Most Knicks fans my age vaguely remember the championship seasons of 1970 and 1973.  I remember watching my father and older brother jump and yell when Willis Reed walked out on the Garden Floor, so I jumped up and down and yelled too.  I was too young, however, for those titles to have that lasting, feel-good-whenever-you-think about-it-meaning that the Rangers’ Stanley Cup win in 1994 or the Yankees’ wins in ’78,’96 and 2000 would have for me as I got older.

        When I was a little bit older, I would re-enact Knicks-Lakers games in my room or on the neighborhood playground, but there were no specifics, beyond the players, that I could remember.  So, for me, the Knicks became really important during the wonderful late 70’s and early ‘80’s, when Willis moved to the bench, Earl “the Pearl” Monroe was past his prime and Ray Williams, Bill Cartwright and Toby Knight were the “stars” of the team.

        I watched hopefully each year as the Knicks would finish in the middle of the Atlantic Division, make the playoffs (it felt like everyone did) and lose after a round or two.  I watched in awe as Bernard King arrived and scored on everybody practically every time.  Then I would look down the court where Pat Cummings, an NBA player who looked and played exactly like the “old guy game” participants on the playground in my neighborhood, was our starting center.

The next crushing blow was 1985 and the hometown squad is so bad, we might get Patrick Ewing next year.  I had just graduated from Georgetown the year Ewing led the Hoyas to the NCAA Championship.  I remember talking to my brother about the possibility of Ewing and King together for the next six or seven years, as Bernard King was only 28 at the time.  Then, 55 games into the season, King went down with a devastating knee injury. 

The Knicks ended up with Ewing, but King was never the same. I was sure the Knicks would go and get another great scorer, like Alex English or Dominique Wilkins, to play with Patrick.  The best the Knicks would do during the prime of Ewing’s career was John Starks.  We all loved Starks’s heart and ambition, but watching him miss shot after shot in the only NBA Finals game seven of Ewing’s career nearly had me punching the TV. Little did I know, that once Ewing was gone, things would only get worse, as the Knicks plummeted back to mediocrity.

The point of this trip down Knick memory lane is that during all that time, I never gave up hope in the Knicks.  I didn’t waiver while having to watch Ken Bannister, Chris Dudley and Louis Orr play important roles.  I didn’t throw in the towel as the Knicks drafted Kenny Walker, Jerrod Mustaf and Monty Williams. I didn’t even flinch as the Knicks ran through an assortment of coaches after Jeff Van Gundy.

As I suffered through this past season’s 23-59 record horror show, I believed that Larry Brown would guide this mess back to respectability, especially since he was stuck in New York for the next four years.  As I began to hear rumors that the Isiah Thomas, the Knicks G.M., and James Dolan, owner of Cablevision and the Knicks, were considering dumping Brown, my faith in the Knicks was shaken for the first time in four decades of rooting.   When the Knicks sent their Hall of Fame coach packing after only one season, I was almost driven over the edge.  It got worse as I realized that Isiah was taking over as the team’s head coach.

By the time I sat down to watch the NBA draft on Wednesday night, I was holding on by a very thin thread.  I was actually talking to the TV, convinced that Isiah, the G.M., had some grand, faith-restoring scheme in mind that would help Isiah, the coach, succeed.  Each time commissioner David Stern appeared on the podium and announced a trade, I waited for him to mention the Knicks.  As the draft moved steadily toward the Knicks’ pick at # 20, I switched gears to thinking that Isiah knew that Marcus Williams, a pass-first point guard with top-five pick talent, would fall to the Knicks. 

As the Kings passed on Williams at #19, my hopes rose as I realized Isiah knew what he was doing.  Stern appeared on the podium and announced the Knicks were picking…… Renaldo Balkman!  I thought I had gone crazy, did he say Rolando Blackman?  I foamed at the mouth as the ESPN draft experts basically said, “Who?”  No! not even Isiah could have blown this one.  I could only imagine the Nets brass, who had the #22 pick, thinking, before the Knicks picked, “We only have to worry about the Suns at #21.”

As I tried to get off the floor, I listened to the Knicks then take a point guard with the #29 pick, after the Nets had taken Williams with the #22 pick.  Then, the thought that the Bulls can take first round picks next year when All-World center Greg Oden is expected to be the #1 pick, forced itself into my brain and cleared out any lingering Knicks dust.  I was done.  Mr. Dolan and Mr. Thomas, after 40 years, you have finally lost me.  Now I need to go switch from Cablevision to DirectTV.