The Mecca of Messiahs
Jalen Brunson doesn’t fit the profile of a savior — one of many reasons to believe in him.
One night when I lived in Manhattan, after hours stuck in traffic followed by an hour spent looking for a parking spot, I saw an inexplicably wide-open space. There had to be a catch, but I was too tired to care; I parked and went home. The next morning, I figured the car must’ve been towed or ticketed. But when I went to check, not only was it still there, but when I got close I could see it hadn’t been ticketed. I also saw why the spot had been open: my car was absolutely encrusted from stem to stern in pigeon crap. There were dozens of them in a trestle high up over the street.
Being an NBA fan is similar: it’s a citizenship that brings energy and joy, and sometimes it’s shit. How you experience it probably depends on your standards. The league’s most successful franchises, the Celtics and Lakers, have each won 59% of their regular-season games over 78 seasons, yet failed to win titles in 78% of those 78 seasons. On the other end of the spectrum, the Minnesota Timberwolves have existed for 35 years, lost 59% of their regular-season games and only once – 2004 – have they advanced in the playoffs. Sometimes you’re the pigeon. Sometimes you’re the car.
Fan bases can be just as striated. If you’re a Knicks fan 60 or older, you’ve seen them win their only two titles with a style of play so pleasing, the eyes of those who witnessed it still twinkle. If you’re 55 or younger, pick an epoch: the a-messiah-will-return-us-to-glory era, from Spencer Haywood through Bernard King; the okay-this-messiah-will-100%-save-us, AKA Age of Ewing; the this-messiah-with-a-concerning-medical-history-will-save-us 2000s, ranging from Antonio McDyess through Amar’e Stoudemire; and the is-Carmelo-Anthony-even-a-messiah years. After that, a funny thing happened on the way to the Garden.
After it turned out next-messiah-up Kristaps Porziņģis was not the droid we were looking for and next-messiahs-up Kevin Durant and Zion Williamson landed elsewhere, the Knicks found something new that works: signing promising young players to reasonable free agent deals while remaining cap-sensible and gathering a bounty of draft picks, selecting well with them. All that has been done with an eye on being ready for the Next Big Thing™, yet it’s fair to question whether the Knicks have already stumbled onto the best approach – and whether we’d be any happier if Plan A had worked.
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