Me(ga)lomania

As regular readers are aware, the Glass Man has gotten big into the New Knicks this season.

Awoken from their lost decade by the play of Amar'e Stoudemire, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, and the rest of the gang, the Knicks were, by and large, young, cheap, and likeable.

Sure, they weren't title contenders, but Rome wasn't built in a day and after all those years of awful play and despicable management, even a sixth seed with an enjoyable team was cause celebre at the Garden.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know enough about basketball to say anything definitive about the deal that blew up the Knicks and remade them in the image of the Heat (minus a third superstar). And I'm sure I'll find plenty to like about Carmelo Anthony once he starts chipping in 25 a night alongside Stoudemire.

But this deal just feels wrong to me, and cheap. It feels like they sold the farm to get a guy they probably could have had three months from now at no cost beyond his salary (which they're giving him anyway). I know, I know. The new CBA; they had to get him while they could.

It just reminds me of so many misbegotten moves the Mets have made over the years when they "had" to make a big splash to appease the fan base, or "had" to give up a few solid prospects to get the guy who was supposed to push them over the edge but had no honest chance of doing so.

You know what people don't talk about enough when it comes to New York sports fans? How they've all got REALLY short memories. For all the disgust and bad will generated by the past decade of Knicks basketball, people love this team again, two games over .500 and all.

Now they get 'Melo and they're supposed to be title contenders but, clearly, they're not. They're in "win now" mode; the Cinderella story thing they kind of had going in the first half of the season is gone, swept out the door along with guys like Gallo (first round pick the Knicks plucked out of obscurity), Felton (career year, great pick and roll combo with Amar'e), and Wilson Chandler (a latter day Allan Houston, in his way).

It would be like the Mets trading Ike Davis, Jon  Niese, Mike Pelfrey, and Bobby Parnell for Albert Pujols, or really someone a cut or two below that. You'd have your superstar, but you'd lose all of the excitement of hoping and wishing and playing the "what if" game about how those young players might develop someday.

They say one in the bag is worth two in the bush, and sure enough it is. There are plenty of Knicks fans out there who are thrilled to have 'Melo joining Amar'e. I'm not one of them. To me it just feels like another New York sports team trying to make headlines. Hopefully I'm wrong.

- A.F.O.M.G.

Oliver Perez... Why?

Wow. First post in 17-18 days. NOT an impressive run for the Glass Man.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. I don't have a good excuse beyond working a lot of late nights. Hopefully I can get back into a routine of 2-3 posts a week around here, but time will tell.

Anyway, was just watching SportsNite this morning and saw a piece about Oliver Perez's bid to rejoin the starting rotation, or hell, just make the team, in 2011.

In Kevin Burkhardt's words, Perez's velocity was 88-92, a "far cry" from the 86mph he demonstrated in 2010. True, but it's also a "far cry" from the 94-96 he flashed in 2006 when, you know, he was capable of being an effective pitcher.

In the general depressingness that is the Oliver Perez saga is the memory of what we thought we had when we first acquired him. A "throw-in" to the deal that sent Xavier Nady (RIP) packing in exchange for Roberto Hernandez, one Mets official at the time described netting Perez as a reversal of the Scott Kazmir debacle.

Through Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS and pretty much the entire 2007 season (though I note that he really shat the bed against the Marlins that final weekend), it sure looked like the Mets had gotten that most coveted of baseball commodities, a mid-20s lefty with a power arm.

But it all unraveled pretty quickly from there. 2008 was lousy, and 2009-2010 were just atrocious. Now he's perhaps the most expensive, most unpleasant albatross in baseball (aside from Bernie Madoff, of course).

The good news? At this point, it wouldn't even be painful to watch him go to another team and succeed. I think I speak for all Mets fans when I say we just want him gone already.

- A.F.O.M.G.