Written by Kevin Meng

July, 2010

The Lakers had barely recovered from the hangover induced by winning game 7 against Pierce, Garnett & Sons, a bloodbath more reminiscent of World War One trench warfare than the finale of the National Basketball Association’s 64th season.

Kobe Bryant was still bitter that he hadn’t been able to shoot his team out of their 16th championship, try his damnedest though he did. The NBA was still abuzz about the draft that had just taken place. Was John Wall really better than Evan Turner? (yes, that was bandied about). Would Demarcus Cousins ever put it together? Who’s this skinny guy from Fresno State that Indiana just drafted? (better known as Paul George these days). And how the hell do you pronounce Hamady N’Diaye, the 56th pick from Senegal?

All the while, Knicks fans around the world glimmered with ignorant optimism about the future. THIS WAS THE SUMMER OF 2010! We had been swimming in a pool of stale water for years, polluted by the now defunct, non-eco- friendly conglomerate known as Isiah Thomas Co. We wanted the biggest names in the game: Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh. Actually, we wanted two of the biggest names in the game. Little did we know that they had been in cahoots with Riley in South Beach the whole time, and never wanted to play under the bright lights of MSG.

We wanted James and Wade; we got Stoudemire and Felton. The Big Three won not 1, not 2, not…well, actually they only won 2 titles. Better than the Knicks, though. Amar’e is now struggling for minutes in a league not friendly to old men with knee problems, and Felton is the rare NBA breed that has more gun charges on his record than NBA accolades.

What this long-winded rant about 2010 is meant to demonstrate is that the Knicks in the offseason of 2016, armed with enough cap space to throw at big names (which there are none of, by the way. KD doesn’t count), need to remember their lessons from 2010.

The New York Knicks simply don’t land big name free agents. 6 months of MVP Amar’e followed by 4 years of knee surgeries doesn’t count. What 2010 should also teach them is that just because you have money to spend, doesn’t mean to you have to spend it. When the Knicks struck out on the marquee names, they panicked and overpaid an aging and injury-riddled star to make up for it (respect to Amar’e for how well he played, though, and for always fighting to get healthy. He gave New York his all).

So here we find ourselves:

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