After tonight’s game, Elfrid Payton will share a very important statistical benchmark with some other maligned former Knicks point guards. Could tonight be Elf’s apocalypse as the Knicks’ starting point guard?

Elfrid Payton recently played his 55th game as the starting point guard for the New York Knicks. This may seem like a trivial, depressing, and nauseating non-occasion; but it is, in fact, a cause for hopeful celebration, a stage for conspiracy theories, and — most importantly — a chance to talk shit about good ol’ Elf.

Do you know how many games Emmanuel Mudiay started for the Knicks? No, I hope. I’ll tell you: 56 games. Do you know how many games Jarrett Jack started for the Knicks? No, again, I hope. I’ll tell you: 56 games. And do you know how many games the universe wants Elfrid Payton to start for the Knicks? I hope — and pray, and offer sacrifices, and attempt to type into existence — it’s 56 games, and not a game more.

56: my new favorite number. 56: the number of fingers and toes I would sacrifice for the cause. 56: the number of wide open 3-pointers Payton turns down per game. 

A starting point guard that makes you rationally — for even a split second — consider the viability of The Return Of Derrick Rose (an underground hoops horror flick banned in 56 countries) is by definition a point guard who should not be starting. This is a fundamental truth for Knicks fans, some of whom would rather promote the angelic neophyte known as Immanuel Quickley, some of whom would rather a point guard by combo guard committee type alternative, and some of whom would rather head coach Tom Thibadeau himself suit up and run point. OK, Thibs wouldn’t run point. He’d shout it, from half-court, sitting on a throne of ice. But he’d have a damn good on/off impact.

While solutions vary, the problem has a consensus. If the annoying interwebs police who pointlessly pepper us with questions involving traffic lights and pedestrian crossings altered the question to something in the range of, “should Elfrid Payton start another game for the best basketball team in New York?”, approximately 56% more robots would be digitally detained and off the online streets; such would be the bump in pointless efficacy by asking far less visually ambiguous and far more viscerally engaging questions.

Alas, the safety of the 56th game approaches. We’ve almost made it. Far from being a time to bask in the glory of post-Payton point guard possibilities, it’s time to ask some questions. How — literally and specifically — did this happen?

Spacing seemed like a pretty no-brainer priority consideration this offseason. But no, we had to bring back one of two active NBA point guards to take more than 500 career threes and shoot less than 29% from deep (Michael Carter Williams being the other esteemed non-shooter in the league able to hold a candle to Elf’s artisan bricklaying abilities). MCW re-signed with the Magic on Nov. 21 — becoming the teams third-string point guard, I should add.

A good day for bricklayers, Nov. 21, as the Knicks snapped up Elf on the same day. How does this happen? With Brock Aller — the diabolical genius who had the intel that stopped us moving up in the draft to nab Obi Toppin earlier than eighth — in the room, how did this happen? Was he in the bathroom all day after a dodgy curry? It’s one of the only explanations, that the smartest guy in the room wasn’t in the room when the other guys in the room did an exceedingly dumb thing.

We must be missing something. Multiple things, maybe. In why it happened in the first place. And then why it went on for so long. Some alternative explanation for the continued insistence on sewer-like spacing. Here are a few highly plausible ideas:

1. Elf is an agent of the tank. This was a strategy, Brock Aller was there, being diabolical, with a genius plan to put a hard wins and losses ceiling on the team in a year where Cade Cunningham and Co. are waiting in the lottery. It’s scientifically impossible not to lose enough games to be in the lottery playing Elfrid Payton 29 minutes a night. Brock ran the numbers, adjusted the dials, whispered nerdy incantations at the base of a giant protractor, and came away with the optimal number of Elf games the Knicks can survive this season without irreparably offending the Basketball Gods: 20 games. Taking his career total to — quick math — the magic 56.

2. Thibs is implementing a bold plan to forge the habits of Julius Randle, RJ Barrett, and Mitchell Robinson in the offensive hellscape of a half court phone-box designed for hooping hobbits. With a development-challenging starting lineup that is the basketballing equivalent of being kicked in the whatnots. According to the plan, this trio of Knicks will soar through the rest of this season, and their careers, marveling at the inviting driving lanes and capable floor spacers of future functional lineups; averaging 56 assists, 56 points, and 56 blocks per game, respectively, until retirement.

3. The Knicks’ point guard position is cursed. See, for reference, the Derrick Rose rumors and/or this entire century.

4. Elf has multiple compromising 56-minute long videos of various franchise higher-ups. 

5. Thibs and Leon Rose know more than us. Highly unlikely scenario, with some delicate and nuanced justification, involving an unprecedentedly truncated offseason, realistically available alternatives, and on-court considerations beyond shooting. Highly unlikely scenario.

These are the first five of 56 total explanations for Elfrid Payton being given and holding onto the starting point guard gig for 55 nauseatingly grim games. Anyway, one more game to go. Luckily — because of the historical lore and statistically cherry-picked salvation of 56 — this is a local frenzy, a contained fire, a temporary stink. We’re on the train of Knicks fandom, gazing out the window at a particularly heinous vista of Elf-shaped wasteland. It’s unpleasant, yes. But we’re just passing through. We’ll be able to breathe some fresh air soon. Hopefully the Knicks- offense will too, one day soon.

Have I been drinking? Obviously, yes. We are living through a plague. But in these trying times, we must find hope in the historical precedents Basketball-Reference gives us. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy 56 beers for tonight’s finale.