By MARC BERMAN
The real season begins Wednesday in Memphis, but the six-month travel grind for the six beat writers who cover the team begins tomorrow. When people find out what I do, one of the first questions they ask is: “How do you like all the travel”?
The Knicks’ preseason was travel-lite, good for my family and those of the married players. Purposely, Isiah Thomas, after their six-day annual boot camp in Charleston, S.C., did not stage a road preseason game that required a plane flight.
That was in direct contrast to my first seven years on the Knicks beat when the club made extended preseason road trips to the likes of Texas, Utah, Las Vegas – even with jaunts to Boise, Idaho and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. (True story: I asked the front-desk clerk at the Sioux Falls hotel if there was anything to do touristy since I had some time to kill. The response: “Not really.”)
The two furthest road games during preseason was to Philadelphia and Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut. The Knicks traversed by bus and departed after the game, perhaps wisely avoiding the casino action (unlike the Celtics).
When people ask me how do I like the travel, I usually respond, “I don’t necessarily like the trips to Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Minnesota, but I don’t mind spending time in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
No, we do not fly with the team (though a few years ago the club let us on James Dolan’s lovely charter in Phoenix to get home in time for Thanksgiving). It’s all commerical flights, long security lines and occasional middle seats. And it’s about covering a practice tomorrow, writing your stories rapidly and zipping to the airport to catch your flight in time, speed limit be damned.
That’s the stress you deal with in this job, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The Knicks will play 10 of their first 17 games on the road and it all begins in Memphis – with great barbacue and blues music on Beale Street and perhaps a Knicks’ victory against a Grizzlies club not nearly as strong as last season, without injured Pau Gasol (foot) and Shane Battier (traded).
Rumor has it our star columnist and my buddy Mike Vaccaro will join me in Memphis for the beginning of this basketball ride. And I’m sure for some Memphis-style ribs.
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It was very ironic to hear Isiah Thomas at practice today talk about their new philosophy of no longer using expiring contracts as trade pawns to upgrade their roster talent, feeling they have already done so. As such, they were willing to save some money in buying out Jalen Rose’s expiring pact today, just as they bought out the expiring pact of Maurice Taylor before training camp.
Yet in the same interview, Thomas refused to predict a playoff berth, making it seem they were a longshot to finish with the eighth seed. So how many good players can they really have? Bottom line: James Dolan does not want to add to the payroll and a Rose trade would have done just that.