Special Angry Guest Letter: Leaving New York

Dolan:

I’ve removed the greeting that usually begins these letters. Dear. I don't think you're worthy of it. I’ve also replaced the comma with a colon because it feels colder that way. And you deserve all the cold that comes to you. If it was up to me, you’d be exiled to Buffalo and put out on a street in the dead of winter wearing nothing but a Lin jersey.

Listen, Dolan, you’re going to get a lot of letters that start this way: “Now I’m a Brooklyn Nets fan.” Well, I didn’t start that way because I wanted to save it for the second paragraph. I’m from Brooklyn and I’ve always wanted a team--any team--here, so I'm hopping on board. The way I see it I’ve been loyal to the Knicks for too long. If you’re in a shitty relationship, you don’t stick around for more than a decade unless you're scared or dumb. All of my fond memories of the Knicks are from childhood, but my adult life as a basketball fan has been powered by disgust and disappointment (it would be much different if the team was merely bad). You’re not the only one to blame, but you’re at the top of the list. You’ve forced me to reconsider my identity, the way the Mets did when I was a kid and they traded Lenny Dykstra. A team can betray you, and that’s what you’ve done, Dolan. You’ve betrayed. You’ve bitten down hard on our hearts.

Some people will say I’m blowing this out of proportion. I’ve been home in Brooklyn for the past week and I’ve been reading the paper and listening to the radio--Francesa and Lupica and others are backing up this move, whether they like you or not. They’re saying Lin’s not a good fit for this team, that he worked in the D’Antoni system, that he’ll flop around in the Woodson system, that his weaknesses have been exposed and other teams will pounce on him this year, that he’s not capable of leading the Knicks to a championship. These people, as my grandfather would say, have rocks in their bean. Read Jay Caspian King’s “Dumb Move, Dolan” on Grantland today--That sums up why keeping Lin was the right choice. I won’t get into that here, except to say that keeping Lin was VERY CLEARLY THE RIGHT CHOICE, YOU DIRTY PIECE OF GARBAGE.

I’ve let my anger get the best of me, Dolan. This is what you do to people. I can’t drive today, that’s all I know. If I drive, I’ll smash into things like Jason Kidd. I’m finishing this now and I’m realizing it's really not much more than simple hate mail. But maybe hate mail is all you deserve. See, Dolan, my blood’s on fire. This is a different kind of let-down. You’ve made me lose sight of common sense things like courtesy and giving people the benefit of the doubt.   

  

In a couple of weeks, I’ll be driving back to Mississippi--where I’ve lived for the last four years--and I’ll be happy to go, in part because you’ve soured my trip home. Yesterday I saw a kid--he couldn’t have been more than seven or eight--wearing a Lin jersey and it broke my heart. That kid has had to learn too quickly about betrayal. I hope he wakes up hating you and hating the Knicks. I hope he switches teams, cheers the Rockets or the Nets. I sincerely hope that, Dolan. I hope he writes you a letter in crayon or some shit, includes a picture of himself in his expensive Lin jersey, and I hope you read it and then plop your head down on your desk and cry for hours because you’ve misunderstood the world.

Bill Boyle

Carmelo 2.0

Dear Carmelo,

By the time you read this, you will have returned to the lineup, I assume. I’m writing after having watched Jeremy Lin score 28, along with 14 assists, in a win against the Mavs, without you. More turnovers, but still: the kid was pretty sensational, again. To paraphrase Office Space, the Knicks haven’t exactly been missing you, Carmelo. In the history of professional sports, has there ever been a situation like yours, where a team’s fans are openly fearing the return of their franchise player? Surely not. I’m no Carmelo fan—cards on the table—but those fears are stupid. You’ll make the Knicks better in far more ways than you’ll make them worse. (Yeah, Lin's scoring will go down, but so will the turnovers, I bet. And defenses won't be able to key on him as easily.) Stop listening to what people say about you on Twitter or in the papers. In fact, cancel your Twitter account, Melo. This blog canceled its Twitter account a few weeks ago, much to the chagrin of our four followers, and it felt glorious. Whatever happens in your first few games back, bad or good, don’t worry about it. The only thing that matters now is the playoffs, and putting yourself in a position to make a run in the postseason. And the beautiful thing for you guys is that the Knicks are suddenly a team that can actually make a big run, if everybody's healthy. Here’s something I never thought I’d say: I’ll be pulling for you, Carmelo. But I need to get a few things off my chest, before I do.

The Jeremy Lin Experience

Dear Coach D'Antoni,

Let's take a trip in the mental time machine to Friday, February 3rd, 2012. By the end of the night, your Knicks had suffered their 11th loss in the last 13 games. The NYC tabloids were saying you could be fired by the end of the weekend. Your team had absolutely zero chemistry. You had no competent point guard. Allow me to quote an article written around this time by New York magazine's excellent Will Leitch: "The Knicks are unquestionably a disaster right now...There is a short window for D'Antoni to survive, riding mostly on 33-year-old Baron Davis returning from his injuries to play the point the way a D'Antoni team requires...But considering the truncated season and the lack of practice time available, that seems highly unlikely. Whether it comes after this season or as early as this week, the end for D'Antoni appears nigh." Nobody disagreed with this assessment.

Remember that February 3rd, Mike? Recall, too, the Jeremy Lin of that night, who scored two points for you in six minutes of PT, and whose contract wouldn't be guaranteed if the Knicks cut him within a week, a distinct possibility. What if someone would've told you then, after that loss, that the very next night Jeremy Lin would score 25 and add 7 assists in a win over the Nets? What if someone told your February 3rd self that you'd soon be inserting Lin into the starting lineup, and that in his first three starts he'd score more points than any player since the NBA/ABA merger in 1976, and that you'd win each of these games? And what if on February 3rd this person told you that on the following Friday your Knicks would beat the Lakers for the first time in five seasons, without Carmelo or Amar'e, and that in the victory Jeremy Lin would score 38, the most points against L.A. in the Garden by any Knick in the last 25 years? What if somebody told you on that awful February 3rd that in a week's time you'd be referring to your team's chemistry semi-sincerely as a "love fest," and that with Lin in the lineup, your other guys--Chandler, Jeffries, Novak, Shumpert, Fields--would start playing much better, too? And what if this clairvoyant also told you that 24 hours after the L.A. game, coming off the exhilaration and exhaustion of his performance against the Lakers, Jeremy Lin would put up 20/8/6 against the T-Wolves while having an off night and that he'd make the go-ahead free throw at the end, sealing your sixth straight victory and concluding the most unlikely week of basketball for any player in NBA history? Seriously, Mike. What would you say? What the heck would you think? And if you knew for an absolute fact that all this would truly come to pass, how delighted would you be?