Relax, Knicks fans. Your week could have been worse.
James Dolan could have given Scott Layden an extension.

With this ownership group, you never know. That reward very well could be coming to the team's president.

After banishing Latrell Sprewell to Minnesota, where the Knicks have to see him only twice a season and where he'll get back to the playoffs, Layden just might merit a few more years in Dolan's eyes.

"Our goal this offseason is to improve the Knicks for now and into the future by focusing on getting younger and bigger," said Layden, trying to defend his deal for Keith Van Horn, who on his best day doesn't stack up to Sprewell.

The key phrase here is "improve the Knicks." When a team wins only 37 games and fails to make the playoffs for the second year running, there is a lot of room for improvement. With the Knicks, any progress has to start at the defensive end, where Don Chaney's team continues to back-slide.

It's not just a height issue. Under Layden, the Knicks have exported good defensive players, have seen others retire and have imported only suspect ones. Meanwhile, Chaney has failed to put the kind of emphasis on defense we used to have around here when Jeff Van Gundy was getting the team into the playoffs on an annual basis.