Commish lets N.Y. off hook

The NBA just validated the cost of doing illegal business. A $220,000 fine is well worth it to find a good player," said a team official who insisted on anonymity for fear his adverse quote would get him docked double what the Knicks were penalized yesterday because of their scouting violations.

Evidently, commissioner David Stern's past punishments to the benders and breakers of league law in such matters -- of which there have been many but none as flagrantly hideous as this -- has not exactly acted as a detergent or a deterrent.

Otherwise the Knicks, under one owner -- James Dolan -- and two different team presidents -- Isiah Thomas and Donnie Walsh -- wouldn't have casually and brazenly conducted unauthorized workouts in 2007 and 2010 for underclassmen ineligible at the time to be drafted who included Wilson Chandler, Brandon Rush and Ekpe Udoh.

 I had heard about the '07 workouts shortly after they took place and that Brandon Rush, then a Kansas sophomore, had torn up his knee. Yet I was never able to confirm the workout or that Rush hurt himself during them.

Thomas held the pre-draft meeting for the entire Knicks' staff that year near his vacation home on Hilton Head, S.C. I was informed he attended the illegal workout in Atlanta beforehand. Again, I was unable to confirm that.

Chandler wound up being drafted by the Knicks in the first round (No. 23) after declining to work out for any other team. At one of his first games as a rookie I asked him point blank about the workout and Rush hurting himself. He said he had no idea what I was talking about.

The following season Rush joined the Pacers after initially being selected No. 13 by the Blazers, who traded his draft rights two weeks later. Twice, maybe three times, I called Chicago-based agent Mark Bartelstein and told him what I thought I knew about his client's workout/injury.

I asked him to run it by Rush and get back to me. I'm still waiting for an answer.

  Yahoo! was more persistent and diligent and smarter. It bypassed the agent and Rush admitted everything. All the league had to do was follow the facts. It was as easy an open-and-shut case as when the league was gifted an illegally signed contract between the Timberwolves and Joe Smith. That resulted in lengthy suspensions of owner Glen Taylor, the team lawyer and president Kevin McHale and the eventual forfeiture of three first round picks.

The Knicks repeated offense resulted in Stern fining arguably the richest organization in the association a spit in the ocean. Apparently Stern didn't want to take away any of the Knicks' few remaining draft picks this decade and hurt their chances of getting Carmelo Anthony. I'm unsure if that howling we hear from the other owners is in anger or laughter.