Welcome to The Strickland

Hi! Welcome to The Strickland.

For anyone reading this who's not familiar with who I am, I’m Alex Wolfe. I write for Posting and Toasting and Knicks Sports Illustrated, and I co-host the Locked On Knicks podcast. As of today, I’m officially the Editor in Chief of The Strickland.

So, what is The Strickland? Well, for one, it’s the site you’re on right this second, ya dingus. (Just kidding, I love you all, thanks for supporting us! Don’t leave!) Born of most of the staff of Posting and Toasting, with some friends from Knicks Film School and elsewhere, we’re a motley crew of people who decided that we’d like to maybe control our own destiny for once. And make no mistake, this isn’t a nasty divorce — we still love Joe Flynn, we still love blogfather Seth Rosenthal and we still love P&T to death. We just thought it was time for something new, hopefully something where we can be independently successful and not under the thumb of a big corporation.

The site began to take shape in the middle of December 2019. California passed a law that limits how much work someone can do in their state while being called an “independent contractor,” with the intended effect of preventing companies from exploiting freelancers, and instead offering part- or full-time employment to those people working for them. The solution by Vox Media/SB Nation was to let go of the freelancers employed by their California sites, and hire one or two regular employees to run the blogs.

Anyway, long story short, those of us working at P&T (or, “working,” in the case of those just writing articles out of the kindness of their hearts) decided that maybe it would be best to get ahead of the curve and avoid our own potential California situation down the line (in large part inspired by many of the commenters at P&T who pledged to support us and read our work no matter what banner flew at the top of the site). I hate to give him credit for anything, but your new Managing Editor, James Marceda, was the first person I remember floating the idea of spinning off as a realistic possibility. From there, the long and arduous process of planning this out began.

I’ll spare the details of exactly how many Skype calls, Slack brainstorming sessions, 3 a.m. nights by yours truly and Stingy designing assets for the site and more went into this day, but just know that it was a lot. And it was all for you, reader.

Because, you see, we want this site to be different. We want to write what we want for you guys, when we feel like it, without the pressures of corporate breathing down our collective back. We want to provide the absolute best Knicks coverage that you can find on the internet. We want to be a home for not just the best writers, but the best fans and commenters ever. We want to give you everything from hot takes to fresh analysis, and everything in between. And most importantly, we want to create a home for Knicks fans to take off their shoes, slide into slippers and get cozy in. A place where you can rest assured that you’ll never be judged or treated unfairly due to your opinions, race, religion, sexual orientation, or anything in between.

Trust me when I say that I think we have the best staff I could have ever dreamed of to make this happen. The only thing that seemed universally agreed upon at the inception of this idea was that I should be the EIC, a role that I felt both humbled to be selected for, and also ready for from my time at P&T. Unknown to many, I helped a lot with editing and scheduling articles, recruiting new writers and helping people develop their writing at P&T for the last couple years or so in concert with Joe Flynn. I feel confident and eager to take this next step with The Strickland, and hopefully build something amazing.

Let me tell you just a little bit about the rest of The Strickland’s staff, in my own words:

James Marceda, Managing Editor: I owe James a hell of a fucking lot. I wouldn’t be hosting Locked On Knicks without him; hell, I may not have ever even made a podcast appearance without him. But on top of all of that, he’s become a really close friend of mine, and — having gone to him for writing help myself from time to time already — when he expressed interest in being the Managing Editor for the site, I had to take him up on it. James and I think both similarly and differently, and I think I value those differences even more, because he often helps me see things in a different way (while jokingly calling me a doofus in the process). He also talked me off a ledge about two weeks ago when I had a minor panic attack about the site release date coming up too soon and didn’t know if we were gonna make it.

Matthew Miranda, Lead Writer: Miranda is legitimately one of the smartest people I know. When I read the things they write, I’m not even kidding, it makes me feel like whatever the hell it is I’m doing is something entirely different from writing. They can find a brilliant anecdote in their brain to relate to anything. Insanely inventive analogies flow from their fingers like water. And most impressively, they spin beautiful yarns when recapping mundane midseason Knicks losses and makes you think about things much deeper than basketball. I’m ridiculously grateful to have Miranda on this site, and even more grateful to have them as a Lead Writer that can help others tame their own thoughts and turn them into something spectacular.

Prez, Lead Draft Writer: The draft is only the single most important thing in the world to a modern-day Knicks fan, and I can’t think of anyone better than Prez to head up our coverage. Prez looks at things differently than anyone I know in the draft sphere, and his conversational and relatable writing voice makes everything easy to understand, even for a dummy like me. On top of all that, Prez is an extremely nice dude, and is constantly feeding me so many brilliant ideas for the site that I had to start keeping a little notebook so I wouldn’t forget any.

Jonathan Macri, Columnist: Macri and I started coming up at around the same time in the Knicks blogging/Twitter-sphere, and the results speak for themselves: if this was all a race, he’s lapped me like 12 times over, because Macri works harder than any person I’ve ever seen to advance himself in this world. I’ll sit here staring at a 1,000 word piece all day waiting for it to write itself, and Macri will teach a class of kids, take his daughter out for ice cream, get flowers and chocolates for his wife, cook dinner, record three podcasts, write 10,000 words of sourced breaking news and interesting ideas and well-researched film and statistical analysis all in the same amount of time. He’s also one of the nicest dudes I’ve ever met (sensing a trend here?), and will never accept praise for himself, but is happy to heap plenty on you.

Shwinnypooh, Staff Writer/Podcaster: What can I say, except fuck Shwin? (I didn’t ask for his input ahead of time, but I know he’d like me to lead with a joke where I insult and curse at him.) Shwin has also become a great friend of mine over the years. We first bonded over having a Twitter DM date watching Frank Ntilikina play for Strasbourg prior to the 2017 draft, and the rest is history. In the time since, I got him to go from writing 12,000 comments per day in the P&T comment section to writing for the site itself, and he’s one of the most teachable writers I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. On top of that, he has a photographic memory for plays and moments that my pea brain could never grasp. Also, nobody cracks the whip like Shwin when it’s time to get people on website planning calls, including reminding yours truly a number of times that we had a call.

Drew Steele, Analytics Lead/Podcaster: Drew is, I think, maybe the only writer that I brought on at P&T that propositioned me to write for the site rather than me seeking him out. He sent me a couple samples and said he wanted to write about the Knicks, and I was like, dude, you’re really good. I’ve learned in the years since that nobody can tell a story with numbers better than Drew, and I’m so excited for him to help everyone at The Strickland tell the best possible stories with data. Oh, and here’s the obligatory mention that Drew has become a good friend of mine the last few years, because he absolutely has.

Jonathan Schulman, Creative Director: I don’t even know where to begin with Stingy. When I first started at P&T, he and Miranda were already well-established there as writers, and I knew Stingy had to be a wild dude. Turns out he is, but not in any way I can explain. I tell him all the time that I wish my brain could work how his does, this violent cycle of awesome ideas that just come pouring out at any given moment (he tells me that, no, in fact, I don’t want my brain to work like his). I decided on Creative Director as the title that I thought most fitting for him, because he’s probably the most creative guy that I know, and I wanted his fingerprints all over the site. He and I made a great design team, too: everything you see on this site was made by myself of Stingy, and that’s how it’ll be going forward as well. He’s the creative Yin to my Yang. (And also an extremely kind person and someone I consider a dear friend.)

Jeremy Cohen, Staff Writer: I first met Jeremy about two years ago, at a little meetup of a number of Knicks content creators. While he looks like he’s 14 years old, he has the smarts of someone who’s at least 17. I kid — Jeremy is extremely smart and a very talented writer, particularly when he gets going on roster building and cap exercises. I’ve been forced to observe him from afar for too long now — first at Gotham Sports Network, then at Knicks Film School — and I’m so incredibly excited to finally have him on my team for once.

Jack Huntley, Staff Writer: When I first got Jack writing on P&T, it was because I just basically shot my shot in his Twitter DMs. Somehow, he had been writing somewhere else before, and yet didn’t appear to be writing there anymore. I was like, dude, what the fuck, how is that even possible? Jack’s ridiculously talented as a writer, and the thought of him effectively being a free agent is ludicrous. I’ve told him about 30 times now that he has a green light akin to Damian Lillard’s as far as I’m concerned — I’ve never read a piece of his that I didn’t consider gold, be it an in-depth analysis or a satire.

Dallas Amico, Staff Writer: To say that Dallas has one of the most positive views of life in general of anyone I’ve met doing all this would be an understatement. He brightens up any (digital) room he’s in, and on top of it, he’s one of the smartest film analysis writers I’ve ever come in contact with. I’ve learned entire advanced basketball plays and concepts in minutes reading Dallas’ work, and I can’t wait for whatever he has in store at The Strickland. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that Dallas put in a ton of work helping plan this site way ahead of time, when it was still just a zygote of an idea. He sent me page upon page of useful info that he took time researching himself, and was a large part of this site being able to exist.

Theo Sands, Draft Writer: I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know Theo that well yet. He’s basically the first “new hire” of The Strickland era! Introduced to me by Shwin and Prez, Theo is really well-versed in the draft, which is where he’s going to be focusing his efforts for the most part here. Much like our other draft writers, he’s not afraid to go out on a limb and rank a guy way higher than people are elsewhere, and he backs up those assertions with sound analysis.

Fredo, Social Media: Fredo is my boy. You ever follow someone on Twitter, they follow you back, and within like five minutes you realize that you’re destined to be friends with that person? That was basically what happened when I met Fredo on Twitter. Fredo’s way more funny than me, and understands what it takes to be great on social media way more than I ever will. Watch out for his contributions on The Strickland’s Twitter.

Zach DiLuzio, Contributor: Awakening from his slumber of just being a Slack irritant, Zach is ready to come out of semi-retirement and start writing again for The Strickland. On top of being a living, breathing meatball of a man, Zach is fantastic at watching basketball and instantly breaking down any given play to the Nth degree. His writing does a great job of melding eye test with statistical analysis, and he has a keen ability to convey that information. He also plays the tough guy, but is a big teddy bear.

Jeffrey Bellone, Contributor: Yet another guy who I’ve been peers and friends with for a while, and am now so excited to finally get to work with. JB has built a literal empire by himself in Knicks Film School, left that, and now manages two separate blogs while somehow never missing a single story or quote (seriously, check the Daily Knicks Twitter feed). Oh, and he has another full-time job, and a wife and two kids. Dude does it all. I’m assuming he has some sort of machine that allows him to stop time every now and again, and I’m extremely grateful that he’s throwing some of that time The Strickland’s way.

And that’s it! That’s your staff (for now). As we grow, we hope that our staff will too, providing diverse looks at the Knicks, basketball and life as a whole.

But that’s where I’ll leave things for today, so you can go forth and experience the site that we’ve all worked so hard to put together for you. Here’s to today, tomorrow, and many other days together on The Strick dot land.