At least the Knicks are winning games. I’m pretty sure the Wizards are secretly a farm team for the rest of the league. Their best players of recent years—Wagner, Gafford, Porzingis, Hachimura, Beal—all now play for other teams, and promising newcomers Alexandre Sarr, Kyshawn George, and Carlton “Bub” Carrington are sure to follow.
man, the latest round of wizards-as-real estate arbitrage just fills me with dread. ted leonsis got to hollow out chinatown, no strings attached, and now he gets another publicly-funded arena because he threatened to move the wiz to virginia.
but yea the most egregious example to me was otto porter -- how the wiz tanked to get him as a lottery pick, slowly developed him, inked him to a max contract...then traded him for two expiring contracts at the deadline, to ease the wizards' tax burden. how can you expect fans to be invested when the dang ownership isn't!
Lifelong Knicks fan. Probably same age as you. Just moved back to NYC from LA. Was in town for game 5 of the sixers series last year but didn't leave midtown that night so I didn't feel the city. I just want to feel the city buzz come springtime. I want the energy off the charts for knicks playoffs. It was there in LA for the Dodgers last fall. Electric but it wasn’t my team. The Knicks are my team. The more the merrier I say! Corny or not. The hardcore fans know who they are. Everyone get on the bandwagon!
welcome back meat stevens. idk it's weird. it's a cliche that knicks ticketholders are either JP Morgan execs or guys from long island, but it feels kinda true. the rowdy fans outside madison square garden felt very anomalous. last year's playoff run was a blast, but outside of individual bars it felt like a regular spring in new york. i think the city is so expensive as to be self-selecting, which has created this vacuum of passionate fandom i'm talking about
I have my Mets and Jets group chats, each which have about 8-12 guys. My Knicks chat is 4 guys, two of those fellows who might have met one time in person.
I was talking to a fellow in another group chat of mine, and he was talking about the hats worn at the Garden and around New York, specifically about a hat from some horse racing stable. Just looked it up: Siegelman Stables. If there is any physical proof to your argument, it might be that hat.
MLB hates its own fans so much, the only way to engage is as a die-hard -- the cable + streaming rights are so fucked, it's practically impossible to watch local games in most markets. and the NFL only plays 17 games, so you can come + go as you please.
i think the NBA's in this weird place where it's like, sort of accessible for big-city transplants, guys who work in tech/finance/academia -- who weren't big sports fans growing up, and don't have a rooting interest. it's a very strange audience
Coming from an NYC transplant with no official NBA allegiance: I. Is spot on. It IS corny to be a Knicks fan. What gets me is that they have an obviously sick team now that ~might~ be good enough to escape their own coach running them into the ground like he always does. Great read!
Just need to flag for posterity that FreeDarko wrote often and bitterly against the notion of basketball being jazz, though that was probably rooted in the same Gen-X self consciousness you’re identifying.
Agree that Cookies Hoops and whatever it represents is decadent and repulsive…but frankly I do love PTI.
Overall, you’ve definitely located something I feel as well — basketball fandom has become lame. A totem for middle aged guys trying to recreate some lost something.
i respect the freedarko guys + everything they endeavored to do. it's not their fault other, less perceptive writers bastardized their schtick, and it can't be overstated how horrific sports media was in 2007. but man, i went back and read some freedarko posts while writing this and hoo boy.
initially i was approaching this as two separate phenomena. there's the fantasy GM-type who nerds out about advance analytics + salary caps + supermaxes. then there's the sensitive basketball appreciator who uses hoops as a lens into the human condition or whatever. but they're both fucking nerds, and watching basketball makes them feel cool -- except they don't actually like basketball, so it becomes another lens for their dumb takes + interests. utterly joyless.
(and man i have watched more PTI in my life than i will ever admit in polite company, but at this point i cannot be in the same room as wilbon and his completely unearned smugness)
It's funny, contemporary basketblogging in a way does feel like wokeness in that it arose in response to an early 2000s culture that was, in fact, actually quite disgusting to any halfway sensitive person. But then it become dominant and unbearable. In its day, FreeDarko did feel incredibly exciting. I'm biased because I was a frequent commenter.
Overall, I do think something like a sports culture SHOULD exist. I don't wanna simply watch the games, I would like to also read/listen/vent about it with likeminded people. Unfortunately, this domain has been totally captured by people who I find unbearable (Cookies, NBA Twitter at large, r/BillSimmons). I wonder to what degree this is rooted in how unrooted we are from the places we grew up? When everyone moves away from their hometown, they need to rely on a network of Twitter accounts and podcasts and Youtube creators to get their spots fix -- instead of just listening to local yak on the way home and then talking shit with their friends at the bar.
i cant see how “wokeness” is dominant while the right controls every chamber of government + business, when abortion + dissent + affirmative action are actively criminalized, but as you will
my sense is — big cities have become so expensive as to be self-selecting. you can’t get approved for market-rate housing in NY or SF with an income under $160k — meaning you probably graduated from one of a handful of schools + work in one of a handful of industries. that sort of high-income, high-achieving office worker was probably not a huge sports fan in the first place. this makes cities boring + conservative, and I imagine most folks feel disconnected from their hometown teams as well as the local clubs. so if you’re watching the NBA, you may not have a rooting interest — which is a weird + sad way to approach pro sports!
on a more micro level — I rent a place in connecticut where I grew up, and thanks to mr. dolan, knicks games are now blacked out across the entire state. this is unbelievable to me! basketball’s biggest market and kids can’t watch the local team. why should they care about the knicks more than any other?
The heart of the issue is that extremely annoying social media addicts took over NYC because they're the only people who can afford to live there, and in turn have made Knicks fandom extremely pathetic to observe.
At least the Knicks are winning games. I’m pretty sure the Wizards are secretly a farm team for the rest of the league. Their best players of recent years—Wagner, Gafford, Porzingis, Hachimura, Beal—all now play for other teams, and promising newcomers Alexandre Sarr, Kyshawn George, and Carlton “Bub” Carrington are sure to follow.
Forgot about Otto Porter. The Man from Marwood does seem to have mastered the game, but not the one I’m interested in watching.
man, the latest round of wizards-as-real estate arbitrage just fills me with dread. ted leonsis got to hollow out chinatown, no strings attached, and now he gets another publicly-funded arena because he threatened to move the wiz to virginia.
but yea the most egregious example to me was otto porter -- how the wiz tanked to get him as a lottery pick, slowly developed him, inked him to a max contract...then traded him for two expiring contracts at the deadline, to ease the wizards' tax burden. how can you expect fans to be invested when the dang ownership isn't!
Lifelong Knicks fan. Probably same age as you. Just moved back to NYC from LA. Was in town for game 5 of the sixers series last year but didn't leave midtown that night so I didn't feel the city. I just want to feel the city buzz come springtime. I want the energy off the charts for knicks playoffs. It was there in LA for the Dodgers last fall. Electric but it wasn’t my team. The Knicks are my team. The more the merrier I say! Corny or not. The hardcore fans know who they are. Everyone get on the bandwagon!
welcome back meat stevens. idk it's weird. it's a cliche that knicks ticketholders are either JP Morgan execs or guys from long island, but it feels kinda true. the rowdy fans outside madison square garden felt very anomalous. last year's playoff run was a blast, but outside of individual bars it felt like a regular spring in new york. i think the city is so expensive as to be self-selecting, which has created this vacuum of passionate fandom i'm talking about
I have my Mets and Jets group chats, each which have about 8-12 guys. My Knicks chat is 4 guys, two of those fellows who might have met one time in person.
I was talking to a fellow in another group chat of mine, and he was talking about the hats worn at the Garden and around New York, specifically about a hat from some horse racing stable. Just looked it up: Siegelman Stables. If there is any physical proof to your argument, it might be that hat.
MLB hates its own fans so much, the only way to engage is as a die-hard -- the cable + streaming rights are so fucked, it's practically impossible to watch local games in most markets. and the NFL only plays 17 games, so you can come + go as you please.
i think the NBA's in this weird place where it's like, sort of accessible for big-city transplants, guys who work in tech/finance/academia -- who weren't big sports fans growing up, and don't have a rooting interest. it's a very strange audience
Really enjoyed this. More basketball writing please.
- A Raptors fan
thanks homie, here to give the people what they want!
i believe it was you who said the people literally don’t want basketball newsletters. fuck ‘em!
Coming from an NYC transplant with no official NBA allegiance: I. Is spot on. It IS corny to be a Knicks fan. What gets me is that they have an obviously sick team now that ~might~ be good enough to escape their own coach running them into the ground like he always does. Great read!
yo! thanks for reading. if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that thibs will never learn and jalen brunson's knees will be sawdust by april
Just need to flag for posterity that FreeDarko wrote often and bitterly against the notion of basketball being jazz, though that was probably rooted in the same Gen-X self consciousness you’re identifying.
Agree that Cookies Hoops and whatever it represents is decadent and repulsive…but frankly I do love PTI.
Overall, you’ve definitely located something I feel as well — basketball fandom has become lame. A totem for middle aged guys trying to recreate some lost something.
i respect the freedarko guys + everything they endeavored to do. it's not their fault other, less perceptive writers bastardized their schtick, and it can't be overstated how horrific sports media was in 2007. but man, i went back and read some freedarko posts while writing this and hoo boy.
initially i was approaching this as two separate phenomena. there's the fantasy GM-type who nerds out about advance analytics + salary caps + supermaxes. then there's the sensitive basketball appreciator who uses hoops as a lens into the human condition or whatever. but they're both fucking nerds, and watching basketball makes them feel cool -- except they don't actually like basketball, so it becomes another lens for their dumb takes + interests. utterly joyless.
(and man i have watched more PTI in my life than i will ever admit in polite company, but at this point i cannot be in the same room as wilbon and his completely unearned smugness)
It's funny, contemporary basketblogging in a way does feel like wokeness in that it arose in response to an early 2000s culture that was, in fact, actually quite disgusting to any halfway sensitive person. But then it become dominant and unbearable. In its day, FreeDarko did feel incredibly exciting. I'm biased because I was a frequent commenter.
Overall, I do think something like a sports culture SHOULD exist. I don't wanna simply watch the games, I would like to also read/listen/vent about it with likeminded people. Unfortunately, this domain has been totally captured by people who I find unbearable (Cookies, NBA Twitter at large, r/BillSimmons). I wonder to what degree this is rooted in how unrooted we are from the places we grew up? When everyone moves away from their hometown, they need to rely on a network of Twitter accounts and podcasts and Youtube creators to get their spots fix -- instead of just listening to local yak on the way home and then talking shit with their friends at the bar.
i cant see how “wokeness” is dominant while the right controls every chamber of government + business, when abortion + dissent + affirmative action are actively criminalized, but as you will
my sense is — big cities have become so expensive as to be self-selecting. you can’t get approved for market-rate housing in NY or SF with an income under $160k — meaning you probably graduated from one of a handful of schools + work in one of a handful of industries. that sort of high-income, high-achieving office worker was probably not a huge sports fan in the first place. this makes cities boring + conservative, and I imagine most folks feel disconnected from their hometown teams as well as the local clubs. so if you’re watching the NBA, you may not have a rooting interest — which is a weird + sad way to approach pro sports!
on a more micro level — I rent a place in connecticut where I grew up, and thanks to mr. dolan, knicks games are now blacked out across the entire state. this is unbelievable to me! basketball’s biggest market and kids can’t watch the local team. why should they care about the knicks more than any other?
Let's table the woke discussion.
The heart of the issue is that extremely annoying social media addicts took over NYC because they're the only people who can afford to live there, and in turn have made Knicks fandom extremely pathetic to observe.