Wed, Feb 19th, 2020

The ballad of Big Snacks — Beilein’s out — Walt Wesley’s career night

Wednesday, Feb 19th, 2020

  

  The Opening Tip

  • Remembering Jerome ‘Big Snacks’ James

  • Kyrie Irving might just mess around the miss the rest of the season

  • LeBron James has baseball thoughts

  • Reggie Jackson is going to the Clippers

After 54 games, John Beilein is out as Cleveland’s head coach. He’ll officially step down today,

.

Also:

Yesterday, we wrote that Beilein, 67, was the

youngest

rookie head coach in NBA history. We meant to say

oldest

.

Also, also:

This

The Athletic

story

, after Beilein accidentally called his team “a bunch of thugs,” the players would blast rap songs which used the word

thug

in front of him.

1. The Lead: Jerome ‘Big Snacks’ James: The Knicks’ piece-de-resistance    

On this day 11 years ago, the Knicks traded Jerome ‘Big Snacks’ James to the Chicago Bulls for Larry Hughes, ending one of the most fruitless free agent signings in franchise history, which is no small distinction in New York.The background: 

  • ‘Big Snacks’ (bbref has him listed as 7-foot, 300 pounds) was a fringe NBA player, averaging 4.9 points and 15.2 minutes over his first five seasons from ‘98 to ‘05 (he played two seasons overseas). 

  • In the 2005 playoffs, though, for Seattle, James had a prolonged moment, averaging 12.5 points and 6.8 rebounds in 11 games for a frisky SuperSonics team. 

So, what did then-Knicks president Isiah Thomas do? 

  • He totally overreacted to those 11 good games, inking James to a five-year, $60 million deal for the upcoming 2005 season. 

  • That money might not seem crazy by 2019-20 standards, but the contract was doled out at a time, in 2005, when the league's soft cap was only $49,500,000. 

  • Plus, the contract was piled on top of the highest payroll in the league (by $28 million) for a team that finished with a 2005-06 record of 23-59, second-worst in the league. 

  • Also: The Knicks had traded that season's pick to Chicago for Eddy Curry, so the Bulls picked second overall in the 2006 NBA Draft, in the Knicks' spot, and took LaMarcus Aldridge, who they later traded to Portland.

  • So, yes: Instead of Curry and Big Snacks on terrible contracts, the Knicks could have just drafted future star LaMarcus Aldridge.

How did James do in New York, though?To say he played terribly would be to imply he actually had an impact.His aggregate totals across four years with the Knicks:

  • 90 games played, 2.5 points per game, 7.7 minutes per game, 15 total assists. 

  • In all, he had 223 points compared to 254 combined fouls and turnovers.  

After his trade, in 2009, the Bulls waived James, who never played another NBA game.P.S.: Seven years later, the Knicks gave Joakim Noah a four-year, $72 million deal. Noah, who played 53 games in New York, is still getting those checks. Big Snacks taught them nothing.

2. Big Snacks gets crossed up by Shaq  

That half-hearted swipe is every pick-up player at the Y on the final run of the night.

3. The Irving injury saga continues

Kyrie Irving is out indefinitely with who cares about this season, anyway? Syndrome a reaggravation of the same shoulder injury that cost him time earlier this season, reported Marc Stein yesterday.Irving has played only 20 games and definitely appears to be punting on the season, which seems a bit ridiculous when you're making $31,742,000 to try at basketball.Nevertheless:

  1. The Nets are 17-16 without him and 8-12 with him.

  2. OG Nets fans can now enjoy cheaper tickets for one more season.

4. 2/19/1971: Walt Wesley, of footnote fame, drops 50

Walt Wesley (Cleveland) guarding Elvin Hayes (San Diego)

On this day 49 years ago,

Cleveland center Walt Wesley put up 50 points and 12 rebounds in a 125-109 victory over the Cincinnati Royals, setting a new career-high by 25 points.

Wesley was never much more than a journeyman --

, when he averaged 17.7 points and 8.7 rebounds for a 15-win Cleveland team -- but he proudly carried with him one historical footnote: he was a throw-in piece in Milwaukee’s agreement to send Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to the Lakers, in 1975.

As told in 1987 by Wesley, then an assistant coach at Army,

“I’ll always be in the record book -- if they print it right. They can put an asterisk by my name or whatever, but I was part of that deal and that isn’t going to change. Hey, I was traded with Kareem to the Lakers. … “It’s like this. Say you go to the store and buy a steak. And the store owner has got an excess of chicken wings. So he says, ‘Here, take some of these chicken wings with you. Take them off my hands.’ I was the chicken wings.”

The chicken wings

played just one game for the Lakers before being waived, which would end up being his 590th of 590 NBA games played.

5. “Listen here baseball commissioner”

(Unfortunately, LeBron didn’t “thread” the tweet, so you have to read the bottom one first. Amateur move, LBJ.)Also: What are the chances LeBron didn’t know Rob Manfred’s name, and therefore addressed him as “baseball commissioner”?

 6.  Quick hits 

  • J.B. Bickerstaff will be elevated to head coach in wake of John Beilein’s stepping down. It’s the third team in five years Bickerstaff has taken over midseason. 

  • Charles Oakley recently had his court case againstJames Dolan dismissed. 

  • Kevin Durant was getting up some shots yesterday. 

  • With Reggie Jackson getting bought out by the Pistons, third-year guard Luke Kennard is now Detroit’s longest tenured player. (Jackson is going to the Clippers.)

 7.  Off the press 

  • The NBA’s five most interesting teams of the stretch run [The Ringer]

  • Strange scoring, great stories and Zion Williamson: All-Star takeaways [The New York Times]