Rant #1,615: New York Nots

New York City is the mecca of basketball.

If ever a game could be called "The City Game," basketball it is.

Every kid who grew up in New York City, whether in the 1930s through the present time, if they have two arms and legs, they played basketball on the city streets.

New York City has turned out some great players--Lew Alcindor, better known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Nate Archibald, Chris Mullin, the list goes on and on and on--and it turned out people like me, who couldn't really play the game, but became intense fans and students of the game.

New York City also was the home to the great teams that the New York Knicks had in the late 1960s and early 1970s, those that led to their two and only NBA championships. Spearheaded by players like Walt Frazier and Willis Reed, those teams are celebrated as not only among the best NBA teams ever, but perhaps the most cerebral teams in any sport.

There were no dummies on those teams, with players having both high court IQs and high IQs off the court too.

I think that is why it pains New Yorkers that the Knicks teams after those glory years have never been able to reach the pinnacle of success of the 1969 and 1973 championship teams.

Some have come close, others are as far away as possible.

Right now, the current squad is about as far away as possible from becoming a championship team; maybe not as far away as last year, but far enough away that I can rightfully say that I will become a grandfather before this team ever reaches that level of success again, if even then.

And take it from me, I am far, far away from becoming a zaydee.

Anyway, all that this leads up to is that my son and I took in another Knicks game this past Friday evening, but not at Madison Square Garden, this time at Barclays Center in Brooklyn against the equally woeful Nets.

The Nets' history is kind of parallel to the Knicks history. This team, which produced the likes of Julius Erving in better years, the years it ruled the old ABA, and had some fine teams in the NBA, is also as far away from credibility right now as a team can possibly be.

They are a really bad team, so on Friday night, you had a really bad team host a bad team, and what my son and I got was a stench that you could smell from the court all the way up to where we were sitting, in the last seat in the last row.

The game was awful. The first game back from the All-Star break saw the Knicks play as poorly as they have all season, and put in a real stinker against the Nets, who possibly played their best game of the season.

The Knicks, some said, were a playoff team this year, but they are going home when the season ends, not going anywhere else. The same thing can be said for the Nets, for that matter.

So New York City, the mecca of basketball, fields two real stinker teams this year, and it has done so year after year after year during the past few seasons.

Adding insult to injury is that my son and I have another game on our appearance schedule this season, on April 1--of all days--as we are again seeing the Knicks versus the Nets, this time at venerable Madison Square Garden.

Having the game being played on April 1--April Fool's Day--just rubs salt into the wound for us, sort of an evil joke the NBA schedule makers have thrown into our path to rub in the futility of these two teams into our very being.

Maybe that game will turn out better than the one we just saw, who knows, but the joke may very well be on us, and the other poor schlubs who pay premium prices to watch inferior basketball.

I think back to my days playing basketball on the cement courts of my youth, and the fun and dazzle I got from hitting a shot, making a block, or stealing the ball from my opponent.

I try to bring back that youthful enthusiasm I had way back when when I currently watch the Knicks as an adult, but let me tell you, it is really difficult to get my eyes and ears going as I did when I was a kid.

During those years, basketball was great, the Knicks were great, the Nets were becoming great, and basketball really was the sports lifeblood running through New York City.

Today, it is just another sport.

Spring training has begun in Florida for both the Yankees and Mets, and my eyes and ears are turning south to see what level of baseball we will see this upcoming season.

Basketball has become secondary in the middle of February, and to me, that is not the way it is supposed to be.