The Knicks Fix

Yao Ming is one tall dude. At 6'6", I usually stand out among the media scrum, so it kind of freaked me out when I felt a shadow looming over my shoulder as this 7-6 giant approached a group of us standing around Jeff Van Gundy. Yao listened in a moment and when Van Gundy stopped to acknowledge his big center, Yao grinned and said, "Hey coach, do you miss New York?"

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Van Gundy was in his element with this large crowd around him, six of us from New York, the rest his usual media from Houston, a one-newspaper town that also has a hardworking television reporter who gives the paper competition. I was watching him while I listened and couldn't help but recall when I knew him almost 20 years ago.

Damn. Twenty years ago.

I was a junior in high school in the summer of 1987 and attended the Providence College basketball camp, which was run by Rick Pitino (who, as I would soon find out, was preparing to leave to become the Knicks head coach). Jeff was a graduate assistant at the time and looked pretty much the same as he does now, with slightly more hair on his head. But he was the same person, funny, blunt and devoted to basketball. I went back to the camp the following summer and we met again. I also saw him a few times around basketball and he'd always say hello. I was happy for him when he got the Knicks job. I was worried about him when he was grabbing Alonzo Mourning's ankle.

So it was kind of cool to see him again, though I'm not going to claim we had some kind of long-lost reunion (Once he told my fellow reporters that I was "a great player," I knew he couldn't possibly have rememberd me). Steve Clifford, the former Adelphi coach I used to cover back in my days as the local college writer for Newsday, is an assistant with the Rockets. Andy Greer, who I remember at Kings Point, is also here.

Spend enough time in this job and you'll see people emerge from some of the most unlikely places. And you never know when you're going to run into them again, so it's always good to leave relationships on a positive note. Which means there are a few coaches I played for (and covered) that I hope I don't have to run into again. I think my old college coach, Tom Galeazzi, still believes I owe him back some scholarship money.

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Steve Francis worked out with the team during the shoot-around, but Isiah Thomas still says he'll be a game-time decision.