Only Larry Johnson's improbable four-point play last year could provide a more thunderous memory from the Garden.

If Starks had thrown down like that on the chain-link playgrounds down at Greenwich Avenue or on the asphalt along the West Side Drive, Grant and Jordan would have been forced to leave, their places taken by someone else who could have stopped a kid nearly half a foot their junior.

For Starks was always a kid on the Knicks; always Riley's spark plug and a good friend to the older, bigger Ewing. To my mother, with his round face and full smile, he was always "Johnny."

Starks had never even been drafted to the NBA, and came to the Knicks only after a year in the CBA and an uneventful season with the Warriors, a history that only heightened his stature around New York.

Despite his inexperience, he pacified the New York press with his easy Oklahoman drawl and had a hot hand from behind the arc.

Sure, he could go cold, like his 1-for-23 performance in the sixth game of the 1996 NBA Finals against the Rockets, but Johnny was ours on a team where regular stars like Ewing and Oakley, and later thug Anthony Mason, didn't have much to say.

Last week, after a short stint with the Warriors, Starks was traded to the Bulls in a deal headlined by Toni Kukoc's departure for Philadelphia. For fans in New York, however, the deal was highlighted by its reckless sense of irony that sent a favorite--no, a proud part of our history--to the enemy.