Tomorrow, of course, is a monumental date.
Tomorrow is Feb. 1. And that means we are officially at T-minus five months and counting to what undoubtedly will be the third-most significant date in the history of the Knicks, right behind May 8, 1970 and May 10, 1973 (and if you even have to click on to basketball-reference.com to see why those dates are so important, then maybe you aren’t quite the Knicks fan you think you are).
The Knicks aren’t going to win the NBA championship this year, a reality that has been written in cement for years. They aren’t likely to win their first playoff game since 2001, or even play in their first playoff game since 2003, no matter how many spasms of optimism they inspire whenever they slap around the sorry likes of Minnesota or Indiana. And they aren’t going to play in the lottery, one last parting gift from Isiah Thomas.
So it is all about July 1. It is all about T-minus five months and counting, T-minus 150 days and counting. It is mostly about LeBron James, sure, but when you get right down to it, July 1 presents something even more stirring for Knicks fans, for fans of basketball of any stripe in New York City:
It’s when we can breathe again.
It’s when we can live again. Starting July 1, the shackles come off the Knicks for the first time since the ill-fated decision to trade Patrick Ewing rather than let his contract expire and start over again. That was four basketball administrations and six coaches ago. For many people who would otherwise be hoops-obsessed, it was a lifetime ago.
I spoke to a middle-school class a few days ago on Long Island, and one of the questions one of the kids asked me was this: “What’s your favorite place to watch a sporting event.” The usual suspects are a short list: I love walking the green lawns of Augusta National, for instance. The Final Four is always a joy. So is the Super Bowl.
Locally, two of my usual choices are no longer even choices: old Yankee Stadium, where in October the people could make it sound like the inside of the 4 train motor; and Giants Stadium on a cold January day when you barely could see the football game because your breath kept getting in your sight lines. But my favorite, all-time, I told the kids, was “Madison Square Garden when the Knicks are good.”
That was greeted by silence. And I understood.
“How old were you guys in 1999?” I asked, referencing the Knicks’ last great springtime romp.
“Two,” someone shouted.
I could have been speaking about a secret underground meeting place, as much as the Garden as a relevant sporting spot was concerned. And that’s one middle school in one town. Basketball as we know it — or knew it — is that close to being invisible.
And in exactly 150 days, maybe, something can be done about that. LeBron? Dwyane Wade? Some combination of others? Either way, we need basketball to be re-born that day. T-minus five months. And counting.
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Minnesota fans are the ’kings of pain
There are losses. And then there are LOSSES.
If you poll your Jets-fan friends, chances are that very few of them have spent the past week in stark shades of depression, gripped by what-might-have-beens. The Jets gave their fans the best gift a team can give its fans, an unexpected tour to the very brink of glory. That they lost to the Colts — and the best quarterback ever — doesn’t diminish it. Even the early 17-6 lead never felt safe to anyone, least of all Jets fans. Not with Peyton Manning on the other side.
If anything, it seems Jets fans are grateful that they weren’t subjected to the kind of machete-to-the-soul performance that the Vikings handed their fans a few hours later. And it’s time for Jets fans to come to terms with the fact that as tortured as they have felt through the years, they honestly have nothing on Vikings fans.
The Jets, after all, are 1-for-1 in Super Bowls; the Vikes are 0-for-4. And though the Jets have now lost three AFC title games since 1968, none of those was especially heart-wrenching (though some do still grumble about the six turnovers that handed the ’98 game to Denver).
But Minnesota? In title games alone there is the Drew Pearson Game (still uncalled interference, all these years later). There is the Gary Anderson game (still hard to believe he shanked that). And even if you want to exclude the 41-0 massacre at Giants Stadium in 2001 (a blightful smudge on team history), there is now the Brett Favre Game. All in title games. All in the last 35 years.
Can someone say: S.O.V.?
VAC’S WHACKS
* Anyone who thinks Tim Tebow will be blackballed from the NFL because he happens to appear in a pro-life commercial must have forgotten the fellow who took snaps for the Eagles this year. Michael Vick can play football after blithely killing dogs, but Tebow can’t because he happens to believe you shouldn’t terminate fetuses? Please. If he can play, he will play. End of story.
* I think I’m on record killing the Mets as much as anyone. But I do have to ask: Does it really make them cheap to a) not overpay for Joel Pineiro, who might well be as much a Dave Duncan reclamation as anyone ever has been; b) not commit as much as $12 million to Ben Sheets, whose right arm, talented as it is, never holds up; c) not cave in on Bengie Molina, a very good catcher who would have been an upgrade but will never be confused for Mike Piazza?
* Lost in the messy divorce papers is this: Johnny Damon was always a gentleman as a Yankee, always a glib quote, and was every bit the gamer that Derek Jeter was. He always was playing with some or other injury. I’m going to miss him, and I’m not alone.
* For the record: if John Tortorella were as good as his job as my man Larry Brooks is at his, the Rangers would be in a lot better shape than they are.
