Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Metta World Peace signing shows Big Apple competition


Metta World Peace's signing shows New York is willing to battle for Big Apple supremecy. (Photo: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports)


The Annie-get-your-gun free agency season in New York continued Monday, when the New York Knicks landed hometown product Metta World Peace after weeks of the Brooklyn Nets hoarding the NBA headlines.


Anything you can do, I can do better ...


Forget the luxury tax. World Peace's $1.6 million salary next season will cost the Knicks an extra $4 million; it followed the Nets' signing of Andrei Kirilenko (salary $3.18 million, actual cost nearly $17 million) in this high-stakes contest that is everything Commissioner David Stern didn't want when he and the league's owners installed a more punitive luxury tax in the collective bargaining agreement. For those who are counting, the Nets are around $186 million in total cost at the moment and the Knicks are quickly nearing $120 million.


NY PEACE: World Peace signs with Knicks

Fittingly, World Peace tweeted not long after agreeing to his two-year deal: "Where Brooklyn at?" The two-time defending champion Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers squad that downed the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals would likely argue that this is all for naught, but the New York clubs will clearly be heard from this season.


The Knicks' new hired gun happens to be a rival of Paul Pierce, the new Nets small forward who, along with former Boston Celtics teammate Kevin Garnett, hopes to seize Big Apple supremacy. Pierce once had his pants pulled down by World Peace (then named Ron Artest) as a last-ditch means of slowing him down. Coupled with the fact that World Peace hails from Queens, N.Y., starred at St. John's and had always wanted to call Madison Square Garden his home, it's quite the narrative.


"It's all about the players," said World Peace, who became a free agent after he was amnestied by the Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday and cleared waivers. "The team is amazing. I'm excited to play and hustle. That's all it's about right now. It has nothing to do with New York the city. The only thing that's important is those players that I will be joining and touching the hardwood with. That's all that's important."


But World Peace has always longed to don the Knicks jersey. And the city - and the city's sports media - has always had an insatiable intrigue with him. Through all his years with the Chicago Bulls, Pacers, Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and the Lakers, his New York visits were often treated as question-and-answer sessions to discuss how he could someday find his way to the Garden.


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