Raymond Felton Incident Adding Big Distraction To Disasterous Knicks Season

Things really haven't been going great for the New York Knicks this year. Right now they sit in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, with a 21-36 record. This puts them just five games out of the final playoff spot in the East, which at the moment is held down by the Atlanta Hawks. Sure the Knicks still have an outside chance to make the playoffs, it is a possibility. At the same time, there are a lot of outside factors that could keep the Knicks from the playoffs. They have had so many problems on the team this year, what with injuries to key players, stupid stunts pulled by JR Smith on the court, all kinds of stuff. Now they have another incident to deal with, that being the off the court problems of Raymond Felton.

If you haven't heard the story already, Felton was arrested Tuesday for a felony weapons charge, with an unregistered hand gun in his possession. He was released from a Manhattan Criminal Court on $25,000 bail and could be back in the Knicks lineup for their next game against the Miami Heat. Felton faced the media on Wednesday after practice, speaking for less than a minute and saying basically that he didn't think this incident was going to be a distraction to the team.

Now its bad enough that Felton is having one of the worst seasons of his professional career. The Knicks are barely hanging on in the playoff race, and Felton has had trouble producing. He has been slowed by nagging leg injuries early, which have effected his play on the court. He's averaging a career-worst 10.4 points on 40.3 percent shooting, and his defensive play hasn't been as strong as it has been in seasons past. That has been bad enough for Felton. Now he has this off the court trouble to deal with.

As badly as Felton, and the rest of the Knicks for that matter, don't want it to be a distraction, I hate to break this but it is going to be a distraction. The media is going to be all over it and Felton will hear about it wherever he goes. This story won't go away and will cause a distraction. This whole off the court incident will not interfere with his playing time, as he is not due in Court over the incident until June 2nd and there is no action, as of yet coming down from the NBA because of this. Will the NBA take action over this, i don't know. I think they are going to let the court system and then the Knicks take care of it before the league really has to get involved. So for now it least, Felton can go about trying to help the Knicks try to get into the playoffs.

But there is more to it than meets the eye. This whole thing is just another strange episode in this 2013-14 New York Knicks Season. With this incident with Felton,. nobody in the organization is stepping up and apologizing for it. With Felton, he isn't taking any questions regarding this matter, which is a smart move legally, but still he should at least apologize for his sub par play and for allowing something like this to happen and cause whatever aftershock will occur from it. Then their's James Dolan and his executives. Dolan wasn't around at Knicks practice yesterday and wasn't available for comment on this story. That to me is a gutless move by the Knicks owner. Its making a couple of statements to me. First off, by not showing up and speaking about this it tells me that Dolan doesn't care about his fan base. Why? Because if he really cared about the fan base he would have shown up and let the fans know that he cares about the team and who plays for them. The fans are paying to watch this team play, and right now the team is struggling as is. Dolan really hasn't done much to fix that at the moment. Now with this going on with Felton, by not speaking about it, Dolan is telling me that he doesn't care what his players do on and off the court. If Dolan really cared he would have taken Felton out of the lineup and said that what he has done isn't allowed on this team. That is where Dolan really dropped the ball.

So there has been a lot going on around the Knicks this season, and with this story swirling around the club, things could get worse from here on out. Only way the Knicks can stop this kind of talk is by playing really well over the final 25 games of the season and getting into the playoffs. Right now this story will be hanging over their heads for a little while longer.