Derrick Calls it a Career

A notable former Knick announced his retirement. Plus, some thoughts on Zach Lowe getting laid off by ESPN and the final "Knick You Knew" of the year from Ray Marcano.

Good morning! We have a jam-packed newsletter to end the week, and to celebrate the return of free Monday newsletters (starting after this weekend), today’s edition is free for all.

News & Notes

🏀 Yesterday, ESPN fired Zach Lowe, proving once and for all that the network not only doesn’t care about providing the highest quality content possible, but that it is now in the business of actively sabotaging it.

Lowe, as anyone who reads this newsletter knows, is the biggest reason why I do what I do. While Bill Simmons was my first favorite NBA writer, Lowe was the one who set the standard for elite basketball content. Whether it was in writing or via podcast, Lowe has always possessed the unique ability to educate and entertain simultaneously. It is no surprise he is a former teacher.

As the patron saint of so many NBA content creators, seeing that he had been laid off was initially a shock on par with many of the blockbuster trades Lowe broke down over the years, but just like those trades, it didn’t take long to see through the fog.

Lowe has always provided safe harbor for fans who can’t quit thinking about the sport they love, but didn’t want to spend that extra time listening to a souped up version of a bar argument. The fan who wants to understand not only who makes the NBA tick, but how and why the league is the way it is. In any piece of content he produced, somewhere Lowe would offer up an “I don’t know” or “I can’t be sure,” reminding everyone that he didn’t have all the answers. He never pretended to. That manner of analysis was rarely conducive to hot takes. If a take was spicy, it was probably irrational, and Lowe’s analysis was always steeped in evidence, logic, and his own understanding of the league, which was second to none.

That is the biggest reason why Lowe is no longer with ESPN (well…that, and the fact that Zach didn’t care where he found the most interesting basketball stories, even if they weren’t in New York or California). ESPN’s cash cow remains television, and by extension, clips from their shows that carry viral potential. As a few folks pointed out yesterday, ESPN’s attempt to provide online paywalled content has been an abject disaster. I’m an ESPN + subscriber purely for Lowe, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched for his paywalled content and was unable to find it. As for his incredibly popular podcast, the advertising dollars simply aren’t there to justify the investment in his salary.

And that’s what all this is really about - money.

Which…OK, fine. ESPN is part of the larger Disney empire, and just like any other company, the bottom line is all that matters. I get it.

But at what point does a brand that purports to be the worldwide leader in sports move so far away from the very thing that supposedly justifies their existence that they begin to reach a critical mass? Existing consumers will continue to watch ESPN because it is what they are used to, but the only way to keep new consumers coming in, regardless of the what ESPN morphs into in the years to come, is to remain established as the authority (or at least an authority) in the field.

Lest anyone think they are too big to fail, look at Sports Illustrated. Granted, SI failed to get ahead of the downfall of print magazines, while ESPN is clearly trying to adapt with the times. Again, I get it.

But Stephen A Smith is not going to be around forever. The exodus of talent that has resulted from keeping Smith employed at his salary is staggering. When the chickens finally come home to roost, there will be an entire generation left wondering “Why did ESPN ever matter in the first place?”

They didn’t have to do this. They, more than anyone else, have the ability to drive the industry because even now, after all the missteps, they are the industry. The New York Times is not without its sins, but give them this: they are not only alive after the death of the newspaper industry, but they are thriving.

Instead of laying off the best person in the field they purport to care about the most, a more creative company than ESPN would have figured out a way to better leverage the talent they had, rather than shoehorn Lowe into a role he never wanted and wasn’t great at - talking head - and then scoff when he wasn’t doing the job up to snuff.

So really, this isn’t about ESPN’s failure to uphold some holiest of traditions. It’s about a company who isn’t very good at running a business, which is where the irony of this “business decision” really lies.

As for Zach, I’m sure he’ll have his array of jobs to choose from, if he even wants one. Similar to Woj, Lowe has been the best of the best for so long. The time and energy required to maintain that status is hard for me to fathom. I try my best to be the Zach Lowe of the Knicks, and it’s fucking exhausting. He displays the same level of expertise about all 30 teams. I truly do not know how he does it.

Selfishly, I hope he doesn’t shut his laptop for good just yet. There are few things in life I enjoy more than opening up a brand new Lowe deep dive on just about any NBA topic, because if it was interesting enough for him to write about, it was almost always something I was interested in learning about. His pods have become a vital companion, not only because they are enjoyable, but because they’re a great way to fill in the gaps of my personal NBA knowledge and help me understand the league that much more. In some form or fashion, I pray his content persists.

In the meantime, I’ll keep doing my very best Zach Lowe impersonation in this space, Thankfully, I can’t get laid off for doing it.

🏀 In a not-altogether surprising decision, Derrick Rose announced his retirement from professional basketball yesterday morning.

Rose will always be known as a Bull first and foremost (as he should, being the youngest MVP winner in league history and all), but his time with the Knicks was significant in its own right. While the trade that originally sent Derrick from Chicago to New York was mostly a bust for all parties involved, his return during the 2020-21 season was as significant an in-season upgrade as the Knicks had pulled off in decades.

Following Rose’s arrival, the 11-13 Knicks won seven of their next 10 games. After a nearly month-long absence due to COVID and a few bumpy weeks getting his sea legs back, the former MVP led New York to 16 wins in their final 20 games. He was their best player in the opening round loss to Atlanta, even though he ran out of gas by the end of that series.

Rose wasn’t able to recapture that initial magic in his next two season, eventually falling out of the rotation and ultimately watching as his contract expired. Before that though, we got one final memorable moment, when Rose was greeted by a thunderous ovation from the Garden crowd at the end of the Knicks’ Game 3 win over the Cavs in 2023.

He will forever be connected with his three-time head coach Tom Thibodeau, so it was no surprise to see Thibs offer a heartfelt goodbye on social media:

A singular talent when he was at his best, the league won’t be the same without D.Rose.

A Knick You Knew: Jerry Harkness

by Ray Marcano

This next Knick you Knew carved out career breaking barriers and has a couple of interesting places in the record books. 

Jerry Harkness was born May 7, 1940, in Harlem. He played his high school ball at DeWitt Clinton in the Bronx and led the team to a city championship. The 6'3" small forward played his college ball at Loyola University in Chicago, where he was captain of the 1962-63 team that won the NCAA tournament. That season, he was also a first-team All-American. 

But his biggest moment came before a game, when a simple gesture --- a handshake --- made history during “The Game of Change.”

The country was in the midst of the civil rights movement, and 1963 was especially tumultuous. The civil rights leader Medgar Evers was killed in his driveway, a murder witnessed by his wife and children. In Jackson, MS, students endured taunts and abuse as they sat at a Woolworth’s lunch counter and demanded everyone, not just whites, be served. The bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham killed four little girls and tore at the country’s heart.

Sports weren’t immune from the upheaval of the era. Some college teams limited the number of Black players and some, especially in the South, wouldn’t allow them on their team. 

Loyola was different and played four Black starters. When the team’s only white starter subbed out, he was replaced by another Black player. 

Fans often showered the Black players with ice and other objects. During the NCAA tournament, Harkness said he received hate mail including from the Ku Klux Klan. 

Loyola opened the 1963 tournament with a 111-42 win over Tennessee Tech, a 69-point victory that remains the largest in NCAA tournament history.

Loyola was scheduled to face the Mississippi State Bulldogs in Michigan in the round of 16, but that was a problem. Southern schools weren’t supposed to play integrated squads. Mississippi governor Ross R. Barnett didn’t want the Bulldogs to go north, and that shouldn’t be a surprise given what he said in 1960:

“If there were a half-dozen Negroes on the team, where are they going to eat? Are they going to want to go to the dance later and want to dance with our girls?”

Barnett also tried his darnedest to keep James Meredith from becoming the first Black person to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Meredith enrolled on October 2, 1962, barely five months before Mississippi State was to play Loyola.

The university said it was OK for the team to play, but a state judge issued an injunction, ruling the Bulldogs couldn’t participate because they would otherwise violate  “the public policies of the state of Mississippi.’’ 

In a move that doesn’t get nearly enough attention, the Bulldogs literally snuck out of Mississippi in the middle of the night with university assistance to make its way to Michigan, and no member of the team apparently ever received the court order.

“I feel Mississippi State has a right to be here, no matter what the segregationists say. They may be the best basketball team in the nation and if they are, they have a right to prove it,” Mississippi State coach George Ireland said before the game.

In Michigan, before the game, Harkness and Joe Don Gold shook hands at center court. It was the first time a Black player from a northern team shook hands with a white player from a southern team during a college basketball game.

“This is more than a ballgame. This is history.” Harkness said.

Loyola beat Mississippi State in overtime and eventually beat two-time champion Cincinnati for the title.

In his three years at Loyola --- freshmen didn’t play back then --- Harkness averaged 21 points, and his 1,749 career points rank sixth all time.

That success was enough to get Harkness drafted in the second round, ninth overall, in the fairly weak 1963 NBA draft. The Knicks took Duke star and former Knick you Knew Art Heyman with the second pick in the first round, and the team thought it hit the motherlode.

Coach Eddie Donovan was downright giddy in talking about two players he thought would turn around the moribund Knicks, who finished 21-59 the season before.

“As for Harkness, he’s real good defensively,” the New York Times quoted Donovan as saying. “And so far as I can learn, he’s a darn good shooter. I’ve never seen him take a bad shot.”

Despite the high praise, Harkness was behind Richie Guerin, Gene Shue and Al Butler on the depth chart.. In scouring the Basketball reference box scores, Harkness played the first five games and averaged 12 minutes and 5.8 ppg.

Then, he disappeared. The Knicks waived him on October 30 and two days later he became a free agent.  He later told NBA.com he couldn’t make the transition from college small forward to guard, which the Knicks wanted him to play. His knees ached but he didn’t use that as an excuse. “I just didn’t play well enough,” he said

Harkness became the first Black salesman for the Quaker Oats company, and he held the job until 1967, when he saw a newspaper ad for an upstart league called the American Basketball Association. His hometown team, the Indiana Pacers, were looking for players. Harkness attended an open tryout and made the team.

He played two seasons before he gave up pro basketball for good. But before he retired he found himself in the record books. On Nov. 13, 1967, Indianapolis was down two with one second left in a game against the Dallas Chaparrals. Harkness took the ball and heaved it 88 feet. It went in, winning the game for the Pacers since the ABA had the three point shot .

To this day, it’s the longest game-winning shot in professional basketball history.¹

He had a number of significant life achievements. In addition to being the first Black salesman with Quaker Oats, he was the first Black sportscaster on an Indiana news station, and the first African American fundraiser with United Way.

Harkness visited the White House and President Barck Obama in 2008 and reflected on the “Game of Change.”

“As an athlete, the only thing on your mind is to win. When we started playing, color didn’t exist; it was just basketball. It was our team against the other team, not black versus white,” Harkness told the NBA’s Retired Player’s Association.

Jerry Harkness died on Aug. 24, 2021. He was 81.

Note: This is the last “Knick you Knew” of the offseason and the third year Jonathan has allowed me to write. Thank you, Jonathan, and everyone in the KFS community. See you at the halftime Zooms². 

Long-time journalist Ray Marcano freelances for some of the country’s most prominent brands and writes the Sunday opinion column for the Dayton Daily News. He’s the former National President of the Society of Professional Journalists, a two-time Pulitzer juror, a Fulbright Fellow, and a die-hard Knicks fan. Subscribe to his newsletter, the Bourbon Resource, here.

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“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

1. The NBA recognizes Devonte’ Grahams’ 61-foot shot against the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2021 with 1.4 seconds left as the longest game winner. 

2. Editor’s nite: I think I speak for every newsletter reader when I say no Ray, thank you.