My Breakup Letter to the New York Knicks

Author’s note: this is not the usual Colonial Mental blog post; this is a pure, unadulterated, biased rant. If you don’t follow the NBA or don’t care about the New York Knicks I advise you to stay away. Yes, all three of you who read this blog.

As a longtime and diehard Knicks fan, one of the most irritating things I've had to put up with the last few weeks – apart from this obvious Jeremy Lin debacle – is the opinions of non-Knicks fans. “He’s not worth the money anyway”, “he’s a flash-in-the-pan”, “you’re better off without him”, “he’s not that good”. Here’s the thing: we don’t give a shit what you think. You don’t matter. You don’t get what we’re going through and that’s okay, but just shut the fuck up.

Here’s their logic: The Knicks are doing a good thing by not matching Houston’s offer to Jeremy Lin because it’s not like he’s going to turn them into instant title contenders. The decade still belongs to Miami and OKC and we all need to wake up.

I have been hearing this and reading this for far too long that now I feel like I need to set the record straight. I’ve had enough. I’m doing this on behalf of all New York Knicks fans who have suffered enough throughout the last decade and a half.

I became a Knicks fan in the early 90s; the era of Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, and John Starks. That team was an enigma, to put it lightly. Outside of Patrick Ewing, no one else had the skills to be able to score consistently. Oakley had his 15-to-18 footer (that wasn’t really that consistent anyway), Starks could shoot but was streaky (Knicks fans are all nodding with a sad, wistful smile right now), Anthony Mason could dazzle you one play and then make you throw the remote on the next, Charles Smith was…well…he was Charles Smith.

But what was loveable about that team was that THEY TRIED REALLY REALLY HARD. They seemed like bumbling idiots at times but you knew and could see that they laid it out on the floor every night. They played physical defense, closed the lanes, and made teams scared of driving to the basket. Our memories of the 90s Knicks are filled with images of brute, raw physicality: Oakley diving for loose balls, Starks crouching way down to poke the ball away from Michael Jordan, Mason bumping chests with Ewing with his signature dismissive scowl. Outsiders called them thugs and we loved it. We took pride on rooting for a team that cared, even if it came at a cost of trying too hard.

Every Knicks fan looks back at this era as some sort of Golden Age for the New York Knicks. And here’s the thing: THEY NEVER WON A CHAMPIONSHIP. Their history is filled with heartbreaking losses and missed opportunities and we haven’t forgotten about them. Outsiders have ridiculed us for this; accusing us of romanticizing a group of losers way too much. That’s fine. Again: we don’t care what you think. We loved that team. WE LOVED THAT TEAM. We didn’t need a championship to validate what we felt.

And this is what kills us the most about this Jeremy Lin disaster. It’s one thing for outsiders to not get how important he is to us. But the fact that the owner of the New York Knicks doesn’t get it is just so egregiously criminal. All you had to do was watch those Linsanity games in Madison Square Garden and ask yourself: when was the last time the Garden was this alive? When was the last time our team mattered? When was the last time our fans loved our team this much?

Jeremy Lin was the 90s Knicks all over again: flawed, limited, but poured his heart out in every play. You could see it in the way he huffed and puffed, his face drenched with sweat, the way he got knocked down on every drive only to see him drive to the basket again and again, like the unbreakable spirit that he is. He may not be our ticket to an NBA title but he was our miracle, he was our underdog story, he was ours.

That’s what no one gets: we know we’re not going to beat Miami as long as LeBron James is playing like a cyborg. We don’t care. We just want a team that we can love again. As a sports fan, that’s all you can really ask for. I’ve known losing all my life and I can take it. But this. It’s just too much: this betrayal, this blatant “fuck you” from Knicks ownership to all of us. I just can’t take this anymore.

(By the way, about that 14 million in year 3 that everyone's all up in arms about: THEY WOULD HAVE PAID HIM 5 MILLION THIS YEAR AND NEXT YEAR. THEY HAVE BEEN PAYING THE LUXURY TAX FOR A DECADE AND THEY DECIDE TO BE FRUGAL WITH THE SAVIOR OF THE FRANCHISE???)

I am not rooting for the New York Knicks again. I might reconsider when James Dolan miraculously sells the team or dies of stupidity; but right now, I’ve reached my limit of tolerance for years of management incompetence and indifference to its fanbase. If Knicks ownership is so intent on depriving us of a team that we can love, then I have no other choice. I will not love this New York Knicks – not this team or any other team James Dolan pulls out of his ass.