out for a couple of weeks. Guerin follows right behind him with patellar tendinitis, also out for a couple of weeks. Because of the injuries, little used Walsh needs to pick up more minutes, and shows he can’t handle it, injuring his knee, probably costing him the rest of the season. We limp into April with a record of 31-29, still in 3rd, but only ½ game behind Boston. Philly is running away with the division. Johnston takes home another player of the month award.
We try to get players healthy, and play average basketball while doing so. Syracuse catches fire and is making up ground like crazy. With three games left in the season, we are tied with Boston for 2nd, but Syracuse is only two games behind. A road loss to Syracuse leaves us only 1 game ahead of them for the last playoff spot. A home win against St. Louis clinches a playoff spot Our last game of the season is at home against Philly, while Boston plays at Syracuse. They hold the tiebreaker, so we need a win coupled with a Boston loss to get 2nd place. Neither happen, and we finish 35-37, in third place. Johnston wins player of the month.
We have players all over the top of the leaderboards, although none of them actually finish in first.
PLAYOFFS
Pettit and Johnston both make 1st team all-NBA, while Cousy gets 2nd team. Johnston makes 2nd team all-defense, and Bockhorn makes 2nd team all-rookie. Detroit’s Clyde Lovellete wins MVP, and Syracuse’s Wayne Embry takes home rookie of the year.
We meet Boston in the playoff again. We were 10-12 against them this year, and we’ve lost four straight playoff series to them. I’m not very optimistic. Game 1 results in a 126-118 loss. Game 2 is more of the same, losing 122-110. We manage to avoid the sweep at home, winning 119-109. Things get interesting, as game 4 results in an easy 113-110 win, although we end up losing McGuire for the rest of the season with a dislocated shoulder. Game 5 is a defensive struggle, but the home team wins every game this series, and we’re eliminated 89-82.
Detroit avenges last year’s championship loss to Philly and gets the franchise’s third championship, the first since moving to Detroit.
We just are not good enough to compete with the champion level teams. It may be time to blow this up and start over. There are a couple of free agents available who could help, and it looks like we should get a decent player in a top-heavy draft, highlighted by perhaps the greatest prospect ever, Wilt Chamberlain.