Hungry Hungry Losers?

by Ben Kopelman on March 31st, 2009 at 12:50 pm

An interesting nugget taken from a recent article published in the NY Times earlier this week:

“At the Knicks’ current pace, D’Antoni would become the 10th coach since 1965 to go from50 wins to 50 losses in a year, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. (The last coach to suffer that fate was Larry Brown, who lost 59 games with the Knicks in 2005-6, a year after winning 54 games with Detroit.)”

I rarely consider how frustrating going from a winning program to a losing one can be on a head coach as I am normally more self absorbed with how I feel as a fan (although I’m not sure I fully remember what a “winning program” looks or feels like at this point).

We always hear about players being more motivated when they reach the playoffs simply to get bounced out in the first round, or reach the Finals and miss out on hoisting that oh-so elusive trophy (shiny stuff, Steph).

I have always bought into this notion that getting an abbreviated taste of the good life truly makes players hungrier the next time around, but I rarely attach similar logic when it comes to a coaching staff.

D’Antoni has done a solid job in his first year, but I hope he lets the sting of 50 (or 47, 48, no matter) losses sink in nice and deep so as to make sure it never happens again.

Stay hungry, Mike…
  • Brett Justin

    The guy has come into a bad situation with this team and for what he has done with the players we have I think hes done a good job lets have a good offseason a healthy gallo and I think we can see some good things more forward

  • EQ1217

    How frustrating must it be to be able to coach Nash, Amare, Diaw, Bell, Hill, Shaq, Marion one year and the next year is Nate, Lee, Al, Duhon, JJ1, JJ2, Marbury, Curry, etc.

    Specially when you consider that he was forced out of Phoenix

  • Brett Justin

    yea but he has his choice of a couple of teams and he knew what he was getting himself into choosing new york you know so he had options….

  • Chris Alvino

    We were talking playoffs up until a couple of weeks ago. I am discarding what has happened since then. At this point, the Knicks are better off losing.

  • Chris Alvino

    Wins and losses no longer matter because they are out of the playoffs.

  • danisrob

    I have been a huge Knick fan since I moved to NY to study for a couple of years and used to go to loads of games. This, however, was at the end of 2003. I literally have no idea what a ‘winning program’ is.

  • Brett Justin

    I agree and I feel we should now be playing a courtney sims or joe crawford to see if they maybe have anything wed like to keep for next year I mean theres nothing to loose by doing that

  • bob knick slave

    hey guys !where can i find out more about the “knicks blog staff”?(tommy,chris,etc)

  • http://theKnicksBlog.com Tommy Dee

    not sure exactly what you mean…shoot me an email at:l theknicksblog@gmail.com

  • bmathews77

    I miss the excitement the Knicks of old used to bring…in my opinion this was one of the finest moments at Madison Square Garden and as a Knick fan. Still gives me chills watching it:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gex2CpfWkwg