It isn’t Wednesday and this is not about football, but i thought it might be nice to talk basketball for a few minutes. Now I will preface this by saying I am a Knicks fan. To hear the Carmelo trade rumors fills me with a sense of joy only matched by the realization that so many of the contracts are expiring. Could it be that Phil Jackson has once again worked his magic? I hope against hope for this to be true. I feel like the Knicks, like the Cavs, are teams owned and operated by people I find personally despicable. Liking them feels a little like being a huge fan of shrimp cocktail while also being allergic to shrimp. Its a conundrum. The Knicks are not their owner(s). Instead they are the embodiment of an era and an idea of a New York that never quite could be. I think they have a chance of being more, though. I think they are primed to become a legit trade/free agency destination once again.
All of this thinking in predicated on building a young core around Porzingas. It isn’t often you build a team around a PF, but he is the kind of big that you can do something with–especially once paired with a legit point guard. I’d hoped they’d get a vet, but that is not happening. They gotta go old school Yankee style and build from the farm up.
Here is the point: The beauty of NY sports is homegrown heroes. We want the kids who came in through the draft or worked up through the ranks hard to reach the top. We are gritty folk so we want gritty players in all of our sports. We don’t mind the flash, but we gotta know you can crawl down in the dirt and thrash a little.