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McDyess brings a sense of hope to frustrated NY fans

The expectations were not high for Antonio McDyess on Monday night.

"He doesn't have to score a point or get a rebound," said his coach, Don Chaney. "Just play his game."

On Monday night Antonio McDyess played. That was quite enough. Respectability for the Knicks is another story, for later.

At least the Garden had a tangible sense of hope. For the first time in a year, there was reason to have some curiosity, some expectations. McDyess was back in uniform -- No. 34, for that matter, Charles Oakley's old number.

McDyess played seven minutes in the first half -- three rebounds, four missed shots, a couple of bad passes -- much of it in the proximity of the burly Ben Wallace. He played six minutes in the second half, missed a fifth shot and made 2 of 4 free throws to finish with 2 points in the 79-78 overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons.

But he was able to walk off the court, which is a bonus, considering what he has been through. He played six minutes in the second half, missed a fifth shot and made 2 of 4 free throws to finish with 2 points in the 79-78 overtime loss to the Detroit Pistons.

After having three knee operations and playing only 10 games in the past two years, McDyess played his first game as a Knick on Monday night. If he can still stand in a week or a month, that will be progress. He should not be saddled with more responsibility.

"I get a lot of `You're the savior of the team,' which I really don't want to hear," McDyess said Monday afternoon. "I just want to be Antonio and go out and play ball."

This is no team of Ewing and Oakley and Starks, and it is surely not a team of Reed and Frazier and DeBusschere. It would be a shame to make McDyess out to be the great hope for some kind of renaissance at Madison Square Garden.

"His skills are still the same," Chaney said.

"He's still going over the rim. He's still a young man who got hurt. I see him taking reverse dunks. He can jump."

Except for the hard-core, late-night, split-screen basketball freaks, most Knicks fans did not see much of McDyess in his relative obscurity out West for the first seven years of his career.

Asked to define what McDyess was (and might be again), Chaney said, "He has the speed of a David Robinson and he has the inside-outside game of a Tim Duncan." Not a bad comparison, right there.

"He plays very good defense, good hands, a good feel for the game," Chaney added. "Versatile. That's what I'd call him. Very versatile."

McDyess, at a springy 6 feet 9 inches, was supposed to be the player who could make the Knicks respectable -- they have now missed the playoffs two years in a row -- but there is a question of whether he could have carried this team.

In six full years in the West, he qualified for the playoffs exactly once, even though the NBA is a democracy that permits eight teams from each conference to make money in the postseason. McDyess played exactly four playoff games in six years as Phoenix went down in the first round in 1998.

He averaged 17.6 points e for six and a fragment regular seasons as he scuttled from Denver to Phoenix, then back to Denver, a bad team in a brutal conference.

"Any star in our league can carry a team," Chaney said. "He is capable."

The Knicks are one of the flagship franchises in New York, but they have stumbled along under the current stewardship. The Dolan management took its chances on a man with a history.
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