NEW YORK _ When the ship is sinking, every man is fighting to get a hand on the life raft.
That, in essence is message that coach David Fizdale delivered before the Knicks' 102-94 loss to the Sacramento Kings in a rare Saturday matinee game.
With the Knicks looking to reconfigure their team through the draft and free agency this summer, it's pretty hard for a player to have a team-first mentality. For many of the Knicks' young players who are in the final year of their contract, every minute on the floor can be seen as a mini-audition of sorts, a chance to show other teams out there what exactly they can do.
"When you're dealing with guys fighting for their contractual life, you're always going to have an element of where a guy can be more focused on trying to get his. Not that we've had a lot of that, but it's just a natural thing that when you're fighting for your life."
Fizdale stopped short of calling his team selfish, though some Knicks stats would certainly back that up. The Knicks entered Saturday's game averaging a league low 14.9 assists, almost a full assist less than Houston, the second worst team. The Knicks have nine players in the final year of their contracts.
"I just know that the human condition creeps in ... this is your job and your livelihood a lot of times is based on your statistics and how well you're playing," Fizdale said. "Like I've always told them, although we've gone through a tough season, it's not necessarily that you're losing games. It's how you lose games that's going to be important."
The Knicks had just six assists in the first half of the loss to the Kings and finished the game with 16. It was the fifth straight loss for the Knicks, whose 13-53 record is the worst in the league.
It wasn't the assists, however, that killed the Knicks against the Kings; it was the fact they had no answer for De'Aaron Fox. The Kings point guard finished with 30 points, eight assists and five rebounds.
"He is a big time talent," Fizdale said of Fox. "He has such a court presence. He has that true point guard court presence. He knows how to get his guys shots, and at the same time turn it on and go and get his own. For a young guy to have the kind of feel for the game, that is fairly special."
Fox, who was the fifth pick overall last year, is a major reason the Kings (33-22) could post their first winning season since 2005-06. The Knicks are hoping that by finishing at the bottom of the league, they will be able to find a player like Fox who can help turn around their team. As the last place team, the lowest the Knicks could pick is No. 5.
For a little more than a month, however, Knicks fans are going to have to deal with the team that was on the floor Saturday, regardless of what their future holds.
Dennis Smith Jr., one of four players on the team not in the final year of his contract, led the Knicks with 18 points, five assists and five rebounds. He also had a late technical foul after which the Kings scored six straight points to put the game out of reach. DeAndre Jordan added 14 with 15 rebounds.
The Knicks players didn't seem terribly upset to hear that their coach had intimated that individual agendas were eclipsing the team mentality.
Said Emmanuel Mudiay: "I don't think it's coming from a bad place. I think people are out there trying to survive ... It's just human nature."
