During a recent show, Boomer and Gio were musing over the suddenly surprising Knicks. After a third straight win, they are a nose hair from .500 and are inspired by the red-hot Julius Randle, who continues to stuff the stat sheet in the odd echo of arenas carved hollow by COVID-19.
In a way it's unfair for Knicks fans, locked out of Madison Square Garden as the city continually convulses in reaction to the pandemic with mutating rules. Considering the Knicks entered this season as the team with the worst record in the league this century, it would be nice to see a few wins in person, just to know it's possible.
And if you prefer to play the optimist, then the Knicks (14-15) are just 4.5 games out of first place in the Atlantic Division, not half a game from last place. As an optimist, forget that one book has the Knicks at +198 to make the playoffs, meaning you'd win $198 with a $100 wager if the Knicks played in the NBA postseason. So not even Vegas likes the Knicks to play beyond the remolded 72-game season.
Speaking of odds, according to Vegasinsider.com, the Knicks are 500-to-1 to win the NBA Finals, tied for the longest shot in the league (the Nets, by contrast, are 4-1). The Knicks are 250-to-1 to win the Eastern Conference, with the same odds to win their division. And, according to the MGM Grand, Julius Randle is actually listed in the MVP odds, at 250-to-1.
What does it all mean? One New Yorker (yours truly) thinks you deserve to see the Knicks finally free from embarrassing themselves, the once-epic arena they call home, and the greatest city on Earth. But the rest of the world doesn't particularly care, at least not enough to make the Knicks into true contenders.
Granted, we stumble into a sports dustbowl after the Super Bowl, particularly with this pandemic choking us out of any routine. We can't eat, drink, or shop where we want, or even attend a ballgame of some kind (for another week, at least). So a three-game streak by the Knicks feels major because there's nothing else to discuss. We haven't had serious college basketball since St. John's was great many years ago, and the Nets have never truly planted a flag in the Big Apple, or owned a slice of your basketball souls.
The Knicks once filled that post-football and baseball void, warmed us through the frigid tunnel between October and April. The Knicks really did matter, long after they deserved to. But don't be fooled into thinking that this run, or this team, ripples beyond the Hudson River. They look so good now because they've been so awful for so long. Which team, in which sport, would be so celebrated for coming close to a winning record? That's how low the standard is right here, right now.
Not that the Nets are the standard, as it's hard to see a team with such a feathery defense winning a championship. But the best teams have a lot more than a streaky Julius Randle. You know what the Lakers have, and are the chalk to walk to another title. The Clippers are exponentially better than the Knicks, as are the Jazz, and the 76ers and the Celtics and so on.
All those teams have at least two true stars. The Knicks are a nice story because they don't look like a 20-car pileup for the first time in years, aren't playing disfigured basketball, and have actually flashed some purpose and harmony under new coach Tom Thibodeau, who will eventually get fired as he has twice in his career because his old-school style has a short shelf life among the modern athlete.
Good for Randle, though, who has been recycled enough and has now landed on fertile basketball soil. But while it is great his 23 points and 11 rebounds per game lead the Knicks, his 5.6 assists should not. Perhaps RJ Barrett will grow into a star, but he's not one now. And the NBA, like most leagues, follows a formula. In this, the flavor of the era, it takes several stars to be relevant. The Knicks only have one. Maybe by the time they get two, fans will still care enough to watch.
Follow Jason Keidel on Twitter: @JasonKeidel
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