Withthe NBA Draft just days away and the best free agent class every in any sport just a week away, everyone from GM’s to water boys is looking for the next great player. Everyone is hungry for that filet mignon, thrusting for that 18 karate golden glass to use while sipping from that fine Champagne that goes along with hoisting a championship trophy.

So while everyone is out shopping for that player who will take their team to the promise land, let me take this timeout to remind everyone how the LA Lakers just won their 16th championship. Yes, the Lakers have Kobe, but if it wasn’t for Derek Fisher’s rainbow 3’s, Ron Artest’s  defense,  Bynum gutting it out with a knee injury, Gasol’s tough rebounding, and, who can forget, Sasha Vujacic’s clutch free throws. Oh, and did I forget to mention the all around forward and husband to one of the famous Kardasian sisters, Lamar Odom? All of those aforementioned players comprise a TEAM. It’s a team that wins trophies. Without the rest of Kobe’s “team”, he’’d be “Gone Fishing” with the rest of the stars that Kenny, Charles & Kevin on TNT’s NBA show mock.

As a Knicks fan, I want to see the team built the right way. I’m on record as not being a fan of Lebron James. But if he comes, so be it. Still, a team composed of Lebron and the Lebron-ettes doesn’t excite me. It hasn’t worked in Cleveland and it won’t work here in New York. I know the plan has been to gut the team, sign James, and possibly add another top player to go with holdovers Gallo, Douglas, Chandler,Walker and Eddie Curry. But if I’m the Knicks president of basketball operations, Donnie Walsh, I don’t wait to dip into free agency. I’m on the phone buying draft picks, wheeling and dealing, and dangling Eddie Curry’s expiring deal, trying to sign lesser known players and building the team that right way.

Instead of trying to dip into the list of the Big 6:
Lebron James                  
Dewayne Wade                  
Chris Bosh
Carlos Boozer
Joe Johnson
Amare Stoudemire
Plus this years crop of the next greats on the collegiate side which includes, but is not limited to, PG-John Wall, SG/SF Evan Turner, SF/PF Wesley Johnson, PF/C Derrick Favors and C DeMarcus Cousins.

I’m concentrating on this group of players:
Ray Allen                          Rudy Gay
Raja Bell                           Josh Childress
Tyson Chandler                Patty Mills                
Raymond Felton              Tyrus Thomas
Shaun Livingston              Linas Kleiza
Royal Ivey                         CJ Watson
Amir Johnson                    JJ Reddick
Louis Scola                        Joe Alexander
Jordan Farmer                  Marcus Landry
Hakim Warrick                  Anthony Morrow

Don’t let the media fool you, we have a good core group of players. Now, let’s add to it without going over the salary cap again Isiah Thomas style. Let’s build a team that constantly is in the running for championships.

Earlier this week I saw a post from the fine gentlemen at MLB Trade Rumors, which listed the highest offseason spending by team. Now before you click the link, who would you guess it would be? Yanks… no, Dodgers… no, Cardinals… no, Pirates… kidding. The team that spent more than any other team in baseball was none other than the Little Engine that could; the Boston Red Sox.  To paraphrase John Henry in his criticism of the Yankees spending habits, “We [the red sox] make do with what we have.” Isn’t that nice?

Last spring, when Yankee  fans were collectively suffering in silence over the A-Rod debacle, the only two stories in baseball were A-Rod’s PED use and what the Yankees spent in the off-season. To an extent rightfully so. The greatest player we’d ever seen was a steroid user and the Yanks spent $423M on CC, AJ, and Tex combined, but it produced a winner. Regardless, the Yanks got ripped.

Rewind back to Late July 2009, I was on a business trip in Boston and while working from my hotel room, I hear on ESPN in the background that David Ortiz was on “the list” (Same one as A-Rod). He was one of the players that tested positive for PED’s in 2003, his first year in Boston and his breakout season. Coincidence? Somehow the Mitchell investigation missed this one… I wonder why??? (If you don’t read into the Sarcasm, Sen. Mitchell was a former board of trustee’s member for the Boston Red Sox)

Well, doing the right thing and being the diehard Yankee fan I am, I stopped working and headed to the ball park to try and get a ticket to see all of Red Sox nation mourn their fallen hero… But Karma won the battle that day, Ortiz ended up hitting a home run that put the Sox ahead for good, and then they played the theme music from The Departed at Fenway for the next two hours…

This was it, right? We were finally going to hear the end of the Yankee Bashing and now it was going to be the Sox’s turn to get their fair share of media abuse. With Manny taking fertility drugs (Masking Agent/Hormone Balancer) and Arroyo throwing multiple teammates under the bus every time he spoke to the media in regards to taking Andro (“we all did it” he spewed). Now the gentle giant, Big Papi, was going down as a cheat… but we heard nothing. The stories went away as fast as they came. No press conferences, no outrage from the commissioner, no statements or explanation from Ortiz until a week and a half later we get a press conference with David Ortiz and a guy who looked like he just woke up explaining what happened. They claimed it could have been a mistake, Ortiz, a professional athlete said he didn’t know what he put in his body????? And the mainstream sports media bought it and ended the story. If I remember correctly, David Ortiz was going to investigate what he tested positive for, no?

Excuse the phrasing but, WTF MAN??? A professional Athlete tests positive for juice, and he gets an explanation by someone else on live TV that it could have been a mistake, and that he didn’t know what he put in his body? Where was the media and union protection for A-Rod? Papi gets lawyered up by MLB Players Union and gets away with a “dog ate my homework” excuse.

No way, shape, or form do I think that what A-Rod, Pettite, Rocket, Giambi, Justice and Knoblauch did was OK or excusable. They cheated and everyone except for Rocket admitted it. But so did Manny, Ortiz, Arroyo and whoever else on that team. I think to some degree whatever the Red Sox do they will get a pass, and the Yanks will forever be crucified. Maybe we as Yankee fans just have to settle for the wind blowing highest at the top… and I think we’ll all be at the top of that mountain celebrating after the 2010 season.

Follow Adam on Twitter

Yet that player is frequently thought of as Public Enemy #1: Luis Castillo.

Unlike past whipping boys (Roger Cedeno, Armando Benitez, Carlos Baerga, Roberto Alomar), Castillo really did turn himself around after a dismal year last year. Sure, he’s still a mediocre defensive player and has little pop in his bat and, of course, general manager Omar Minaya made a huge mistake in signing him to the four-year contract, but…. his .387 OBP was his best since 2005 and third best in his career—before a final swoon in the closing days he was hitting .313 on September 22nd, with an OBP of .401, both marks that put Castillo among the league leaders.

Since the Mets are stuck with him next year they should look at those numbers and think about what Castillo’s re-birth could mean to the 2010 Mets. If they’re smart, they’ll revisit an experiment Jerry Manuel tinkered with in spring training– Castillo, properly deployed, could actually solve a host of the Mets’ myraid problems and give fans hope for next season.

The one way he is worth close to the $8 million is as a lead-off hitter, which not only gives the Mets a true table-setter but it frees them to create a Citi Field lineup—one that would feel like the a vastly more talented version of the 1980s St. Louis Cardinals team that won three NL pennants (including one World Series) in five years, while giving the Mets fits.

With Castillo first, the Mets could drop Jose Reyes to third in the batting order. As a #3 hitter, Reyes could flourish like Hanley Ramirez–if he hits 12 homers, 20 triples and 35 doubles but has only a .350 OBP he is far more effective in that spot, and less likely to get frustrated or to frustrate fans, then he is in the lead-off slot.

With Reyes hitting third, Wright clean-up, Beltran 5th and Francoeur sixth, the Mets have a lineup with moderate power but capable of hitting balls in the big gaps at Citi Field. Angel Pagan, whose knack for triples fits perfectly in this new mindset, could play left and bat second or seventh, sharing both spots with doubles expert Daniel Murphy (who put his best numbers up in the #2 and #7 spots).

Think of it this way–if the lead-off hitter is Reyes, a lot of times he can’t maximize Castillo’s OBP since walks won’t advance Reyes and infield hits or little bloops to the outfield won’t drive home a run. Yet if Castillo leads off and reaches base in any of those fashions, he has the speed to score on a double or triple from Murphy, Pagan or Reyes.

Additionally, this new lineup means the Mets would just need to find a right-hander with power to spell Murphy and Pagan against lefties (like Jonny Gomes of the Reds) instead of a full-fledged star (having screwed up and not signed Adam Dunn last year)—that would be much more affordable in the open market or in terms of talent via a trade.

Thus they could devote more money or trade chips to acquiring a genuine #2 starter (like Jon Lackey), which is far and away the team’s biggest need. Astonishingly, all that can flow from acknowledging Castillo’s one real strength and building from there. If the Mets do it and win then maybe Castillo will even take home the 2010 MVP Award.

Stuart Miller is the author of “The 100 Greatest Days in New York Sports” and “Where Have All Our Giants Gone?”. You can visit is website at 100 Greatest Days in New York Sports.

Okay, enough metaphor torturing. No doubt you’ve grasped the point. But don’t take my word for it, here are some chronologically ordered examples of post Namath’s #1 finger wag meltdowns by the boys in green. The 1982 Mud Bowl. They’ve made it all the way to the AFC Championship game. Behind the immaculate running of the spectacular Freeman McNeil there is simply no stopping us. Only quicksand could stop our offense, but NFL games are never played on quicksand. Well, the Dolphins manage to come up with the next best thing. Even though descendants of Noah quickly get to work on Ark II as a deluge of rain hits Miami, somehow the Dolphins conveniently neglect to cover the field. With McNeil unable to get his footing in the slop, the Jets must turn to an aerial assault. FIVE Richard Todd interceptions later, no less than THREE of them inexplicably grabbed by LINEBACKER A.J. Duhe who must have given Todd one of his kidneys prior to the game, and the dream is over.

In 1986 a personal foul penalty against Mark “the genius” Gastineau directly results in an overtime loss in the 2nd round of the playoffs to the Cleveland Browns. In 1993 the Jets needed to win just one of their last three games to qualify for the postseason behind the quarterback play of Boomer Esiason. If you’re thinking that they went 0-3 in that span I do believe you’re recognizing a trend here. In 1994 it was once again the Dolphins who did us in as the Jets allowed a 10-point 4th quarter lead to evaporate in a game punctuated by Dan Marino’s infamous “fake spike play”. In 1998 a 10-point halftime lead in the AFC Championship game is not enough for a Bill Parcells coached Jets team to hold against the eventual Super Bowl winning Denver Broncos. Still, getting so close to the Promised Land gives Jets Nation extremely high hopes for the 1999 season. The bubble is burst along with Vinnie Testadverde’s ruptured Achilles tendon in the first half of the first game, effectively ending the season and the Jets chances of becoming the third team to be led into the Super Bowl by Tuna. The 2000 season gave Jets fans the wonderful memory of the Monday Night Miracle game, but that Al Groh coached team which started out an impressive 6 -1 and had their destiny in their hands at 9 – 4 missed the playoffs by going 3–6 over the last 9 games of the season. I’m sure we all remember why Al Groh was coaching the Jets in the first place, how wrong the guy he replaced did us, and how well that guy ended up doing in New England after going Benedict Arnold on us. In 2004 the Jets completely outplayed the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round of the playoffs, but victory was denied them when Doug Brien suddenly forgot that a critical part of his job security was the ability to kick field goals. And of course last season gave us the splendor of Brett Favre, a real live legend recruited on a short term basis to provide the arm strength lacked by Chad Pennington. Things looked pretty good after starting 8 – 3. Then comes yet another epic collapse and not only do the Jets fail to make the postseason, but the AFC East is won by none other than the Pennington led Miami Dolphins. Sounds like a joke, right? Nope, just another season for the “Same Old” New York Jets.

Other teams have eras of consistent greatness and periods of being steadily awful. Top franchises have many more good seasons than bad while inept ones have far more that are cringe inducing than are marked by superior quality. Game in and game out, season in and season out, even decade in and decade out, fans of those franchises know what to basically expect. If you’re a Steelers fan for example, you probably won’t spend a substantial portion of your life cycle in between championships. Same thing for Giants fans. On the other end of the spectrum, fans of teams such as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers probably did not secure extra mortgages on their homes to purchase tickets for the Super Bowl this year because they expected their team to be playing in it. The Bucs have been every bit as bad as advertised. There is a certain comfort in predictability. But the New York Jets rarely provide their fans with such comfort. When you expect them to be terrible, they often turn out to be pretty good, and just when you get used to it and perhaps even dare to gloat about their promising prospects, the clock strikes midnight and they are once again transformed into the Keystone Cops.

2009 is playing out true to form, a microcosm of the team’s history. After three games, all wins, Rex Ryan was declared savior and Mark Sanchez the Messiah. After the next three games, all losses, and visions of the days of Rich Kotite dance demonically in our heads. It is now perfectly clear that the rest of this season will turn out either really really bad, or really really good, or else… Nah, the only thing certain is that nothing is apparent, there is no crystal ball for Jets fans. Expectations serve as devices of torture for us. “Same Old Jets” is the most ironic expression in all of sports because nothing remains the same for them except for the fact that they keep changing from season to season, game to game, quarter to quarter, possession to possession. The fan base is perpetually on the edge of their seats, at the ready to either cheer in triumph or curse in disgust. Only another clichéd sports expression keeps us from the abyss of insanity at the end of yet another promising but ultimately heartbreaking season. Just wait till next year.

- Roy Pickering (aka AuthorofPatches)
http://www.roypickering.net
http://lineaday.blogspot.com
Follow Roy Pickering on Twitter @AuthorofPatches