According To Amar'e Stoudemire The 2010 Knicks Singlehandedly Fixed The City's Economy

Everyone was going to our games. And if they couldn’t go to the games, they were going to bars to watch them. People were enjoying themselves before and partying after. I swear we single-handedly revived New York’s economy. We were rock stars — me and Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov and the rest of the team. Obviously, being celebrities wasn’t our job. It was fun, but our No. 1 job was to be great basketball players — to win. Still, you can’t beat being a rock star. - Amar'e Stoudemire




​In his defense, you can't prove that a team that ended the season 2 games over .500 in a subpar Eastern Conference and got swept out of the playoffs before you could blink an eye didn't fix New York City's economy. Well, I guess you probably could, but it would take a whole hell of a lot of number running and fact checking and I'd rather just give him the insanely delusional benefit of the doubt than spend one second doing any math and/or research. Trust me, I understand how easy it is to make jokes at someone's expense when they refer to Danili Gallinari as a "rockstar", but can we just collectively let Amar'e have this one? The poor guy needs a win in the worst way, and I think it's our responsibility to give it to him by gritting our teeth and nodding our heads as he takes credit for a largely organic economic growth in the most populated city in the United States. 

​We are talking about a player that was forced to retire a Knick because the team that he actually achieved any semblance of success with wanted nothing to do with him. What's he supposed to do, not glorify the one half season he resembled a player that was worthy of his comically inflated contract? Those 30 games where Amar'e convinced Knicks fans that they were back may not have done as much for New York's financial resurgence as the insertion of an Asian, Harvard grad into the lineup, but they were the most productive moments in which he was essential. It wasn't exactly the most exciting time to be a Knicks fans, but relative to the rest of his stay it was basically 1994 all over again. So no, he and his collection of misfit toys didn't singlehandedly make the rough waters of the recession recede but if saying so makes him feel better about the ass end of his career then sure - millions of New Yorkers were only out at the bars partying late because the Knicks were mediocre. 

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h/t Uproxx