Luke’s Reviews > When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks > Status Update

This chapter was mainly about Dick Barnett, the oft-overlooked starting guard on the 1970 championship team. This book is almost 15 years old, so at the time Araton was questioning why a player as accomplished as Barnett was not in the hall of fame. But he was finally inducted a few years ago, and I remember Clyde Frazier breaking the news in the middle of a Knicks broadcast right before it was made public.

The first section of the book talks about the origins of the key players on the ‘70 Knicks, and I’ve already learned so much about Clyde, Willis, and the rest. Araton is frequently present in the stories and he fills each page with so much information. He also talks a lot about the political environment of the late 60s and its impact on the NBA, which I find fascinating, especially compared to the modern day.

I have to quickly put the other books I’m reading on a mini hiatus, because the Knicks are going to the NBA finals for the first time since I was 2.5 years old, and it’s all I can think about, so I decided to start reading this. It’s about the 70s Knicks, the only period in which the franchise ever won it all (hopefully that changes in the next couple weeks), and the first two chapters were great. Go Knicks!!!