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To hear the guy next to me in section 338, row C tell it, fans of the New York Knickerbockers have more reason to be aggrieved right now than identity theft victims and war widows combined. They have endured a drought of biblical proportions, one that has compromised their faith in the existence of a benevolent Big Guy/Big Gal upstairs. In their minds, Jerome James is bogeyman, IRS goon and Heather Mills rolled into one. But fatter.
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| Isiah 'is never getting another job running anything ever again.' (US Presswire) |
I have arrived at the conclusion, in fact, that I root for the most unjustly overcelebrated organization in modern sports history.
I root for a team that doesn't matter. I root for a team whose single-digit hoops IQ and off-court contemptibility wouldn't blip on the mainstream sports radar if it were based in Atlanta or Memphis. It's that simple.
You hear an awful lot about how Madison Square Garden is the Mecca of pro basketball and about how the Knicks, even in their darkest hour, remain one of the league's elite franchises. You hear about how athletes thirst for the be-good-or-be-gone pressure that comes with playing in New York, about how midtown pulses with energy in the hours before a big game.
This is sure borne out by the evidence at hand. I mean, gee, everybody wants to play here, at least hypothetically (which says more about our steakhouses and gals than the fans or the Garden). San Antonio? Bah! Our mass transit kicks their mass transit's trolley-hopping ass. Go New York, go New York, go!
You also hear so, so, so much about the transcendent Knick teams of years past. Did you know that Willis Reed once limped onto the court during a pivotal playoff game and scored the first basket? No, really, he did. No other professional athlete has ever played hurt, as far as we Knick fans understand it.
Then there are the rhapsodic requiems for the defense-minded Ewing/Oakley/Starks/Mason/Harper squad helmed by Brylcreem enthusiast Pat Riley. No other team in NBA history has ever had a player in its employ who, like Oakley, dove across the floor and skinned his knee in pursuit of a loose ball. Spike Lee was, like, totally impressed.
I'm tired of that Knick mythology. Even going on a quarter of a century without a title, we've somehow convinced ourselves that the Knicks are perennially on the cusp of something special.
They're not. They're just sad and mediocre. They're the Pittsburgh Pirates, but louder. They're the Cincinnati Bengals, but slightly less felonious.
Sure, the Knicks deserve props for the sheer creativity of their mediocrity -- thank you, Stephon Marbury, for introducing the phrase "truck party" into our shared cultural lexicon -- but ultimately the standings tell you all you need to know. For every season the Knicks have approached the top, they've endured at least one where they scraped the bottom. That's the textbook definition of mediocrity.
Forgive me, then, if I don't roll out the streamers and brew up a batch of my special Trent Tucker-ade for Isiah Thomas' inevitable "reassignment within the organization" on Thursday. Don't get me wrong: I won't miss the guy. Isiah has proven himself a sniveling, mean, responsibility-ducking boor. Everything he has touched, with the exception of the basketball itself during his playing days, has turned to crap. He's never getting another job running anything ever again.
For another team -- hell, another company, nonprofit organization or corner bodega -- trying to sell patrons on Isiah's presence will be like trying to sell a small suburban community on the construction of a nearby nuclear reactor. There are only so many Old Timer's Nights in Detroit to stoke his ego. He's ruined.
