*FAN SUBMISSION by Jeremy Ely of Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @jeremyely.*
Courtesy: Bleacher Report
I have a friend Matan who’s an avid New York Knicks fan, and it’s pretty sad. About two years back, I spent the opening playoff weekend in New York City, and the amount of times Matan mentioned the 1999 championship, when the Knicks lost to the Spurs in five, during the shortened season almost made me cry. He argued that the lucky adventure—the New York Knicks were the 8th seed in the east that year—as what should occur every year. That these recent early exits were the anomaly.
Ten minutes into the game when LeBron (becomes full-court LeBron) and Melo becomes hi-pass-me-the-ball-and-watch-
The lead widens, Matan starts yelling at the TV
“Hey man,” I say softly, “I don’t think they can beat the Heat. Sorry.”
“Yo, don’t you remember 1999?”
Hardly, I think, we were eight years old.
It’s too sad, and in a peculiar way I feel a little guilty for the fact that when my team, the Lakeshow, does anything other than win a championship, it’s a colossal disappointment. While the Knicks were just trying to win their first playoff game in ten seasons. As a Laker fan, I’ve lived through the Shaq-Kobe three-peat, seen Kobe score 40 in 11 straight games, Kobe score 81, Kobe average 35. I’ve witnessed the Shaq-Kobe-Malone-Payton mega team, and seen two more championships in the Kobe-Pau era. Of course, it has not been all butterflies, there were some rough patches: Smush Parker started at point guard for some years, Luke Walton existed, and Derek Fisher was on the team.
Still, I recognize I haven’t had it close to as bad as Matan, who has had to see Isiah Thomas create the greatest catastrophe in sports history, the hiring and firing of Larry Brown, and a bad owner. He’s had to invest faith in failed acquisitions like Steve Francis and Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph, and confront distractions like Stephon Marbury having sex with Knicks employees, Stephon Marbury getting kicked off the team, Stephon Marbury buying tickets to games as an audience member, Stephon Marbury making videos where he eats glue, temporary Lin-sanity, six straight seasons without making the playoffs from 2005-2010, Boston sweeping Carmelo and the four D-Leaguers last year, and Amare grow corn rows.
He remains fixated on the TV, and I wish I could hug him and say sorry but he’s brainwashed himself so effectively, staring, delusional, in a way. It is then that I remember that the Israeli national anthem is called Hatikva, which means ‘Hope’ and is sung in a very melancholy tone. As he continued screaming at the TV, I thought, the best thing to do would be to have the Knicks install the HaTikva as its national anthem in place of the Star Spangled. This would have many advantages; 1). afterall, with the team’s history it clearly needs ‘Hope’. The main message of perhaps the greatest movie ever, Shawshank, is, in Tim Robbins soft voice, “Remember Red, Hope is a good thing,” 2). Given the large Jewish New York population, it could only drive ticket prices even higher, 3). Stoudemire is himself a self-claimed Jew and he can teach more Hebrew on Sesame street (Youtube Link).
I offer this idea to Matan, he himself of Israeli background.
“We don’t need to sing the Hatikva, bro. We just need Melo to start draining.”
Melo stands there holding the ball and misses his seventh straight shot.
“Come on! We just need him to make shots and we’ll win!”
It’s depressing, a disaster no fan as good as Matan should ever have to bear. But out of sheer interest in understanding how a sports fan could maintain such aimless faith in this haunted franchise, I ask just to ask: Matan, why don’t the Knicks ever win? A slight undercover Knicks fan myself, I wait on his answer to see if there is something logical or hopeful to say. But he makes the generic excuses, it’s so pitiful.
“It’s bullshit, yo. This year Amare was injured,” he explains.
In truth, Amare and Melo don’t play well together. They make each other worse. The Melo led Knicks without Amare are 14-5. I love Amare, but ever since Melo came to the Knicks, Amare hasn’t seemed to have contributed anything besides poor defense, average power forward rebounding and once in a while, a cool dunk when the game is already over. And nobody seems to really dispute that.
Maybe Tyson Chandler can save the day with interior defense like he did for the Mavs, I propose.
“Tyson’s not himself bro, he has a flu. You can’t play well when you have the flu.”
Of course, MJ played one of the most legendary finals games against the Jazz when he had the flu, and I recall a few other times where Kobe was sick but scored in the forties. I begin to think about how I will formulate this counter-argument, but ironically, almost in a spooky fashion, this happens:
Tyson Chandler gets called for a flagrant on a screen. The game is gone. LeBron flops, resembles a little girl crying from a boo-boo, making ugly grimaces.
I’m surprised to see just how angry I get at seeing LeBron have his way, not knowing I was capable of such hate. I start cussing the TV alongside Matan.
Maybe they just need Jeremy Lin back, I offer.
“No, bro. Lin sucks. Shumpert is much better.”
The next play down:
Shumpert leads the offense down in a confusing fast break, tears his ACL in a freak landing.
I can almost feel the pain in my own knee. Torn ACL, six to eight months, the death injury.
“Now there’s no way! Tyson has the flu, B-Diddy injured, Amare not himself, Melo can’t make his shots, and now we don’t have shump!”
Yes, I’m sure if you had Iman Shumpert you would beat the Heat, I say.
“We don’t have shump and we don’t have Lin either, bro!”
I thought you said Lin sucks, I say.
“Yeah but now our point guard is Mike Bibby!”
Bibby comes down and misses a wide open three pointer
I see a lot of Derek Fisher in Bibby now. That’s sad too, because back when he was on the Kings in the 2002 series against the Lakers, I seriously don’t think Mike Bibby missed a shot.
And this is when I realize, Knicks fansmanship is a lie, a hoax. It never happens. It reminds me of that Greek mythology story of Tartulus, the man in eternal punishment who stands in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree, with the fruit always eluding his reach and the water sinking to the dirt before he can have a sip.
Things looked up about a year and a half ago with Felton and Amare as the focal point and Danilo Galinari and Wilson Chandler and Landry Fields as great roleplayers. But they got traded in a real ripoff for Chauncey Billups who seemed to have decided beforehand that he will jack up every available three pointer, and Melo who has not been able to be effective unless he is the only player with the ball.
Game ends, Knicks lose by 33, Melo-Amare combine for 5 out of 22 shooting
I really think they should start singing the HaTikva before games, I say again.
Well, maybe now I’m going to get a taste of this. Maybe the Lakers are the new Knicks, and I’ll start pushing for an anthem change in LA.
