Finally. That admittedly feels like a weird word to use in reference to the comeuppance of a franchise that relocated from New Jersey seven years ago and almost instantly made a devastatingly dumb trade that paralyzed the team in basketball purgatory while suffering through it's unforgiving aftermath. However, the truth of the matter is that the Knicks have basically been begging to be overshadowed in their own city for ages. So much so that the Nets' rebuild, that was pretty quick relative to the complete lack of lottery picks that a team so demonstrably bad should have been privy to, put them in a far, far better position to make entice top-end talent than the most stupefyingly self-important organization in sports. It took a bit longer than he would have hoped, but Jay-Z's words just went from punchline to prophecy, as "little brother" made big brother's dream his reality - albeit one that is about 14 months from true fruition - in sending Knicks' fans scrambling for the shattered remains of their superiority complex from mere miles away...
The key word in that prophecy, of course, being management. With that of the museum of mediocrity that is "The Mecca" being entirely incompetent in a way that's long shown itself throughout every level of the Knicks' organization, it was somehow more likely than not that James Dolan would let the Knicks get lapped in relevance in their own city. Tough to deny that that's exactly what he's done, as it was he who led the season-long suckfest at the feet of Kevin Durant before only choosing to change his stance on paying top-dollar for damaged goods when the goods in question were an all-time great...
Make no mistake, this is a massive win for both the Brooklyn Nets and the team-building process. That said, it's also a demotion-to-the-G-League worthy 'L' for a franchise that crapped away an unfathomable competitive advantage in a media market that should realistically be entirely their own. Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, and - to a much lesser extent - DeAndre Jordan could easily be bringing the magic back to MSG, be it not for MSG making a mockery of itself. The long-held belief of both the Knicks and their fans that if you can make it there then you can make it anywhere isn't entirely untrue, but I hardly think Frank Sinatra was referring to extinguishing an organizational dumpster fire when harmonizing (not to be confused with harmonica'ing) about the mystique of Manhattan. Obviously, there is plenty of risk that comes with putting your young team and selfless culture in the hands of an objectively insufferable asshole, who just lit the fuse that led to the implosion of a somewhat similar roster, for a year while his 32-year-old running mate recovers from an injury that has all-but-ended plenty of promising careers before. It's just a risk that any team would be stupid not to take, as Kyrie Irving eventually falling back into the Robin role (in which he ended a 50+ year championship drought for the city of Cleveland) to KD's Batman (at even 75% of his former freakishly talented self) is a recipe for title contention. Be it Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LaVert, Taurean Prince, Joe Harris, Jarrett Allen, or even Rondae-Hollis Jefferson, the Nets put together a playoff-level team that was simply a superstar or two away from becoming a championship-level team. Meanwhile, the Knicks pissed away money on contracts that were more inflated than clown shoes in continuing to run an absolute circus of an operation on a wing and a prayer (See: trading a unicorn for cap space). Take out the alleged allure of a building that hasn't hosted a truly meaningful basketball in decades and this decision seems all-too-easy. From the Sean Marks on down, Brooklyn was a better basketball situation and for that reason they have a basketball team whose intrigue and potential is so exponential in comparison to the team whose city they just took over that it managed to rewrite the harrowing history of the Celtics' heist.
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