The New New York Knicks

Ciao, Manhattan! Danilo Gallinari of Milan is the face of the new New York Knicks.

Image: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

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The solitary figure in the New York Knicks cap looms over his fellow tourists in Little Italy in lower Manhattan like a giant exclamation mark.

Danilo Gallinari, all 6 feet 9 inches of him, lopes past fragrant bakeries and steamy pasta kitchens to the northern reaches of the neighborhood, rebranded Nolita (north of Little Italy) by real estate agents eager to rent space to the boutiques that have made it a fashion destination.

Gallinari, the top draft pick of the Knicks and an Armani model, is the Big Apple's newest and most fashionable Italian immigrant.

"My hometown, Milan, is a lot like New York," says the 20-year-old former star of the Italian club Armani Jeans Milano. "If you don't play hard or play well, the fans boo you."

The best international prospect in the draft—many scouts believe the versatile forward is more gifted than Andrea Bargnani, the No. 1 pick of 2006—was jeered by fans at Madison Square Garden in June when N.B.A. commissioner David Stern announced him as the sixth overall selection.

"I'd be more worried if 'Gallo' were booed at the Garden during the season," says new Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, who once played pro ball with Gallinari's father, Vittorio, in Milan. "That won't happen because our fans will appreciate his intelligence and work ethic and see his potential."
     
With a team payroll of $99,368,505—highest in the N.B.A. by almost $10 million—it seems oddly fitting that the Knicks have hitched their chariot to a couple of Italians. After all, the recent profligate history of the club roughly parallels the decline and fall of the Roman Empire.

After years of larding its roster with overpaid, underachieving players, the franchise once known for "heart and hustle" finished last season 23-59, the second-worst record in the Eastern Conference.
    
The Knicks' seventh consecutive losing campaign was their most humbling and humiliating. Beset by a kind of peevish complacency and abetted by brutish management, they emerged as the most wretched team in NBA history. Over the last decade, no organization in pro sports has been so dysfunctional or embodied failure on such a grand and nearly incomprehensible scale.
    
The Knicks ranked among the league's bottom-feeders in turnovers, field-goal percentage allowed, and points-per-game allowed. Their backcourt of shoot-first guards had the N.B.A.'s third-lowest percentage of assists.

They ranked dead last among 30 teams in blocked shots—rejecting only 3.2 percent of opponents' offerings, a miserable rate that was barely half the league average, and the lowest in the 35-year history of the stat.

More shameful was the harassment case that Madison Square Garden, the Knicks' parent company, settled for $11.5 million. Anucha Browne Sanders, the team's head of marketing, had accused Isiah Thomas, its coach and team president, of verbally abusing and sexually harassing her over a two-year period.

During the often lurid four-week trial, Sanders testified that Thomas, a Hall of Famer and two-time N.B.A. champ who had run the Knicks since 2003, repeatedly insulted her as a "bitch" and a "ho" before suddenly professing his love and demanding "private time" with her.

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