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Some of you must wonder why the Knicks are so big when they've been so bad.
Not just bad, but historically bad, almost Cleveland Browns bad. It's been 46 years since the team won a title.
Part of it is the folks sitting in the velvet-roped areas are there to be seen, not to see the game, brooding into smartphones or flashing selfies. Part of it is there are two generations of fans who actually watched high-end basketball at Madison Square Garden. My dad schooled me on the old days, when you could drop 10 bucks and sit courtside to see Clyde and Willis and Dave and Dollar Bill, when the hardwood was alive, the room was loud and a cloud of cigar smoke crowned the court.
USA TODAY Images Now this is the third real chance in the last 50 years for the Knicks to become relevant, and competitive, and contenders. In fact, they have a 14% chance of becoming the talk of the town, and the nation, if that magic ball drops and gives them the first pick in Tuesday night's NBA draft lottery and bestows them the athletic splendor of Duke phenom Zion Williamson.
There's about a 50% chance the Knicks will get the fifth pick. But no one wants or will focus on that. Reality is not a realm that Knicks fans have enjoyed much of the last four decades. It's always been a pipe dream about Melo bringing back the glory or Latrell Sprewell dunking the Knicks into June. Forget Frederic Weis and the worst poster in history at the hands of Vince Carter. Forget Michael Sweetney. Forget Jerome James, Eddy Curry and Starbury. Forget all the woeful moves that have left the Knicks heavy in payroll and light in talent, and with a scary dearth of draft picks.
That can all change Tuesday night. Knicks fans want to party like it's 1985, when that blessed envelope gave the franchise Patrick Ewing. The result was so popular and convenient that the Grassy Knoll folks accused the NBA of freezing the Knicks' envelope to keep them from plucking it prematurely. That one lucky night ensured the Knicks a level of skill and will for the next decade. Maybe Ewing came one game short of delivering a title, but no one questions his import or impact.
No matter how good RJ Barrett could be, no matter how athletically scary Ja Morant already is, there's only one name that will bring the long-lost NBA lens back to Madison Square Garden. And that would be Williamson -- perhaps the best natural talent since LeBron James skipped college to take his talents to Cleveland. Williamson is so good it felt like March Madness ended the moment Duke lost to Michigan State.
Zion is a proper name for someone with Matrix-like skills. He not only has the talent and temerity, but also the temperament to handle the blinding fishbowl of Big Apple media. Like LeBron, Williamson seems to have that inherent cool that comes with being "the man." It's the rare time when there is no debate or even whispered spat about who the best player and top pick is in a given draft, in any sport.
The good news is Ewing will be there, in person, as a kind of talisman, and a hulking reminder of what a great player can mean to a team toiling in the sewer of its sport. The bad news is that none of this will be taking place in NYC. The lottery will be held in Chicago, where many of our local hoop dreams died at the hands of Michael Jordan.
The odds are the Knicks won't get the top pick and won't skip gleefully into the Summer of Zion. But New York City is a place of dreams -- even the most unlikely kinds -- coming true. And for one day, you can ignore the nightmare the Knicks have been and dream about what they can become.