James Brown’s music has influenced HIP HOP overall, from his dancing, call and response, his musical feel, his influence on BREAK BEATS or FUNK DRUMMING. James Brown hired so many influential drummers and musicians in his band that he pretty much single handedly shaped the world of BREAK BEAT MUSIC.
FUNK DRUMMING
THE BREAK BEATS. From EARL PALMER to CLAYTON FILLYAU to CLYDE STUBBLEFIELD. these FUNK DRUMMERS created the beats that made HIP HOP music what it is today.
James Browns movements inspired young BBOYS dance styles.

Let’s celebrate the Life and Times of a true legend of our day!!

The Godfather of SOUL lives on….

ALways Bless

J.R.

It was rather immature of me, but since I was about seven or eight years old, most things were rather not mature of me, so immature may not be the correct word.  I’ll always remember getting a particular sense of pride in knowing that many of the other kids on my block didn’t have a song like “Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” that they could sing along to.  Surely, most of Puerto Rican, Dominican and South and Central American neighbors had their own cultural anthems in Spanish that I was not privy to, which actually made James Brown’s classic an even more powerful statement for me because everyone I knew understood the lyrics.  You had to be Black, and Proud, to sing “Say it Loud,” and once I was introduced to the 1968 classic, I was to the umpteenth degree.

One particular memory of that song was when a group of friends and I were hanging around in the old parking lot behind what was then May’s department store in Jamaica Queens.  There were about eight or nine of us and we had just finished one of our makeshift baseball games in the lot.  As we stood there listening to the broadcast from either New Yorks 98.7 kissfm, or 107.5 WBLS, “Say it Loud,” came on and as I was wont to do, I started singing along, dropping in the refrain every time it was proclaimed.  One of my friends started laughing at me—he was actually one of my tormentors—always poking fun at me for everything that seemed to be flaws in his image.  He was two years older and like me he was overweight and wore glasses, that unlike me, he had to repeatedly re-orient back to the bridge of his nose.  His constant adjusting of his glasses made them a more prominent feature on his face, than mine on mine, which probably explains why he felt incumbent to always call me four eyes.

Well on this day Sam figured that I again would be an easy target because I was the only one to have stepped off the railing and doing a two-step as I sang along to “Say it Loud.”  The dirt specs from the rubber baseball that we used were whisking off my hands as I clapped them together.  My other friends remained perched on the railing nodding their heads.  Jesus dribbled the baseball on the pavement to the beat of the song, while Javier matched his pace by pounding the bat head along the same ground.  When Sam pushed off the railing where he had been leaning and trying to mimic me started singing, “Say it loud, I’m white and I’m proud,” we all stopped what we were doing and turned our attention to him.  As he laughed at his own antics, we tried making sense of his delirium taking place in the foothold of the sun.  We would’ve had our heads cocked and looking at him cockeyed just for playing the fool, but that he was doing his trick in directly in the path of the sun made our squinting all the more pronounced.

I’ll never forget our friend Christian looking at Sam and saying with the utmost disdain, “what the f..k are you doing?  You ain’t white!  Sit your fat ass down.”

Sam tried explaining his dance, that he was just mimicking, that he was just…but no one was listening.  James Brown was on and while they were willing to permit my offbeat singing and dancing, the crew was not willing to condone Sam’s blasphemy.

When I awoke this morning to the news that James Brown had died I immediately returned to that scene and countless other moments like that one in the particular where Brown’s music was a permanent fixture to post baseball game sessions.  As we were being reared by hip-hop, with occasional visits by our pop aunts and uncles, our “godfather of soul” stood out the most.  He was the only one from his generation who when one of his songs came on the radio, the dialed stayed in place.  His most popular recordings may have been practically thirty years old by the time we were listening to them in the mid-eighties, but they felt as if they had just dropped the week before.

Brown’s recordings had not only reached the legendary stature of being timeless, but they were also timely, arriving at just the exact moment to help another generation deal with the complex issues of rhythm and identity.

I have a feeling that now that now that he has passed on Mr. Brown will be in peace, but not resting.  He’s probably already speaking with Mozart about a song that he’s always wanted to do with him.  And if you listen very closely to the heavens and to your soul, you will be able to hear it any day now.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Peace all, LG from Shaman Work here. Just wanted to take some time to introduce myself and the Shaman Work crew. Big things in store for Shaman Work and Mad Maestro for ‘07 and beyond, so you’ll start seeing more and more posts from the Shaman Work collective on the blog. For anyone not familiar, please check us out on the web at shamanwork.com.
Now, let’s get started.

WELCOME BACK MR. ROBINSON
John Robinson, one half of the group Scienz of Life, is currently embarking on his west coast tour. He played to a great crowd at Bridges in LA on December 16 and rocked an in-store at The Basement on December 17th. In addition to his live performance, listen out for him on the radio with Divine Forces, Sol of Hip Hop, and friends. And J.R. is on his grind, so watch out for him on tour.

To read what critics are saying about “The Leak Edition, Vol. 2,” click the following links:

• lostatsea.net
• urbanconnectionz.com
• smother.net
• eye.columbiaspectator.com
• musicforamerica.org
• brokebboys.wordpress.com
• erasoul.com
• urbanconnectionz.com
• hiphopnews.de
• 90bpm.net

NEW RELEASE – BLACK GOLD ALBUM BY WALE OYEJIDE AND DJ 2-TONE JONES
Come celebrate the release of the newest album from Wale Oyejide (“Africahot!”) and DJ 2-Tone Jones called “Black Gold” by attending the following listening sessions. Much like The Road Warriors Hawk and Animal and the New Age Outlaws, this is the first release from the newly created, fearsome tag team of Wale and 2-Tone. So put on your freshest gear, head on out and give this album a listen or get body slammed like a bitch!!!
New York @ Sutra Lounge (16 First Avenue) – Thursday, Jan. 11
Washington, D.C. @ Sleng Teng/Café Nema (1136 19th St. NW) – Wednesday, Jan. 17
Baltimore @ Goodlove Bar (2322 Boston St.) – Sunday, Jan. 14
Philadelphia @ Moodswing/North Bar and Lounge (222 South St.) – Tuesday, Jan. 16

CL SMOOTH – AMERICAN ME UPDATE
A big shout out to Corey Louire and the rest of the Music Choice staff for hosting C.L. Smooth for one of their music meetings. C.L. got a chance to mingle with the staff and share insight on his new record, “American Me.” Please check for C.L. Smooth and Shaman Work music anywhere where Music Choice is available.

C.L. is currently planning a huge U.S. tour for ’07. We will break the news to you right here as soon as it becomes official. But get ready: C.L. is coming to a city near you!

Check the following links to see what critics are saying about “American Me”:

• denverpost.com
• prefixmag.com
• rapstation.com
• halftimeonline.com
• theedge.bostonherald.com
• hiphopdx.com

SHAMAN WORK RADIO IS BACK
Yessir, grab a cup of hot chocolate, a blanket, and find your favorite spot by your fire place because Shaman Work Radio, hosted by Chris Craft and DJ 2-Tone Jones, is back. Show #3, entitled “The Return of the Coon Step,” is available for download at the following locations:

• shamanwork.com/radio
• samurai.fm/shamanwork

SHAMAN WORK ON THE WEB
We are making a big effort to increase our presence on the world wide web in ‘07 and beyond. Be sure to stay up to date with everything Shaman related by visiting our myspace and blog sites. Be sure to hit us up, request to be friends, send messages, etc,!!!!

• myspace.com/shamanwork
• hiphopcrack.com/shamanwork
• nextcat.com/shamanwork
• madmaestro.com/news (hey that’s right here!)
  

Also, this month, the Shaman Work collective are the featured artists over at 805 hip hop. Definitely, check that out and give your feedback. We have to send big thanks and respect to Randy and the whole Mad.Face crew for making that a reality!!!

• 805hiphop.com

COP THE HOTTEST GEAR IN TOWN –
It’s the fall season moving into winter, and you know what that means – you need to step your dress game up! Okay, that doesn’t make much sense since you should be working on your dress year round, but to help out, Shaman Work has NEW t-shirts out. They can be found at the following address: Cop one, cop two, cop three, just in case one gets worn out.

• thegiantpeach.com

I know you’re all wondering how you can help grow the SW-movement well…. NOW is your chance! We are currently recruiting and staffing our Street Promo Team and we’re looking for peeps that love music and want to gain some valuable experience. Join by hitting us up at streetpromo@shamanwork.com for further details.

Finally, we want to take a moment to wish all the Shamz out there a very happy and safe holiday season. Please take some time (even if its just a little) to slow down, enjoy the moment and appreciate the people you love (and those who love you).

-LG

The NBA just handed down the suspensions from Saturday night’s brawl.  Carmelo Anthony, currently the league’s leading scorer and a contender for most valuable player received the harshest penalty, a 15-game suspension.  Knicks guard Nate Robinson and Nuggets guard J.R. Smith garnered 10-game suspensions for their role in the melee and Knicks guard Mardy Collins was hit with a 6-game ban from the court.

I believe the player suspensions were fair.  Although, while he threw and landed a punch, I thought Anthony deserved a suspension more in line with what Robinson and Smith received.

What upsets me however is the fact that neither coach was suspended for their role in their fracas.  Broadcasters and talk-radio hosts have been comparing the Knicks and Nuggets spat at the garden to the fight that erupted at the Palace at Auburn Hills toward the end of a Pistons and Pacers match two years ago, but Saturday nights events were dramatically different.  Yes there was a fight that trickled into the stands, but the comparisons between the two ends there.  The Pistons and Pacers were bitter division rivals and the Pacers were the lead challengers to the Pistons throne.  In Ben Wallace and Ron Artest the principal protagonists in that fight, you had two of the most aggressive and equally petulant players in the league, therefore making it almost inevitable that as long as these two players continued battling against each other on the court, there was going to be a confrontation sooner or later.

At the same time, you also had two organizations and coaches that had a considerable amount of respect for each other.  Pacers coach Rick Carlisle may have been bitter at his dismissal at the hands of Joe Dumars, but he, Larry Brown, Larry Bird and Dumars did not over-hype their falling out.  If they did it would be an affront to the hard-working residents of Michigan and Indiana who have been coping with layoffs and firings for the last twenty years without nearly as lucrative back-up plans as Carlisle found in the Pacers.  In short, you can not blame the coaches for this battle.

In the Knicks and Nuggets battle however, George Karl and Isaiah Thomas deserve to shoulder part of the blame and punishment for their role in instigating the fight.  Karl and the rest of his North Carolina Tar Heel brethren/Larry Brown acolytes need to get over the fact that Brown was fired.  Making snide comments in the press and trying to elicit sympathy for Brown is absurd, a fact that Phil Jackson pointed out last month when he called Greg Popovich for advocating for Brown, but none of the other coaches who have faced “unfair” dismissals.  Beating the Knicks by sixty will not avenge Larry Brown, and if Marcus Camby were to have gotten injured as he’s wont to do, or worse Anthony, during the closing minutes of that fourth quarter, Karl’s pettiness could have cost his team even more.

Secondly, Isaiah Thomas needs to reel in his players.  Thomas is one of the thirty greatest players in the history of his sport and he should realize the difference between players who talk a great game and those who play one.  Right now he has a slew of players who talk much better than they produce.  His guards are particularly guilty as they each are trying to carry on the legacy of their esteemed coach, but in media laden New York brimming with fans ready to throw any athlete under the bus regardless of how great he is (e.g. Patrick Ewing, Reggie Jackson and Alex Rodriguez) sometimes it’s best to speak softly and play hard and let your performance dictate your legacy (e.g. Derek Jeter and Charles Oakley).

Right now it’s all speculation whether or not Thomas instructed his players to commit hard-fouls on Nuggets players going to the basket, but as more evidence is presented, it’s becoming easier to believe that if he did not do it explicitly, it was conveyed implicitly.  Knocking out someone at the end of a game should not be seen as a display of pride, but rather a brazen disregard for the mission at hand, play good basketball, win games, and in the event you lose, learn from your mistakes.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Before folks get to thinking that the Knicks are the only ball team that gets some play at MadMaestro, I feel that I should also comment on something that may very well prove spectacular.

When Lakers forward Lamar Odom sprained his knee in a December 12^th victory over the Houston Rockets, Lakers fans must’ve yelped.  With Kobe Bryant slowly recovering from knee surgery and Odom having a breakout year, Odom’s injury suggested that the Lakers dreams of an Bryant-Odom 1-2punch was again dashed.  Normally, I’d be right there fanning the flames about this point, especially since as a Queens native I have been a long time Odom fan, but this year, I’m not going to harp on it.  Yes, it would be great seeing what Odom and Bryant can do when both are self-assured and really feeding off of each other, and there’s still a chance that will happen when Odom returns from injury in a month.  Yes it would have been great watching a humbled Kobe realizing that his teammates can be trusted and playing spectacular basketball within the context of their offense, except for those games like the one earlier this month against Utah when it’d just be plain stupid for him to not go off and drop a double-nickel.

But do you know why this year’s different and I am asking everyone to overlook the Odom injury, because it means that next Monday, December 25, 2006 when the Lakers play the Miami Heat in what has been the NBA’s marquee game the last three years running, Kobe and Dwyane Wade will have the spotlight all to themselves.

For the past three years Wade has been shielded by the specter of Shaq vs Kobe and has just been able to go out and play basketball.  Kobe meanwhile has had to battle Shaq, the media attention, guard Wade and try to lead his team to victory.  However this year he’s only going to have to do two things guard Wade and lead his team to victory and vice versa for Wade.

Wade has been presented as the anti-Kobe, humble, great teammate and generally nice third member of the Lebron and Melo trio.  No one ever really talks about how whenever Wade plays any of these guys he often has some of his best games.  Very few people discuss that Wade has a desire to win and a chip on his shoulder that’s virtually unrivaled in the NBA.  While the league is littered with young guys who bypassed college altogether or bounced after a few successful games in the NCAA tournament, Wade was not highly recruited coming out of college and suffered through two knee injuries while at Marquette.

It was not too long ago when Kobe was the media darling.  He was the anti-Iverson, the prodigy that proved that a good kid could make the jump from high school to the NBA.  He partnered with Shaq to deliver the rings that Penny supposedly couldn’t, just like Wade last year brought home the ring that Kobe couldn’t in 2004.

Now on December 25^th these two will meet head to head without their two most reliable partners.  They’ll both be surrounded a troupe of role players all of graciously defer to them and they’ll have the world’s attention to themselves.   They will have to guard each other (with some minor relief) and have to score against the other.  They will have to answer all the media questions and this year there is no Shaq for whom Wade can deflect the attention onto.

This matchup is better than Wade vs Lebron or Kobe vs. Lebron because Wade and Kobe have both won rings, they’re connected to Shaq like a two men with the same baby-mama, and they are both coached by larger than life coaches.  Riley is the former Laker coach who brought showtime to LA, and Jackson used to beat Riley’s Knicks while he was coaching the Bulls.  And as a former Knick, Jackson never liked the way that Riley faxed in his letter of resignation before taking the Heat job.

But again, forget the back story, not since Hakeem Olajuwon faced David Robinson in the 1995 western conference finals the night that Robinson was named league MVP will two players in their prime be playing for so much pride.  It will be interesting to see how Kobe responds after being asked by Ahmad Rashad for the millionth time in a week about his thoughts after watching Shaq and Wade celebrating their victory last year.

I don’t know about you, but I will be watching to find out.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Before leaving the house last night I watched the Knicks struggling through yet another one of their vain com comeback attempts.  Anyone who has watched or seen the Knicks live in person this year knows the trend pretty well.  They fall behind by a twenty-point margin in the first half and then the reserves Renaldo Balkman, Jamal Crawford, David Lee and Nate Robinson start pressing and trapping all over the place and within minutes the lead has been cut to single digits.  The fans then get excited, the garden becomes electric as everyone is shouting, clapping and chanting defense whenever the opponents have the ball.  Unfortunately, except for that great comeback win last month against Denver ironically enough, these games usually end with a Knicks loss.

This cycle was about to repeat itself last night when, with less than two minutes left and Denver nursing a 19-point, Knick rookie guard Mardy Collins gave Nuggets guard J.R. Smith a hard foul as he was going for a breakaway dunk.  It seems as if the Knicks were upset that Denver still had their starters in the game in spite of their sizable advantage, and coach Isaiah Thomas allegedly encouraged his players to give a hard foul to anyone driving to the basket. 

There are also a number of reasons why George Karl would not want to take his foot off the gas in a blowout victory of the Knicks, (1) anyone who has seen the Knicks celebrate a victory of the past year (especially Crawford and Robinson) knows that they can be a bit obnoxious, if not immature with all of their collar-popping and chest-pounding; (2) the Knicks came back and defeated the Nuggets’ starters last month and maybe Karl wanted to send a message to his players, and (3) Karl and former Knicks coach Larry Brown are both “North Carolina guys” and to be able to add on Thomas’s compounding miseries at the garden after the team’s falling out with Brown may be exactly what Karl desired.

In other words there are countless of speculative explanations for why this happened.

However, at the end of the day, we can not evade one very important fact, that yet again the Knicks were being sure-handedly defeated by an opponent.  With as many breathtaking individual talents as they have on that roster (Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury and Nate Robinson), gifted role players (Balkman, Lee and Quentin Richardson), a sometimes dominant big man (Eddy Curry) and a highly underrated mercurial guard who has shown time and again he could make clutch shots (Jamal Crawford), they should not be falling behind by twenty-plus on a regular basis.

In many ways the Knicks remind me of the Miami Heat before they traded for Shaq.  Pat Riley was at his wits end with what to do with that team and he had but conceded that it’d be better to pass on the reins for developing talented youngsters Caron Butler, Udonis Haslem, Lamar Odom and Dwyayne Wade to Stan Van Gundy than continue watching his career winning percentage decline.  Everyone knows about the happy ending that came last year when Shaq and Wade led the Heat to their first title in franchise history.  However if you take into consideration that the Heat before Shaw had more individual talent than the Pistons team that beat Shaq’s last Lakers team, then, you could see that there’s a good chance that Miami would have won a championship with the team it had before Shaq.  I still can not fault Riley for the gamble because obviously it has paid off.  (I’ll have more to say on the Heat and Lakers in the next post).

What was instructive about Riley’s maneuverings with the Heat is that he was aware that his aura, methods and shadow was not relating to his young players.  They all respected him and admired him, but at the end of the day were not necessarily that compelled to play for him or the way that he wanted.  Riley realized that it’s too hard and too awkward being president and coach of a team.  Both coaches and players rely on the distance created between them and management.  Players need to feel as if they have someone in administration on their side, and so do coaches.  If a coach is the team president, then the players have no real allies that they can trust in management, and that sometimes undermines trust between teammates, in the sense that they come to really hate anyone who’s a coaches’ favorite.

To put in context, imagine if you are a junior associate for a billion dollar firm and your firm’s president was just made your immediate supervisor.  Would you feel comfortable going to work everyday?

It may be harder for coaches to be GMs in the NFL because of the complex salary cap structure, but it’s just as hard for NBA coaches to be Presidents of their organizations because of the intimate relationships between players and their coaches.  The two of them need to be able to yell and make up without a real fear of getting fired or disproportionately punished.  Right now the Knicks are not offering that to their players and James Dolan’s “now or never” or “one year to turn things around” declarations to Thomas are not helping anyone.  Isaiah Thomas so desperately did not want to lose his job last year that he did a very human mistake and agreed to take on another person’s job.

We’ve all been there before.  You start seeing your co-workers getting laid off, so you start making yourself extremely valuable to the corporation and in turn fail to see that you are killing your own value, if not values.

If Thomas wants to help his team to start playing better then he should take a page from Riley and Don Nelson and re-configure his organization.  First he should resign from coaching and name Mark Aguirre head coach a position he deserves for the great work that he’s done with Eddy Curry and the respect that Richardson and others in the locker room have for him.  Aguirre has the ideal coaching DNA very good player, but not a superstar, it allows players to respect his league ballin’ credentials as well as his intellect as a coach.  Plus he’s worked under Brown, Thomas and Herb Williams the last three Knicks coaches so he will not make any dramatic changes to the system.

Next step is hire someone from Donnie Nelson’s office in Dallas or RC Buford’s office in San Antonio to help him manage the salary-cap.  The trades that the Knicks make over the next two years will have dramatic impacts on the future of the organization.  It’s one thing to trade marginal players for bad contracts, but they now have to be really afraid of not mortgaging the franchise.  Plus, Thomas needs someone to tell him to stop buying out players in the final year of their deals.  The Jalen Rose contract could have helped them get rid of Jerome James or Malik Rose, and the same goes for Maurice Taylor’s package.

Finally Thomas goes back to doing what he does best charming people with his charisma and really work to enhance his profile as one of the best-draft pick analysts in the NBA.  In his tenure as GM of the Knicks and Raptors he has drafted the following group of players Damon Stoudamire, Marcus Camby, Tracy McGrady, Vince Carter, David Lee, Channing Frye, Renaldo Balkman and Nate Robinson, which by all accounts would still make the core of a very good NBA team today.  MSG needs people in the seats and an ambassador two things that if Thomas focuses his energies on he’d excel at immeasurably.

I do not want to make the claim that this the Knicks only or best option for turning their season around, but for anyone who’s seen the team play can attest to, it says a lot that the players with the least at stake and therefore largest margin for error are the only ones that can be counted on the most.  Before they know it the mid-season mark will be upon them, and like these twenty-six point deficits, their low placing in the division will also prove insurmountable.

The Nightshift Chronicler

ESPN the Magazine did a feature a few weeks ago where they brought some actors from the show together with players from football’s Baltimore Ravens.  The magazine had them playing blackjack, talking about being celebrities in Baltimore and how they appreciated each other’s work.

After giving it some thought, I realized there was a considerable amount of overlap between the show and football.  Both of are premised on strategy and violent confrontations.  Take the character Omar for example, he’s like the Ronnie Lott or Lawrence Taylor of the show.  I use these two legends rather than modern day players because they both revolutionized their positions in the eighties, and while both are remembered for the viscious hits that they put on opponents, their excellence required an uncanny amount of football intellect.  Like all great defensive players, Lott and Taylor talk about manning their positions like priests or doctors tending to their flock,which is not unlike the way that Omar talks about running up on the drug dealers in his hood.

The fact that pro-football and The Wire share Sundays as programming days gives the viewer/fan something to look for the entire week; they give us a week to consider which players/teams will walk away victorious on any given week.  And similar to how football players hold on to the Super Bowl as the ultimate achievement in their profession, the cops, the street players and now the schoolkids hold on to that mythical score which will put them in another grade, rank, echelon of hustler.

Now that The Wire has gone off the air for a year, its fans can dabble in its Sunday counterpart for entertainment, while mirroring football addicts obsessive investment in the pending fates of their favorite characters, and sadly, the show itself.

The Nightshift Chronicler

 

When this video came on, the first thing that came to mind was do these NBA cats know that they have the same fashion taste as Patra? Okay, I know many players who wear these arm sleeves first worn by AI, then female rapper Eve, probably do have some kind of elbow pain. All the exercises that they go through during the course of the year are bound to put enough strain on their elbows that they develop some kind of tendinitis. I’m not sure about some of the cats on college and in high school rocking these things though….

Anyways, the elbow sleeve was not the only discovery in this video. Little did I know/remember that the legendary 2pac had a cameo in this joint. I’m always a 50/50 cat on Pac, but I do remember enjoying his music and work when he was not involved in the east vs west fiasco.

As I continue longing for a few of those good ol’ southern california days, the sight of Pac, Yo-Yo and Patra driving around, makes me nostalgic for not only the city of angels, but being young and having fun in the early 90s.

And while I’m at it, peace out to Jamaica High School class of ‘94 and everyone else who was getting down to Patra, Shabba and Mad Cobra back in the day.

The Nightshift Chronicler

Since we offered Kallisto and Mad Maestro Entertainment’s “Pay Homage” for free we have been flooded with numerous emails and calls from people that have enjoyed the album.  Check out the latest “Pay Homage” album review from Isabelle Esling at the Eminem Blog here.  The Eminem Blog is one of the premier hip hop blogs on the internet and thrilled to be featured.  We at Mad Maestro Entertainment want to say thank you to everyone for the support.  It is your encouragement that truly keeps us going.

For a limited time only click here to download the entire Pay Homage Album for free.  That’s right, the entire Pay Homage album and album artwork absolutely free!!!  Pay Homage is produced by Kallisto and was the flagship album for Mad Maestro Entertainment. Happy Holidays from the Mad Maestro team.

This blog is in response to Mike Vaccaro’s (NYPost Columnist) claim that New York Knicks GM Isiah Thomas should be fired.

In regards to Mike Vaccaro’s article calling for Isiah to be fired, he doesn’t have anymore credibility to weigh in on Isiah Thomas anymore. If he wanted anyone to take that article seriously he should have waited for the next Knick home loss not right after a good win where one of Isiah’s key acquisition’s (Eddy Curry) is coming into his own and showing why the Knicks gave up Tim Thomas (contract year player but career hamburger), Mike Sweetney who can’t get off the Bulls bench to save his life averaging 3points a game in nine minutes and Tyrus Thomas who is an undersized Kenyon Martin and the second pick in the draft but can’t get past 38 year old P.J Brown and is only averaging 4points and 3rebounds in eleven minutes of play on a team that actually needs help at the power forward position.
Whereas the Knicks pick Renaldo Balkman is a key contributor averaging 3.4 points and 3.5 rebounds a game in 12 minutes of action on a team full of veterans who go 10-11 deep on any given night.

To all the Knicks Fans who plan to see the Knicks make the playoffs after they get thru the rough patch of learning to play with one another, don’t ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever listen to Mike Vaccaro’s non-objective articles. He is a hater! Isiah Thomas is the target of his hate, I don’t know if it’s personal of just doesn’t like Isiah but it’s getting vicious and ridiculous. At least Peter Vescey (sports columnist for the NY Post) came out said, “I don’t like Isiah Thomas” but Mike Vaccaro is trying the justification route in his campaign to rid the Knicks organization of Isiah Thomas.

Isiah is just an easy target, but it won’t last much longer because once the Knicks go on a streak which is inevitable, Mike Vacarro will look like a hater and have no allies because Journalist from print to ESPN are all bandwagon jumpers and will stop hating Isiah and begin praising for what a turnaround/surprise the Knicks have become.
Let’s see what happens when the Knicks actually surprise most of the NBA and the awful eastern conference and make the playoffs as a 6th or 7th seed with a record of 44-38. Do not think I’m delusional with that prediction, look at their entire schedule up to April, if you ever played basketball you know that they can do it.

Currently, they are 8-14, when Jared Jeffries begins playing this week alongside Curry at center, Lee at power forward (Isiah better not take Lee out of the starting lineup, or he’ll lose me as one of his loyal supporters and I’ll be the first one to print up Fire Isiah! tee-shirts and hand them out free of charge at the home games), Quentin Richardson at the two guard and Stephon Marbury at point.

The Knicks will be a balanced defensive team and defense wins games, the Knicks aren’t losing because the offense can’t score, they just can’t stop anyone from scoring more than them right now. The Jeffries acquisition will actually save Isiah’s job and greatly improve the Knicks. Anyone who has ever played basketball knows that you need two scorer’s (Curry & Richardson), a great rebounder (David Lee), the scrappy hustle player who is defensive minded (Jared Jeffries) and a point guard who can make an 20 foot jump shot, dish the rock and penetrate to the basket (Marbury). Injuries are nothing to get happy about but, the injury to Channing Frye was blessing in disguise because we got to finally see how talented David Lee is and how well he and Curry play together without breaking Channing’s confidence and demoting him to the bench, this way Channing is coming into a winning situation and understand that Knicks have won more games with David Lee starting than they did when he started. Isaiah can not and should not break the Curry and Lee tandem up. Channing Frye could come off the bench as a backup center or power forward giving the Knicks more flexibility with the rotation. Jerome James injury just helps Isiah because it’s one less guy to worry about giving minutes to and Steve Francis’s injury helps us because it’s more time for Nate, Renaldo and Jamal. I like Francis but he looks a little like Penny Hardaway did last year and is it me or does he look like he is having trouble dribbling, maybe it’s the new NBA ball but his handle is suspect, he looks very slow and his shot is off. Steve being out for a while will condense the rotation and let the second unit of exciting young players (Channing, Nate, Renaldo and Jamal) can play more minutes.

To all the real Knick fans, the Knicks will be just fine. Watch the games and root for your team to win and stop listening to journalists who are unathletic paid spectators who cowardly pick fights, start rumors and launch personal vendetta’s against the athletes they are paid to write about. Many journalists don’t have any personal stories about their playing days or decision making skills under pressure or even the last time they put together a wining team with little to work with or even coached a group of individuals with ego’s into a cohesive unit that plays as one like a team, because they don’t have any of those experiences. Remember journalists are paid to watch and write about other more fascinating people’s experiences but they don’t have any personal experience of their own.

What kind of authorities are we listening to? Would you get guidance from a fisherman, a telephone operator or a high school janitor in regard’s to the state of the NY Knicks? Take a minute and think about I’ll wait…………………….. Answer, Now way. So why do we continue to listen to writers and poets who give OPINIONS as though they were facts. Sports journalists have conditioned the readers to believe what they want you to believe because they have the power of the pen and will go unchallenged because prior to the recent technological advancements of the internet blogs there were no platforms for the common man to express themselves or challenge the journalists opinions. But it’s a new day, let’s not blindly go with the flow anymore, let’s challenge these journalist’s opinions when they are lying or just being blatantly hateful when it comes to covering the athletes we enjoy supporting. Negativity is infectious and misery loves company.

Remember that they are no better than we are, they used the bathroom alot of them are portly from sitting at desks all day, never played basketball or rather any sport, many of them were never considered cool or desirable and married the first woman that gave them some sex.

I have a couple college degrees and I’m sure many of my comrades in the sports blogging community have degrees as well. We could write just as well if not better that these guys. If you share my feelings start challenging these writers, trust me alot of people are reading these blogs and the writers will have to hold themselves accountable for what they write because they know that we will be there to hold them accountable.
My Knicks prediction- between 42 and 44 wins…..The Knicks will be reasonably mediocre, giving the fans 6 wins and 4 losses for every 10 game stretch for the rest of the 60 remaining games of the season leading to a record of 36 and 24. A final record of 44-38 at best and on the low side 42-40 on their way to the playoffs.