What if Frank Ntilikina is more than a defensive playmaker? What if he’s a curse-breaker?

Frank Ntilikina is the current longest-tenured Knick. Could he become the first player since Charlie Ward to sign a second deal with the Knicks after completing his rookie deal, breaking the longstanding Charlie Ward Curse?

We don’t talk about black magic enough in the NBA. But analytically speaking, not being cursed is important. Not offending the basketball overlords to such an extent that they hex you for decades at a time is important. Not tumbling into a malicious team building sinkhole, a waiting abyss of basketball wrath, a symbolic prison of punishment for spiritual basketball crimes committed — is important. Not that I’m emotional or superstitious or bitter about it. Typing through tears. Ancient feelings of angst. Deliberately a fan of a curse-scarred franchise. Thick-skinned and cynical by necessity, with the psychological texture of Gollum’s nutsack.

The New York Knicks have been clinging to the crumbling edges of one particularly powerful sinkhole for 22 and a bit years, since Jan. 21, 1999, a then-insignificant Thursday, when they last gave one of their own first-round picks a rookie contract extension. I am of course talking about The Charlie Ward Curse. The infamous hex, still in full effect, whistling on its way to work every morning. It still stings. It’s still venomous. It’s still adding names to its greatest hits. Classics like: Frederic Weiss One Pick Before Ron Artest Literally Days After Making The NBA Finals. Imagine adding Artest to that roster? Pure. Venom.

Now, before I tell you why Frank Ntilikina - boldly squaring up to another trade deadline like a man who knows deep in his soul that he has more Knick lives than Paris has croissants - is the analytical curse-breaker and French Prince That Was Promised, let’s set the scene with a little context on curses in general, and this curse in particular.

It’s an impressively relentless source of supernatural suffering, this one. But in a way it’s old-hat for the Knicks faithful, who over the years have learned to coexist with the realities of day-to-day cursed life. The draft is just that thing we do sometimes that will bring eventual cyclical pain, somewhere in the future. After repeating the process a couple of decades worth of times, we’ve become conditioned to the terror-filled routine of it all. 

It’s a bit like the now-normal routines of pandemic life. The feeling of shameful nakedness when you forget your mask in public, only to scuttle off, with a cupped hand covering your obscenely uncovered plague-factory of a face-hole. The feeling of general suspicion towards people who look like they’re going, you know, somewhere. The pure horror of stumbled-upon highlights featuring sardine-canned crowds recklessly breathing all over each other. Just another day in dystopia.

We humans are masters of repurposing various horrors into humdrum daily nothings. Plagues and curses are no match for the black hole of human habit, but sometimes it’s worth hitting refresh on what constitutes normal, to get a little jolt of perspective on just how abnormal it actually is. The Knicks drafted Charlie Ward in 1994, a preposterously long time ago. For context, 26 of the NBA’s 30 teams drafted a player in the first round in the 2010’s who they went on to extend beyond their rookie contract. Most of these 26 have multiple players on the roster right now who meet this curse-free criteria.

Three more teams — the Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, and Los Angeles Clippers — last extended their own first rounder in the 2000s. Since landing Dirk Nowitzki in 1998, the Mavs have been pretty nonchalant about what were mostly very late first round picks, but they did extend the 29th pick in 2003 — Josh Howard — to a rookie extension in 2006. The Grizzlies extended the fourth pick in the 2007 draft — Mike Conley — in 2010. And the Clippers extended the No. 1 pick in the 2009 draft — Blake Griffin — in 2012.

And then you have the Knicks, who since 1994 have 1) Drafted in the first round, and not re-signed, a bunch of pretty good players: Channing Frye, David Lee, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Iman Shumpert, Tim Hardaway Jr. (oh the sweet, technical evil), and Kristaps Porzingis (AKA The Latvian Matchstick); and 2) Traded a bunch of first round picks who became pretty good players: Nene Hilario, Gordon Hayward, LaMarcus Aldridge, Joakim Noah, Jamal Murray, and Jakob Poeltl.

The Knicks are way out in the freezing wilderness of abnormal here. Laughing a haunting, echoless laugh at the very notion of roster continuity. Sleeping under the stars in a Yak carcass. Pleading for forgiveness from the moon.

Skeptics may argue that what we call “a curse” is merely narrative window dressing of a sustained period of dumb Knick decisions. To which I’d respond: maybe. But in a way that misses the point, by underestimating the power of narrative, the power of stories, and our innate craving for both. Story is the medium of meaning. Every arena of our lives is a story. From our careers, to our relationships, to our blind emotional obedience, to the misfortunes of our favorite sports teams. The hashtag-criticism of cliched sports “narrative” undersells how meaningless engaging with the NBA would be without our favorite piñata of a trope.

The power of stories is why masks can be alien one month and everyday the next. The power of stories is why basketball fandom can be so blissfully distracting in the intestinal trenches of a global plague. And the power of stories is why Frank Ntilikina is destined to be our Curse Breaker.

Our analytically (i.e: involving numbers)-endorsed curse breaker (per Stathead’s Player Comparison tool), I might add. 

I know scientific proof of a curse when I see one. Those numbers are pointing at each other. Spiritual statistical siblings. Ripe for a good ol’ fashioned black magic narrative.

The always-precariously-balanced fate of Frank is low-hanging cosmic fruit for Leon Rose and the rest of the Knicks’ front office heading into Thursday’s trade deadline. Frank’s value has always been deeper than numbers: viral defensive stunts, Louvre-worthy rotations, and the casual burden of curse breaking. It makes perfect sense, really, when you think too much about it.

Obviously, not trading and then re-signing our supernatural keystone to draft redemption is the priority here. Ending the curse is the primary strategic end. But there are magic-adjacent wins to be had, too. For one, the opportunity at a cost-controlled 22-year-old, who is younger than a lot of college players participating in March’s current edition of annual madness, with a clear cut NBA skill and a track record of steady improvement. And then, the cherry on the hex-free cake, extending Ntilikina will be a very real nod in the direction of, and symbolic statement of sustainable intent towards the unflashy, but real-as-a-curse merits of roster continuity.

Maybe Frank will be gone in 24 hours. Maybe we’ll have to wait for the next first-round pick — Kevin Knox? RJ Barrett? Immanuel Quickley? — to break The Curse. Maybe I’m just clutching at narrative straws, for fear of Leon letting Frank go, before he ever managed to get his footing as a Knick, amidst that relentless storm of New York flux. But if he survives, and if he stays, it will be symbolic.

Whatever you think of Frank Ntilikina: he’ll have put the clamps on The Curse. Whether by fortune or fate, that will be a part of his story. And who knows — maybe that will just be the beginning.