‘Deceived,’ ‘violated’ and ‘mistreated’ can only describe a true Knicks fan.
From the MSN Encarta Dictionary:
Nickel-and-dime, transitive verb 1. impoverish somebody through small expenses: to get somebody or something into financial trouble by accumulating many small costs and expenses ( slang ), 2. bother somebody in many small ways: to hinder or harass somebody with trivialities and insignificant matters
And for definite confirmation, let’s turn to UrbanDictionary.com:
Nickel and dime: Traditionally used as part of the larger phrase “To be nickled and dimed to death,” referring to the undesired price of upkeep for a certain item. More fundamentally, it refers simply to seemingly hidden ongoing expenses which, over time, add up to a large expense.
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This is how I feel about the New York Knicks, plain and simple. I feel deceived, violated and mistreated. It’s like a broken record of Joe Wilson, Kanye West and Serena Williams verbally assaulting my fundamental right to enjoy and expect good basketball from the team I grew up with. It’s the tale of the millennium Knicks, a tale so repeated it needs its own oil change.
The once reasonable expectation of playoff basketball was taken out back and beaten. Repeatedly. He hasn’t recovered. His “David and Goliath” moment came in ’04-05, only to have a JKidd-led Nets team slap him around. We haven’t heard from him since.
What happened to consistency? What happened to the 1990s? Were we spoiled by the commitments of the dapper Pat Riley and the baggy-eyed Jeff Van Gundy? Did the vicious Knicks defense, who used to put guys on the
ir back in a completely non-Mardy Collins way, become too much to ask for? I mean come on, bring back ’90s Jennifer Aniston at least, when you mattered. We all miss you.
No defense, no hustle, no heart. This is how you define the millennium Knicks. A group (they don’t even deserve the label of “team”) that just wanted to get paid. It was all about the individual, the ‘I’ in team. It starts at the top with management and trickles down to the bottom. Anucha Browne Sanders? Is this really what we’re talking about? I want to jump out of a building every time I hear that name or Stephon Marbury or Isiah Thomas. What’s keeping me from jumping? There isn’t a tall enough building near me.
Here is a brief list of things I feel “Knickled & Dimed” about, over these last nine years:
• The trade of my childhood hero, Patrick Ewing.
• Acquiring Shandon Anderson; Jerome James; Howard Eisley; Steve Francis; and non-Sprite drinking Penny Hardaway, among others.
• The installment of more jumbo-tron antics and shirt-shooting in Madison Square Garden. What happened to dignity, you sell-out?
• The axis-of-evil that was Isiah Thomas, Stephon Marbury and James Dolan.
(I will add to my “Knickled & Dimed” list with every post. If you’ve got any suggestions, let me hear them.)
I was tired of being tired. Hell, I wasn’t even angry anymore. I was at the point of a long drawn-out fight where you don’t even know what to say anymore. You just sit there and stare at the other person hoping something meaningful or profound happens. And as life goes, it never does…
Until a charming, mustached-man from Phoenix walks into your living room and says, “Fight no more, I’ll save you with my super convenient method of putting the ball in the basket.” And then another man enters, a distinguished gentleman with a fedora (because they all wear fedora’s right?) says, “Trust this mustached-man. We will bring you riches in the form of a 6-8 Akron super-hero that will stop this bickering.”
Hook, line and s
inker.
Knicks GM Donnie Walsh has me somewhat excited, for the first time in a long time, about Knickerbocker basketball. He’s cleared out enough cap space for at least one superstar in 2010, maybe two, depending on next year’s salary cap. For now, one is good enough. Coach Mike D’Antoni’s offensive scheme should help mature youngsters Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari and rookies Jordan Hill and Toney Douglas. Last season there were no off-court issues, minus the freeze-out of Marbury at the beginning of the season. The focus was strictly on basketball.
Not much was done this offseason, if any. Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry never happened. You expect me to get excited about Darko Milicic? Honestly? Maybe if Walsh actually did wear a fedora, he would have landed Grant Hill or Jason Kidd. He was stingy with spending, waiting until the week before training camp to offer one-year deals to veterans Nate Robinson and David Lee (both of which are only being reported, not officially done). The media played up Ramon Sessions, only to have him signed by the Minnesota Timberwolves, the paranoid hoarder of point guards.
Basically, the Knicks roster will look identical to last year’s 32-50 squad. This doesn’t help anyone involved.
No superstar, and by superstar I mean LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, will come to NY if there is no chance of Playoff basketball and possibly a championship. This means, if Chris Duhon & Co. don’t improve in the win column, it won’t matter if the Knicks do end up with room to sign two superstars. Nobody wants to play with losers, with the exception of Zach Randolph. If this is the case, Walsh and D’Antoni will have to step up their recruiting game like they’ve never done before. Thicker mustaches and an assortment of hats will have to be in play.
Sure, they might lure a Joe Johnson or a Chris Bosh, which wouldn’t be too bad. But you have to believe the ultimate goal, despite what they tell you, is to have LeBron James in a New York Knicks uniform. There were no warning signals until yesterday and the emergence of Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who’s looking to turn the New Jersey Nets around and help them move to Brooklyn, NY.
Add “Mikhail Prokhorov owning the Nets” to my Knickled & Dimed list.
The guy’s an immediate threat to everything Walsh and D’Antoni have done over the last year. He’s potentially built a tremendous roadblock in the “bring LeBron to NY” scheme. He’ll bypass Manhattan and jump to the BK, as if The Mecca never existed. If the guy isn’t afraid to spend, as has been reported, we’re all screwed. The Nets will become the Real Madrid or Chelsea of basketball.
Where is the panic button and the nearest bottle of scotch?
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