Shed No Tears For Ewing

It is a sad day in sports when a team has an acrimonious parting with a beloved player. It is even sadder when the player sent on his way is the greatest ever to wear that team’s uniform.

Hold the tears, then, over the banishment of Patrick Ewing from the New York Knicks. Save the sympathy for somebody who deserves it more, like Big Tobacco or Microsoft.

Ewing spent 15 seasons with the Knicks and made 11 All-Star teams. He is the franchise leader in scoring (23,665 points), rebounding (10,759), games played (1,039) and unfulfilled promises (countless). Through no fault but his own, Ewing was as beloved as a particularly bothersome case of athlete’s foot. It takes a lot of selfishness and surliness to undermine the goodwill a player builds up making the NBA’s 50 Greatest Team.

He was up to the task.

With all due respect to Ewing’s numbers, he is no more The Greatest Knick than Ringo Starr is The Greatest Beatle, Millard Fillmore is The Greatest President or Dennis Miller is The Greatest Announcer Ever To Sit In The Monday Night Football Booth.

There’s one number pertaining to Ewing that screams out louder than all the rest.

Zero.

That’s the number of championships the Knicks won following Ewing’s lead. That’s the number of times Ewing put anything or anybody but himself first.

Ewing has been a great player, no doubt, a no-brainer Hall of Famer. For all the points Ewing scored for the Knicks, for all the rebounds he grabbed, for all the shots that he blocked, he lacked the superstar’s knack for making everybody around him better. Ewing wasn’t about bringing out the talents of his teammates. He just barked and glowered at them when they didn’t throw him the ball enough to suit him.

Remember, old Knicks Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Dave DeBusschere and Earl Monroe were stars in their own right. They set aside their egos and their statistics to be a part of something bigger than them. And they have championship rings to show for it.

Ewing was getting older and gimpier and grumpier. The Knicks were getting further and further from a championship. Ewing fumed when people noticed that the Knicks were 5-1 without him in their past two playoff series against the Indiana Pacers. Teammates, in turn, chafed at how Ewing cramped their style on the court.

A deal had to be done, and it took four teams and 12 players to make it happen. To rid themselves of a malcontent who wants a contract that will take him to age 40, the Knicks agreed to a package where the best player they got in return plays like he’s 40.

Glen Rice is a former All-Star guard whose best days are in the rear-view mirror. To compare Rice to a cigar-store Indian would be an affront to cigar-store Indians everywhere.

“This is not a divorce,” Knicks president Dave Checketts said. “It is the end of an era. He wanted a change… . We accommodated him out of respect for what he has done here.”

Right. Checkett and the rest of the Madison Square Garden suits make it a practice to do things out of the goodness of their alleged hearts.

The truth is, Ewing had become an emotional and economic albatross for the franchise. About to approach the final season of a four-year, $60 million contract, Ewing couldn’t understand why the Knicks wouldn’t fall over themselves to give him what he wanted. They’d always catered to him in the past.

“The bottom line is he felt totally disrespected and he felt it was time for him to move on,” said Ewing’s good friend, Miami Heat center Alonzo Mourning. “I know that he’s happy now that he can leave and get away from all the negative energy that he was around.”

Please, no “Poor Patrick” nonsense just because he’s leaving New York without a championship. In the end, Ewing has nobody to blame but himself for leaving New York without a championship ring on his finger already.

The greatest myth in Knicks history is that they lost the 1994 NBA Finals because John Starks shot them out of Game 7. Yes, Starks missed 16 of 18 shots in the decisive 90-84 defeat that made champions of the Houston Rockets. But there wouldn’t have been a Game 7 if Ewing hadn’t bombed in Game 6.

Ewing took 20 shots, missed 14 and scored 17 points in Game 6. His counterpart, Hakeem Olajuwon, took 21 shots and scored 30 points in an 86-84 Rockets victory. And that was hardly an isolated event. Olajuwon took 150 shots during the series and scored 188 points. Ewing took 160 shots and scored 132 points.

The Knicks, in other words, lost the series because Olajuwon mopped up the floor with Ewing.

If Ewing was ever a victim, it was of his visions of grandeur. He was a star, and he wanted to be treated like a superstar.

The sad thing is, he’ll never get it.