Jimmy Sez

It's past my bedtime. I'm sitting at a bar about a mile from my house in southeastern Pennsylvania and about 100 miles The World's Most Famous Arena which is being broadcast on a 10-foot TV screen on the other side of the room. Sitting next to me is another transplanted New Yorker. We promised ourselves we would get together in the wild to watch at least one game of the NBA Finals. As lifelong Knicks fans, we know that these opportunities don't come along very often. An hour before this moment, our choice of watching this game at a bar seemed unwise. The San Antonio Spurs defense was suffocating the Knicks' backcourt. In the rare instance that they had an open look at the basket, shots that were falling with ease for the last two months were clanking off the rim. On the other end of the court, the Knicks were struggling mightily to close out on Spurs shooters who couldn't miss from deep. New York was losing by 29 points on their home court in the third quarter ...

It only took about 25 years or so, but the New York Knicks are finally a part of the daily basketball conversation in America again. As a die-hard Knicks fan and Villanova graduate , I couldn't be happier about how they got here. But before we get there, let's briefly review their recent history. Since an improbable run to the NBA Finals in 1999, the Knicks franchise has been various combinations of disappointing, sad, embarrassing, comical, and just plain pathetic. They traded their way from a decent roster to a mediocre one to a bad one, then even worse. They tried piloting those rosters with Hall of Fame coaches who were clearly looking for a big contract and little else (as evidenced by Larry Brown literally choosing his starting lineup based on whose hometown they were playing near). They handed the keys to the franchise over to Isaiah Thomas who hit a dubious trifecta by failing as a GM, head coach, and human being during his tenure. Knicks decision makers almost came to ...