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McDyess hoping Spree

sticks around

by Terry Brown

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Also Below: Toronto's walking wounded stumble on | Magic make Horace Grant disappear | Peep Show

Do Knick fans want the good news first, or the bad?

Here it goes.

Antonio McDyess is in, but Latrell Sprewell may be out.

After suffering a busted kneecap in the final minutes of an exhibition game on Oct. 12, McDyess had surgery and was expected to be in a cast for four to six weeks and then in recovery for the rest of the season. The Knicks even applied for and received a $4.5 million medical exception that they ended up never using. McDyess admitted to pondering retirement. But the cast was removed after only two weeks and their all-star power forward is walking just fine and talking about returning this season.

Latrell Sprewell

Guard-Forward

New York Knicks

Profile

2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS

GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%

11 15.4 3.5 4.5 .390 .778

"I'm not going to try to get my hopes up, but my goal is to play, if it is this year or next year," he told the New York Post on Wednesday. "Hopefully, it is this year. I'm not going to rush anything, but when I'm 100 percent, I'm looking to play."

But here comes the flip side.

McDyess is worried not about the knee that he has injured three times in two seasons and that has required two surgeries that have allowed him to play only 10 games in the last season and a half. Instead, he is concerned about the possibility Sprewell could be traded before McDyess is ready to play his first regular-season game for the Knicks.

"That's scary," he told the New York Times. "I haven't really talked to him about that. When I got injured, he said he wished he could play with me this year. But hopefully next year we will be able to play together, if not this year."

Now Knick fans are stuck deciding which of these is the good news and which is the other.

Without McDyess and Sprewell, the Knicks are almost guaranteed a place in the lottery, where the grand prize is high school phenom LeBron James.

With Sprewell and McDyess, the Knicks might make the playoffs, but they'd be so far over the cap -- like they've been for the last several seasons -- that they'll never be better than first- or second-round playoff team.

No cap room and no lottery pick, with a first-round matchup with the Nets or Pacers vs. one more grueling season and the possibility of adding arguably the greatest high school player in the history of the game.

Worse, yet, the Knicks could rush McDyess back, win a few more games to lessen their chances at James, still not make the playoffs and risk a career-ending injury to McDyess.

"Just for myself, just to give myself the peace of mind and build my confidence up and help the team and give them somebody to look forward to next year," McDyess told the Post. "Something you always look forward to after an injury is knowing in your mind, 'Could you still play; would you be the same type of player you were before you got injured?' So those questions you always want to answer as a player when you come back from an injury."

Good luck. I think.

McDyess Hopes to Return This Season

Chris Broussard / New York Times

McDyess Eyes Early Return

Mark Hale / New York Post

Knicks' McDyess mulled Retirement

Frank Isola / New York Daily News

McDyess can't wait to hit court with Sprewell

Frank Isola / New York Daily News

Please, Dice, staying away is the only way you can help

Shaun Powell / Newsday

Toronto's walking wounded stumble on

It's official. The Toronto Raptors are cursed.

Doug Smith of the Toronto Star looked up Wednesday night from press row and couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Alvin Williams

Point Guard

Toronto Raptors

Profile

2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS

GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%

21 16.2 3.7 5.2 .466 .783

"It was the end of the third quarter of what was a close game, and Michael Bradley inbounded the ball to Jermaine Jackson," Smith wrote. "Lindsey Hunter was limping around on a wonky knee near midcourt, Jelani McCoy was under the basket and rookie Chris Jefferies was standing by himself trying to figure out what precisely was transpiring.

"Ladies and gentlemen: Your Toronto Raptors."

Vince Carter, who has averaged 24.4 points per game over the last four-plus seasons, is out another two weeks after re-injuring the re-injury to his right knee.

Antonio Davis and his 14.5 points and 9.6 rebounds of last season are in triage.

Alvin Williams, the only remaining Raptor who has started every game this season, played a total of 11 minutes Wednesday, scoring two points before a sore ankle forced him to the bench. He was replaced by Hunter, who is coming off an 11-game stint on the injured list for a bum knee.

Lamond Murray, who averaged 16.6 points per game for the Cleveland Cavaliers last year, has yet to play a regular season game because of his injuries, and we haven't even gotten to 7-footers Eric Montross or Mamadou N'diaye.

The rash of injuries have forced the team to start nine different players who have led the team to 40 percent shooting from the floor and only 88.5 points per game. There isn't a player on the team averaging more than 20 points or nine rebounds. The amazing thing is that they've won seven games at all.

"It's not fun to play like this, but what can you do?" wondered forward Jerome Williams. "You've got two choices. You can sit down, or you can try to play and do what you can out there. That's what we're going to have to do."

And just when you think it can't get any worse, the last-place Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that has won only three games all season in 22, come into town and kick your butts, 96-83.

"It's a curse or something," Williams said after the game.

What else can go wrong?

Doug Smith / WayMoreSports

Magic make Horace Grant disappear

Thank you very much Horace Grant. Thanks for the 12,773 career points and 9,210 rebounds in 1,110 games. Thanks for the championship experience (from four NBA titles) you brought to the Orlando Magic, and thanks for helping them reach the Finals, themselves, in 1995.

Grant

Thanks, but we'll call you.

In a surprising move last night, the Magic released the veteran power forward after he had played in only five of 23 games this season, averaging only 5.2 points and 1.6 rebounds. He had averaged 11.5 and 8.3, respectively, over his 15-year and change career.

"He's done what he can do," Magic coach Doc Rivers said. "Let's try to give a young guy a chance. His back is out. His knee is hurt. He feels he can't move. This is the way we're going to go."

No one is exactly sure if Rivers fired him or if Grant already had quit on the coach. The two had a strained relationship since they came together last season, and it got even worse after Patrick Ewing retired earlier this year and the Magic attempted to buy out Grant's contract.

"It just didn't work out," Magic GM John Gabriel said. "We had a variety of options to try to create room under the [luxury] tax. Some, we were successful with; some, we weren't. I'm going to leave it at that."

The move will most likely end Grant's NBA career, as he already had announced this would be his last season.

"He's part of some wonderful memories we've had here -- recently and in the past," Gabriel said of the six years Grant played in Orlando. "We won't forget it. We won't forget him and what it brought for us."

Magic waive Grant

Jerry Brewer / Orlando Sentinel

Grant's Magic Moments

T. Joan Andrews / Orlando Sentinel

Peep Show

Magic: Don't believe a word Darrell Armstrong says. When the season began, he said that he wanted to play fewer minutes during the regular season to make time for the younger players while resting himself for the playoffs. Now, after a few unexpected loses, including the last three and 11 in 23 games, he's taking it all back, according to the Orlando Sentinel. "I just told him that I'd like to have the ball in my hands a little more, like I used to," Armstrong said of his talk with coach Doc Rivers. "It's been frustrating for me, because I really feel like I could have made a difference in some of our losses. He understands. We both hate the losing. We're thinking the same way."

Celtics: Paul Pierce is going to live. After colliding with Phoenix Suns rookie Amare Stoudemire in Wednesday night's game, the All-NBA forward was driven to the floor, his right knee buckling and head slamming against the floor. But no whistle. Pierce lay motionless on the floor as Celtic coach Jim O'Brien was kicked out of the game by referees Ken Mauer, Sean Corbin and Scott Wall for arguing the no-call. "That's what a coach is supposed to do, protect his star player," Suns coach Frank Johnson told the Boston Globe. "I might have gotten into a fight." Pierce's knee turned out fine but he still had to make a trip to the dentist after the contact broke his two front teeth.

Sixers: The band aid on his left knee might have been the first clue, but after Philly forward Monty Williams had his knee drained for fluid build up earlier in the day (he had surgery on the knee earlier in the year), he made his way to the floor, started the game for the Sixers who were without Aaron Mckie due to injury, and, then, sparined medial collateral ligament of his left knee midway through the third quarter. Yes, that left knee. "[Coach Larry Brown] has a feel for who should be in at the start of the game," Williams told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "I've always liked to get a feel for the game watching from the sidelines, then coming in."

Armstrong looking to contribute more

Tim Povtak / Orlando Sentinel

Silence was maddening

Peter May / Boston Globe

Sixers Notes | Knee injury sidelines Williams

Ashley McGeachy Fox / Philadelphia Inquirer