Steve B, of Never Too Late Basketball, had a very wise comment on my last post. Steve, I agree with you completely that the spread-the-floor, move-without-the-ball, find-the-open-man game is basketball at its best. (Personal aside: I recently started playing in a Saturday game here in NYC but left it after two weeks, because it turned out the way they play is five one-on-one, break-your-man-down games. Not my style.) But here's the thing about the Knicks: D'Antoni couldn't make that work here in three years. And the real villain of the piece, James Dolan, capped it when he presented D'Antoni with Melo. Dolan owns the team, the arena they play at, the network they're seen on, and they horse they rode in. Life in NY would be much better in general if Dolan weren't mini-Mussolini. But he is. If Lorenzo di Medici presented Michaelangelo with a mound of gold and wanted a sculpture, Michaelangelo wouldn't get far saying, "Sorry, Mr. di Medici, I only work in marble." That's what this was. D'Antoni was stuck with Melo and his only chance was to find a way to work with him. If he couldn't make Melo do things his way, he needed to change his way. He couldn't do either one. So he had to go. Melo, I agree, is a petulant child. But D'Antoni looked like one, too, the way he ran the team this year. He did not, these last few weeks, cover himself with glory.