Conspiracy Theory, But Maybe True

What if I told you the New York Knicks had a team meeting last week.  

In that meeting, GM Donnie Walsh, Owner James Dolan, head coach Mike D'Antoni and the powers that be with the Knicks sat around a table at Madison Square Garden and came up with an ingenious plan:  make sure that when Kobe and LeBron come to town, they have record setting games.  Play less defense, let them light up the scoreboard, and make them feel like the Garden is magical.

Let them be showered with praise by the Garden crowd.  Let them be the top story on SportsCenter for a night.  Let their performances be the talk of the town for a while.

That way, when both become free agents in the infamous summer of 2010, both will have fond memories of playing in New York.

It would certainly make it easier to entice them to join the Knicks then, wouldn't it?  

They can just look back at their all-world performances from the winter of 2009, on back-to-back games at the Garden.  Kobe pours in 61, LeBron goes for a triple-double with 52 points.  Ah, how sweet it would be to play 41 games a year in that building.  

The Knicks have already made it clear that they'll be contenders for top talent when that big summer comes around.  They've already made some moves to get them well under the cap so they can take on a couple max contracts.  And everyone knows this year the Knicks aren't going anywhere, barring an unforeseen run to the eighth seed in the East and a first round playoff defeat.  

The fans know that everyone in Manhattan is gearing up for that big summer, so they have already accepted the team will stink the next couple years.  They're all looking ahead to that summer of 2010, and are expecting a top flight free agent to be wearing orange and blue come the fall of that year.

So what better time than now to plant the seed in the players' minds?  It's not like you have to convince Mike D'Antoni to have his team play lackluster defense.

It was probably an easy sell in that meeting with his superiors, because relaxing on defense for a couple nights could mean Kobe and LeBron in a year and a half.