Claiming the former Fab 5 member has been “in less-than-peak condition this preseason,”, Newsday’s Anthony Rieber suggests Jalen Rose’s days as a member of the New York Knicks are numbered.
Rose was excused from yesterday’s hour-long practice at FDU-Teaneck for “personal reasons,” according to the team. So was Kelvin Cato, who likely was using the time to work out the logistics of moving to New York after signing with the Knicks on Wednesday.
Rose, however, might have been using the day off to work out the details of moving away from New York. The Knicks are working on a trade or buyout of the 31-year-old Rose, who is due $16.9 million this season and has no role with the team. “We’re in discussions,” agent Arn Tellem wrote yesterday in a text message. “Nothing finalized.”
Rose’s veteran presence and expiring contract might be appealing to a contending team that could maneuver with the salary-cap room he would provide next offseason. The Knicks are not a contending team and won’t have salary-cap room until Nate Robinson is ready to retire.
The Oregonian’s John Canzano, provoked in part by the recent reports of Utah Jazz talent accused of something-or-other with an exotic dancer, wonders “even as commissioner David Stern spent part of his week making guns his primary focus, the league has an even bigger problem: Why is it that so many women make 9-1-1 calls after encounters with NBA players?”
There are lots of decent, hardworking people who play basketball for a living. Men who understand that being rich, young and athletic doesn’t mean that you should also be irresponsible and abusive, and have a warped sense of entitlement with women.
Yet if you stroll across the arena loading dock after a game, or troll the lobby of a team hotel, you come to understand that there is too much down time and not enough mentoring. What we really have here is an extended, permissive childhood.
Sure, there are spousal abusers and sex offenders in every segment of society, but in the NBA we have a culture that fosters an air of entitlement, and as long as that continues to be so, drugs and guns will always be secondary issues.
I know at least one prominent public figure who would fully agree with Canzano.
When it comes to dumping on Danny Fortson, the New York Post’s Peter Vescey is already in midseason form.
Big ups to Danny Fortson, America’s Flagrant Forward, for his latest uncivilized transgression; his invasion of Ron Artest’s personal space (head and body) Wednesday night earned the sniveling Sonic Opening Night off without pay. For tuning Tru Warier into a sympathetic figure in the eyes of Stu Jackson, the league’s VP of Violence, I’m lobbying for Danny Pigtails to get Opening Month off without nail polish.