This book might not have the most elegant prose in the world, but it does have more than a few juicy anecdotes about the 1990s Knicks. From Anthony Mason and Herb Williams to Anthony Bonner and Chris Childs, life on and off the court was colorful. “Mason had an odd fascination with lighting matches, then flicking them at whoever was around.” On the court, Will Purdue admitted, “I don’t want to use the word ‘fear,’ but there was always this thought in your mind that they might take things too far on any given play.” Greg Anthony summed it up, “We’d say, ‘Hey, we’re gonna win something tonight—we’re either gonna win the game, or win the fight.’”
It was astounding and heartbreaking to learn what precipitated the beginning of the end for Pat Riley with the Knicks. “Riley sent Dave Checketts an invoice for the $10,000 he spent for the players to gamble in Reno…. But then weeks went by. Then several months. Riley still hadn’t gotten his money—partly because, according to Checketts, no one at the Garden knew how to officially label the expense, which would be subject to the scrutiny of shareholders of a publicly traded company…. “He never forgot it. That stuck in his craw,” Checketts says of the delayed reimbursement. “If I knew what I know now, I would’ve just paid him back myself. Everything with Pat was black or white. In or out.”” On John Starks’ dismal Game 7 shooting performance in Houston, “Riley called not subbing Blackman in “the biggest mistake I ever made.” The coach has sent handwritten letters to Blackman over the years, but Blackman says he’s never written Riley back.” I can no longer muster much hatred for sports stars. I still despise Pat Riley with a passion. Tim Hardaway hates those 1990s Knicks too, “I hate them with all the hate that you can hate with. Can you hate more than that? If you can, I hate them more than that.”
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