NY Knicks: Defending different segments of the fan base
By Max Hoover
Not a lot seems to be going right for the NY Knicks this season. The team has struggled after a hot start and all of the magic from last year’s team has evaporated.
Is there any facet of this team that is going more right than all the others?
If Knicks Twitter is to be believed the answer is a definitive, “YES!” The problem is, though, that depending on who you follow, what is going most right is up for wild debate.
And that debate is exactly the one we will have in this article.
NY Knicks: Blame has been pointed everywhere
The division on Knicks Twitter (and the larger fanbase as a whole) is understandable. It is easy to be a united faction when the team is over-performing expectations.
However, when things start going south, all previous issues and doubts and criticisms and complaints magically reappear.
It’s like Kramer vs. Kramer only it’s Knicks fans vs Knicks fans vs Knicks fans vs Knicks fans.
It’s the Randle guys vs. Thibs guys vs. RJ guys vs. “The Kids” guys.
Note that for our purposes we’re putting R.J. Barrett in his own category. He’s a third-year player and a top-three draft pick. He graced the same SLAM cover as Julius Randle. Higher expectations come with the territory.
“The Kids” for our definition essentially means anyone in their first or second year in the NBA.
You have a number of different ways to make meaning of what you read from here on out.
You could dig your heels deeper into the soil of your preferred camp. Use this article as more seeds to grow division among the fanbase.
Or…
You could use this as an opportunity to see what the other folks see. Look for the positives in the franchise and use them to renew your hopes and dreams for the remainder of the season.
After all, hope is the thing with feathers and we know what happens to a dream deferred.
Knicks Twitter is dangerously close to being a molting bird to stinking like rotten meat.
(Shoutout to Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and all English majors who were with me for those last two paragraphs.)
Maybe…just maybe…we’ll all recognize that this Knicks team does not reach its full potential without all of these pieces coming together and performing at their best.