Clearly, Isiah has photos of Little Jimmy Dolan committing unspeakable acts.

Except, of course, your first response to jgmacg was the height of arrogance. You were an ass.

I agree with you that professional sports leagues should not step in and assist franchises when it comes to rebuilding. But to act as if the Knicks are irrelevant outside of New York is just stupid. There are transplanted New Yorkers everywhere and they fill arenas when the Knicks (and other NYC area professional sports franchises) come to town.

 

I did not say irrelevant, but sure, twist what I said to make your point and take a shot. And of course you had to be insulting in the process.

His post explaining to me that New York is the biggest media market in the country is just as annoying to me as my response to jgmacg was to you. I am well aware of that fact and I explained my reaction.

I'm not sure how you get the "height of arrogance there," but apparently you aren't happy with me questioning New York's place as the center of the universe.

Steelers fans fill up NFL stadiums whereever the team goes. So, should the NFL place a higher importance on that team than others that don't travel so well? Of course not.

 

Among your many failings is reading comprehension. I don't really care how you feel about New York, to be perfectly blunt.

I never said that the various leagues should support those teams that don't sell out; same with the teams that do sell out.

But Jgmacg is right. It's a simple fact, but there are more people in New York City than there are in other metropolitan areas in this country. Many of my fellow New Yorkers aren't flipping on their TVs to watch the Knicks. Those fans that do show up at MSG, they go just to boo the team and chant for Isiah Thomas' dismissal. If you don't think that is recognized at the NBA's 5th Avenue office, a short walk from The Garden, then you're dimmer than I previously thought.

 

And, for the third time, I agree with everyone who says it is not Stern's job to make the rebuilding of the Knicks a priority.

 

More insults from hockeybeat. Still can't handle the thought that some people might not see the entire world revolving around New York.

HB, you are the one who can't seem to follow the point. And I don't give a damn how you feel about New York, either, to be equally blunt.

My argument was about the over-inflated view that people like you have of the Knicks' importance outside of the New York.

Great. There are transplanted New Yorkers elsewhere. They aren't nearly as important as the natives to the success of those leagues in those cities. I shouldn't even have to explain that, but apparently you can't see past your own little part of the world to see the bigger picture.

What I don't understand is why you are bothering to argue when you agree, as you said, that "it is not Stern's job to make the rebuilding of the Knicks a priority."

 

Would you say that the Steelers are important to the NFL?

 

Depends on how you define important. Would it hurt the NFL's overall success if the Steelers were awful for the next 10 years? No, I don't think the NFL needs any one franchise to be successful.

The 49ers were a model franchise for a long time. Now they suck. Has it hurt the league? Not one bit.

Does it hurt the NFL when the Jets or Giants suck? I don't think so. The only reason I pay more attention to the Giants than, say, the Redskins is because my wife is from New York and my in-laws are all Giants fans.

 

Would you argue that it is a positive for professional sports leagues to have traditional powers in a position of success?

In this case, I think that the NBA wants a successful Knicks team.

 

Honestly, no, I don't think it is that big of a deal for traditional powers to remain strong.

Let's stick to the NFL (I know it better than the NBA). The Green Bay Packers were a traditional power once. Then they were bad for a long time. Did the league suffer until the Pack returned to prominence? No, actually it went through a tremendous period of growth.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and with the NBA, I definitely could be), but didn't the NBA have a huge spike in popularity in the '80s and '90s? Didn't the league take a big step forward with the Celtics and Lakers as the dominant franchises? Still big markets, but that run of popularity had very little to do with the Knicks.

The Knicks are not the NBA's equivalent of the Yankees. The Celtics or Lakers would come closer to filling that role. The Knicks don't have to be a marquee franchise for the NBA to succeed. The era dominated by the Lakers and Celtics proves that.

 

Yes, the Celtics and Lakers are not traditional NBA powers.

Let me put this yet another way: New York is the league's biggest market. In said market, viewers are not tuning into games. Shrinking television ratings means that advertising dollars shrink in kind. Those advertising dollars go into the league's coffers, to be distributed amongst the remaining NBA franchises.

So, yes, it behooves the NBA to have a strong presence in New York.

 

Taking a franchise that was in the dregs of the NBA to six conference championship series and one finals during a 16-out-of-17 years playoff run -- without a franchise-changing player like Tim Duncan or Shaquille O'Neal available when it was the Pacers' turn to draft -- is a fat lot better than the Knicks are doing. Until he completely turned the keys over to Larry Bird, Walsh assembled enough talent to keep Indiana in contention year-in and year-out. Walsh's biggest fault would be that he is too willing to listen to his underlings if they really, really want something from the grocery store, like when Dick Versace thought George McCloud could be a point guard, or when he let Isiah Thomas lobby him into Fred Jones over Tayshaun Prince.

As for the importance of a New York franchise, if most of New York tunes out, that's losing tens of millions of people. If most of Memphis tunes out, it's hundreds of thousands. That a metro area of 18 million or so is NOT selling out a 19,000 seat arena is a horrible indictment on the level of interest in the Knicks. Relative to population, that would be like Indiana, already at the bottom of the league in attendance, drawing about 2,000 a game instead of the current 12,000. Plus, New York-based advertisers and agencies won't even have the NBA on their radar if the Knicks aren't at least passable -- it's just a local bias. As one who grew up a Pacers fan, I'm well aware of the bent envelope and the phantom foul for a four-point play, but I'm not so much a yokel to think the Knicks' long string of sucking isn't trouble for the NBA.