The New York Knicks may be fighting for their Playoff life right now, but it’s coming on the heels of their best regular season in over a decade. And while the Knicks work their way back toward true contender status, we thought we’d take a look back at some of the iconic players who wrote the legends still revered in Gotham today. From Clyde to Phil, from Willis to Ewing, from Bradley to Bernard, flip through the gallery below and check the images.
What’s your favorite look of all-time? Let us know in the comments section, and don’t forget to continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #NBAStyle…
ALL BALL NERVE CENTER — Phil Jackson joined Twitter a few months ago as a means of promoting his forthcoming book, Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success. He’s mostly used Twitter to speak out about big-picture NBA stuff, as well as live-tweeting the NCAA Championship game and interacting with Kobe Bryant.
And then yesterday, Phil casually dropped a reminder that he owns more titles as a player and coach than anyone, ever — 11 as a coach, 2 as a player for the Knicks — after a Twitter follower asked a simple question…
While the NBA is a League that has always had its share of individuals, the one unifying feature of all players is that everyone wears uniforms. But that doesn’t make them uniform. Some franchises have opted for simple jerseys with their team name in a stylized font, such as the Knicks or the Minneapolis Lakers, other teams have gone for more interesting expressions. Check out, for instance, the New Jersey Nets, with a red/white/blue stars and stripes motif; All-Star Game jerseys, with stars literally all over them; a Toronto Raptor jersey featuring an enormous cartoon raptor. Sometimes it’s in the details, like with the trim on the throwback Syracuse Nationals jersey. And then sometimes we’re drawn to the colors, like with the gorgeous baby blue and red of the old Sacramento Kings jerseys.
Whatever you like, for many of us uniforms can be much more than just a statement of which team we’re cheering for. We picked some pics in the gallery below of uniforms that caught our eye.
What is your favorite uniform of all-time? Let us know in the comments section, and don’t forget to continue the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #NBAStyle… -
You may have noticed it’s the offseason, which means we have plenty of time to sit around and think about many of the things that make it fun to be an NBA fan. Here at All Ball, we’ll be passing the time until the start of the season with a new series, the Fave Five. Each week we’ll count down a list of the five best, or worst … somethings. We’ll try to get creative with it. Plus we’re taking requests! If you have a suggestion for a Fave Five post, give us a shout and you may see it appear in this space over the next several weeks.
Who is going to win the Super Bowl this year? The World Series? Your guess is as good as mine. In the NFL and MLB, who wins from year to year is totally unpredictable. In football it’s about who is lucky and who is healthy; in baseball it’s who is lucky and who gets great pitching.
The NBA is different. There are very, very few Cinderella stories in professional basketball. For my money, the 2011 Mavericks and the 2004 Pistons are the only surprise champions I’ve seen in the NBA in my lifetime.
The best teams almost always prevail. Which is why when we think of the teams who have come up short since the start of the 2000s, the answers are pretty obvious.
Let’s take a look:
5. 2011 San Antonio Spurs
What happened: The Spurs got off to a ridiculous start to the season (they were 29-4 at one point), and for a while there was talk that they might flirt with 70 wins. They cooled a bit down the stretch, but still finished the regular season as the top seed in the Western Conference with a record of 61-21.
The draw in the West looked pretty good, as they faced the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round. Talk about a mismatch – the Spurs, four-time NBA champions, versus the Grizz, who to that point had not won a single playoff game in franchise history in three previous appearances. So naturally they advanced to face HEY WAIT A MINUTE!
Memphis shocked San Antonio in six games, and the Spurs went home as only the fourth No. 1 seed to ever lose to a No. 8 seed*.
* The Bulls became the fifth this past season, but methinks that might have turned out differently had Derrick Rose been healthy.
Why they disappointed: I’ll be honest. I don’t really think of this Spurs team as being all that much of a disappointment. Some of that is due to the fact that the Grizzlies turned out to be a pretty good team, and some (maybe a lot) is due to the fact that Manu Ginobili hurt his elbow the final game of the season and was severely limited in the series. Still, 1 seeds don’t lose to 8 seeds, so here they are.
Ooooooh, boy. There’s a lot to parse from this tweet by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst after the Heat fell 87-86 to the Bulls on Sunday. For starters:
– Heat coach Erik Spoelstra isn’t particularly known for playing head games with his players. Admitting to the public that members of his team are in tears feels like more of a Phil Jackson move.
– Who was crying? The pressure on the Heat is really only felt by three players — the rest are just along for the ride. Just sayin’.
There is a tendency amongst us all to view everything through the prism of immediacy, especially as sports fans. When the Heat started 9-8, I was amongst the chorus who quickly judged the Heat to be inferior. Then, when they reeled off a 21-1 stretch, I felt silly for having written them off so quickly. But hey, that’s how we are as fans.
Players, generally speaking, don’t necessarily react this way, or at least the players on the top-level teams. They know the game is a grind, and tomorrow is another day, and all those sports cliches they feed us. They have to keep a level head, because emotion often interrupts execution.
Which is why the mood in the Miami locker room after today’s last-minute defeat at the hands of the Bulls is a little surprising. Yes, the Heat are flailing, having dropped four straight. Yes, the Heat have struggled against the best teams in the league all season (they are now 1-9 against the top 3 seeds in each conference). But this is still a team with two of the best three or four players on the planet — if this slide is too much for them to handle, the playoffs could be a short and bumpy ride…
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One offshoot of their relationship though is getting to spend a little time riding in the car with the twosome as part of the Lakers’ “Jeanie Vision” series. Here they are heading to Staples before the Lakers’ game against the Warriors on Halloween night. What is Halloween anyway? Phil, do you have some thoughts?
Phil seems so much more at ease in these videos than he usually does around game time, it’s nice to see him in such a pleasant mood. Am I the only person that thinks when he retires from the Lakers he should reboot the Mr. Rogers franchise for PBS?
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Catch up on every single game-winning buzzer beater during the season and see how it rates on the Horry Scale.
