1
I grew up a Nets fan. I had Keith Van Horn and Kerry Kittles jerseys. I watched games where Elliott Perry, Johnny Newman, Aaron Williams, Chris Gatling, Boki Nachbar, and Lucious “Sweet Lou” Harris mattered. I cried when Veal Scalabrine turned into the second coming of Larry Bird in G5 of the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals in Detroit.
I cursed Rod Thorn when he let Kenyon Martin go, then thought he was the 2nd coming of Auerbach when he pulled the Vince Carter trade out of his ass a few months later. I saw them blow game 5 of the 2003 NBA Finals at Continental Airlines Arena in the Swamp because K-Mart was shut down. I rooted for Kris Humphries to win a rebounding title.
I could not even enjoy Kobe Bryant’s or Tim Duncan’s careers because I was sick over them beating us. Even though they left Jersey for Brooklyn in 2012, I still wanted them to succeed. After the D-Will experiment failed however, I thought they were doomed to be a 2nd tier franchise nobody would ever care about. Fast forward to now and I cannot believe they beat out the Warriors, Clippers, and the Knicks for KD and Kyrie. Wow!
2
t’s bittersweet that the Nets are now on top of the basketball world but have to give up D-Lo to get there. I get that they had to pick Kyrie over D-Lo: Irving is a better player in every statistical category and he brought Kevin Durant with him. D’Angelo is 3 years younger but there’s no guarantee that he’d become a better player than Irving in the long run.
Even with the turmoil in Boston this past season, you have to hope that Kyrie can be happy now that he’s in his handpicked city with 2 of his best friends, and is capable of finally leading a team on his own. Still, it was fun to watch Russell come into his own and lead this weird yet entertaining crew to the playoffs. Hopefully he can continue to improve with Golden State.
3
What the hell are the Knicks doing? First they put out a statement saying they didn’t want to sign KD to a max deal because of his injury. Then they apologize for not landing KD and Kyrie even though they spent all year as the presumed favorites to steal Durant from the Warriors. They traded Porzingis to free up cap space to sign…Julius Randle, Taj Gibson, and Bobby Portis?
3 guys that play the same position as Kevin Knox? This is so Knicksy. My whole life I’ve watched their fans and the local media treat this team like royalty when in reality they’re a colossal joke. Remove the arena from the equation and you just have a rotten team from top to bottom.
4
A part of me feels bad for enjoying yet another failed Knicks summer because of their all-black front office led by Steve Mills, Scott Perry, and David Fizdale. It would’ve been cool to see them successfully recruit blue chip players but instead they now have to embark on a long rebuild and who knows how that will turn out with this bunch?
As I’ve said on the pod, Steve Mills should not inspire confidence. He has been around the Knicks for years now and every move with his fingerprints on them hasn’t turned out well (Tim Hardaway signing and taking Ntilikina over Dennis Smith Jr. and Donovan Mitchell stand out). Scott Perry hasn’t done anything either besides be in the room when KD got drafted, hang around Joe Dumars’s office when the Pistons blew up their title contender, and share snow cones with Rob Hennigan as the Magic came apart. Oh and David Fizdale was just fired from a rebuilding team in Memphis for failing to connect with players.
Knicks fans, you don’t need to do this to yourself. There are 29 other NBA teams and at least half of them are being competently run. Follow one of them instead of this mess of a franchise and troglodyte of an owner/governor. Stop letting these assholes steal your joy.