The last time that the Garden had real, visceral electricity was sometime in early June 1999. It's hard to believe that it has been OVER a decade since LJ hit his historic 4 point play and the Knicks had a unit of respectable athletes to take the court.
Yes, the 11 years in between have been horrendous but perhaps even worse, they have been HOPELESS. It's not like you've been able to see any sort of progress towards something better, especially not during the dreadful embarrassment that was the Isiah Era. Remarkably, for much of the last decade the Knicks weren't just the worst team in the NBA, they also somehow managed to have the highest payroll in the league. So it's not hard to realize that we are not just talking about the worst team in basketball, we are quite possibly looking at one of the worst teams in professional sports history.
This colossal failure of an organization has seen its course change slowly but surely in the ensuing years since Donnie Walsh became GM. Since taking over, Walsh's Knicks--in addition to hiring a winning coach have meticulously deconstructed the unholy boondoggle of overpaid talent and talentless assholes diabolically synthesized by Isiah Thomas throughout his extended 'Fuck You' to the Greatest City on Earth that he called a 'tenure.' And we wish him nothing but the best...on his next suicide attempt. If he does botch it again though and he doesn't blame it on his children this time--even better. Fuck off. You disgraced the World's Greatest Arena and our way of life.
Only now though does it seem sane to start letting go of all these years of built up aggression and actually feel something we haven't felt about our beloved Knicks since Larry Johnson nailed that last moment three pointer in June of 1999: jubilation. When Walsh flipped the last of his weighty and lengthy contracts last week, he freed up 32 million dollars in cap space for the 2010-2011 season.
All of a sudden he's getting The City thinking that there might actually be some light at the end of the Knicks dismally dark tunnel. It still remains to be seen, but certainly all signs point to a major Lebron play as well as a Bosh or D-Wade on top. Factor into this the fact that T-Mac has already stated his desire to stay in the Big Apple so long as the marquee names arrive. We hold on to David Lee, and you're looking at undoubtedly the best lineup in the NBA starting on the center court they belong: The center of the basketball universe, MSG.
It might not be something to get excited about just yet, but even if that light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train of failed signings, the New Look Knicks have still provided me with at least a strong glimmer of hope. That's something they haven't given me yet this century and it's the exact thing that made the Knicks of the 90s the toast of the town.
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