Unfortunately my story of suffering is not particularly special. I am one of millions… tens of millions I am sure that have been waiting for the New York Knicks to win a championship. Technically the only two championships occurred in my lifetime, but I was too young and not sure if I had even knew what basketball or a Knick was (Technically I don’t think most have any idea what a Knickerbocker actually is (it’s a pseudonym for what the original Dutch settlers in New York were called).
I heard all the stories of the greatness of those championship teams following the 1970 and 1973 seasons. Those teams lead by Willis Reed, Walt Clyde Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Bill Bradley, and Earl “the Pearl” Monroe (for the second championship), Dick Barnett, Phil Jackson and coached by Red Holzman still live on as legends. My mother who knows and cares zero for sports still recounts those glory years even though I do not think we even owned a television during that time period and I know she did not attend any of the actual games.
They are part of the fabric of the city and Knick fans have been waiting nearly 44 years for another championship team. In New York, only New York Jets fans have had it worse. The Nets did not become an NBA team until 1976, but they had been winners in the ABA previous to that. The NY Giants, Mets, Rangers, Islanders and of course the Yankees have all had parades marking their achievements, leading Knick fans grasping for the past.
There were a few heartbreaking close calls with Patrick Ewing lead teams coached by Pat Riley and Stand Van Gundy that made it to the NBA Finals in 1994 and 1999, only to come up short. The history of the franchise is interesting to say the least. The championships years, the first all black professional sports team roster, the Bernard King years, the Patrick Ewing/Pat Riley years. Maybe I will explore it in more depth another time, but right now I can only think about the futility of the Knicks and by right now let’s just focus on the last ten years.
The Knicks play in the Mecca, Madison Square Garden. They play in the largest TV market in the states and have played before sold out crowds for nearly 20 straight years. New York is a basketball city, with knowledgeable fans that support the team no matter the circumstances. There are hundreds of thousands of “Spike Lee’s”, Knick fans who are ride or die no matter how poor the product on the court.
This year we had a team that, at least on paper, was supposed to show some promise. The free agent signings of former MVP Derek Rose, Joakim Noah, Courtney Lee and Brandon Jennings to a roster that included perennial all-star Carmelo Anthony and burgeoning superstar Kristaps Porzingis and lead by team president Phil Jackson, who with 11 championships (6 with the Chicago Bulls and 5 with the Los Angeles Lakers) is arguably the NBA’s greatest coach.
Halfway through this season that promise is largely extinguished. The team is presently out of the playoff picture, but its not inconceivable that a run could be made to change that. However, a low playoff seeding will not make up for the fact that something needs to be done to change the teams fortunes.
The Knicks essentially mortgaged their future when they traded for Carmelo Anthony. The team gave up the depth of its roster for a team that played hard and competed every night. The most recent casualty of that decision was the 3rd pick of last years NBA draft that ended up with Boston. Today the question is whether to trade Carmelo or not?
The misfortunes of the Knicks can’t be blamed on Melo. Years of poor management, including the choices that brought him to the team, are not his fault. But as the highest paid (125 million dollar contract) and most high profile player, he gets more than his fair share of credit to go along with blame. He has a no-trade clause in his contract, which means that essentially the Knicks cannot trade him without his permission. Public leaks will ultimately pressure Melo to relent to leaving, but only a few teams make the short list of possibilities of what he would agree to.
This puts the Knicks in a bad bargaining position, but moving forward we need to cut our losses and not continue to compound bad decisions with more bad decisions (i.e. paying over 70 million for 4 years for a physically spent Joakim Noah). Derek Rose will be a free agent at the end of the season and the Knicks need to do a true rebuild that makes sense.
I get that everyone feels the need and pressure to win now, but that strategy has not come close to working for the Knicks. A history of overpaying for players after injuries and their prime is the recent legacy, when every successful NBA franchise has proven that it must start with a franchise player in the draft and building from youth. The Knicks have been doing the exact opposite for years and it needs to stop. Melo is a phenomenal offensive talent, but the experiment has failed. True Knick fans will sit through a few more years of rebuilding as long as we see a plan that can work. Clearly what has been done over and over is not the answer.
The Knicks need to build around the talent of Porzingis with youth. New Yorkers love teams that play hard and give maximum effort. More than that the Knicks need a real plan instead of just putting a pacifying band-aid on the problem year after year. New York Knicks fans need more. We need the same maximum effort from the team owners and president as we expect of the players… We deserve more.
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