Herring details the course of the New York Knicks during the 1990s, starting with the hire of Pat Riley to pull them out of the mess they'd become in the '80s. From there, he progresses through their battles with Michael Jordan and the Bulls, until they finally reached the Finals the year Jordan took off, only to lose to the Houston Rockets in Game 7 because John Starks couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat, but also couldn't stop taking shots.
After that, the team begins a steady slide as the players grow tired of Riley and Riley decides management isn't giving him what he wants (read:everything) and eventually leaves for the Miami Heat. The Knicks try to arrest their decline through repeated playoff battles with the Heat and the Indiana Pacers, and even make one more NBA Finals at the end of the decade (where the Spurs summarily curbstomped them.) But by that point, nepo-baby doofus James Dolan was running the team. Into the ground, that is.
Herring intersperses chapters focused on specific players or coaches among chapters about specific seasons or series, typically the point where that person is critical to what's happening. So Riley's biographical chapter comes early in the book, to explain who this guy is the Knicks were so desperate to get. Starks' chapter is when he's shooting the Knicks out of that Game 7 (while Riley stands there on the sideline watching him do it, refusing to apparently even consider subbing in Rolando Blackmon, who the Rockets absolutely knew they could not stop.) Franchise cornerstone Patrick Ewing's chapter comes late in the book, as the Knicks are trying to finish strong in the playoffs and Ewing lands awkwardly and basically destroys his wrist. Herring describes it as an injury consistent with falling from a 3-story window, which, ouch.
I read this book in one night back in April (as I mentioned back then, I was way ahead on Thursday posts) when I couldn't sleep. Around 11:30 I decided there was no point in just laying in bed and got up to read, and finished it about 4 hours later. And it was only after I finished that I noticed I was getting tired. So the book reads fast, and it keeps your attention. And this is coming from someone who mostly despised the Knicks in the '90s.
Though I think it was all the playoff game rock fights they had with Miami I hated. First to 70 points wins, basically. As Herring notes, it's like a team fighting its mirror. Riley made the Knicks a tough, physical team that beat the hell out of its opponent and ran everything through their center. Then he went to Miami and did the same thing again, while the Knicks, after a brief dalliance with Don Nelson and up-tempo offense, kept playing the same bully ball style. Put them up against different teams and they were almost tolerable to watch.
As it turns out, personality-wise, they're fascinating. The harsh training and practice Riley espoused, which got to the point one player had to wear a flak jacket during to survive practice because of his busted ribs. John Starks' irrational confidence, which alternately saves and kills the team. Anthony Mason's wild mood swings - during Don Nelson's brief tenure as head coach, Mason is alternately irritated Nelson has put a lot of offensive responsibility in Mason's hands, but also leaving notes threatening to kill Nelson if he pulls him from a game again.
Herring's portrayal of Pat Riley as kind of a lunatic and an asshole pretty much confirms the distaste I've had for him for 30+ years. There's an early anecdote about him firing a well-liked team staff member. He tells the players that yes, everyone liked that guy, but sometimes you need to shoot a hostage so the others will wonder what's gonna happen next. I stopped and stared at that paragraph for a bit.
'During a practice that first year under Riley, Van Gundy repeatedly shouted at Charles Oakley, telling him he was playing soft. After the third such remark, Oakley fired the ball at Van Gundy's crotch, leaving the coach doubled over.'
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