Jump ship? The ****? No. This is my team. I've stuck by them through everything and I'm not going to root for another team because they moved into a borough of the city. Screw the Nets and their lame ass franchise. I hope that Russian dude moves the team to Siberia.

[Edited by - GKFv2 on 09-24-2009 2:18 PM]

i think a bigger question is whether you would ever switch sports teams. i have but if your answer is no, can you elaborate why you wouldn't switch...

No I wouldn't. I love my teams. Not sure what else I need to explain. I go through the good and the bad because that's what I want to do and that is what a fan is all about. I'm passionate about my team and have never once felt the need to stop rooting for my team for whatever reason. I don't care for any other sports team in any sports and never will. I grew up a fan of the Knicks, Giants and Yankees and it will remain that way forever. Don't really think this needs elaboration. If you are passionate about your favorite team and are a diehard fan, why would you switch teams? All the fans here have been through Isiah and Layden. If they really didn't care, they would have been gone long ago. Me included. But we stuck around because this team means a lot to us. Hopefully the Knicks can repay our loyalty with a title in the future. NY basketball needs a return to prominence.

Posted by metra:

It's a personal decision - depends on where you are in your life. I'm 22. The great years were the late 90s for me.

The 8th seed run to the finals has given me fuel for 10 years but now I'm running on fumes. Thank god Donnie and are here because..

Let's put it this way. If

- Isiah was still here
- Marbury was still here
- We were still way over the cap
- Isiah's goons (Zach and Eddy - oy!) were still here

and

- The Nets move to BROOKLYN
- The Nets get LeBron

I wouldn't give it a second thought. I'd be a Nets fan. Eff Dolan. Eff Isiah. Eff Marbury.

But I'm willing to give Donnie a chance and I think he's been doing well so far. At least he's not making any mistakes. So I'm on the fence.

But here's some food for thought:

Are the NEW YORK Knicks still the NEW YORK Knicks even though none of the talent on the team is home-bred?

To me, no. That's why I'd give the Brooklyn Nets some thought. They'd be doing the same thing as the Knicks. Rebuilding the team from scratch, with outside talent. To me what matters is the NEW YORK and not as much the Knicks or Nets label. And if the Nets end up representing NY the way Oak and LJ did in the 90s then call me a Nets fan.

I'm gonna be honest with you. If all it takes is a new franchise moving into NY to switch teams, then you were never a diehard fan of the Knicks to begin with. Hell, the fact that you would switch indicates that. People want to mock loyalty in sports. They say the teams don't care about the fans so why should the fans stay loyal to the team? Everyone has their own opinion. Me, personally, I wouldn't turn my back on my team for anything.

Never! I will be a knick fan forever.

A relationship is nothing like your allegiances with a sports team. A relationship is with one person, so if there's a particular pattern going on in a relationship, chances are it doesn't change, or it's very hard to change.

With a sports team, things change all the time, such as management, ownership, players, the way the economy and fanbase effects the team and the finances.

So no, I would never switch allegiances. I do love the Knicks, Yankees and Giants too much. And one day, the Knicks will be contenders again, and I'll be a fan for when those days occur. This is whether the Nets have LeBron or not.

Posted by GKFv2:


I'm gonna be honest with you. If all it takes is a new franchise moving into NY to switch teams, then you were never a diehard fan of the Knicks to begin with. Hell, the fact that you would switch indicates that. People want to mock loyalty in sports. They say the teams don't care about the fans so why should the fans stay loyal to the team? Everyone has their own opinion. Me, personally, I wouldn't turn my back on my team for anything.

True, according to your (and I'm sure many others', especially on this forum and forums like this) definition of die hard fan, I wouldn't fit the criteria just cause I'd consider switching.

But the Knicks management has slashed and burned the TEAM so many times that at this point the only thing that has been consistent is Dolan, the Garden and the Knicks blue and orange logo.

Isiah comes in and kicks off the Layden players.
Walsh comes in and kicks off the Isiah players.
Even worse, Walsh puts in temporary players meant to fool the public into watching a team that really has no intentions of making a playoff run. (But that's rebuilding and I won't be a hypocrite to attack the plan when this is what I've wanted all along.)

Simply put the Knicks have had no team identity for the past 10 years. Who am I a fan of? Dolan? If the Knicks don't make the playoffs in 2010 and Lebron is on the Nets, that loyal fan mentality wont be enough to put me through another 10 years of Dolan's nonsense.

I think it's an interesting question. I'm from North Jersey, but I became a Knicks fan because of Patrick and those 90s teams, and because they were on TV a lot. I didn't have cable, so regular season Knicks were popular NBA on NBC, and then in the playoffs it was on! I can't remember any Nets games on TV because they stunk. So as a Jersey boy I jumped on a bandwagon as opposed to supporting the nearest team. Hell, when I was in grade school I liked the Lakers because back then I knew of only three teams -- Larry Bird's team, Magic's team, and the Globetrotters. But I came of age on a Knicks bandwagon and I'm not going to get off of it now.

I'm one of those Knicks fans who has probably seen more games in Brendan Byrne/Continental than the Garden because tickets were easier to get. And being from NJ, when the Nets were doing their thing going to the Finals -- I'll admit -- I was rooting for them, because they were rocking the "New Jersey" on their chest and finally winning. That wasn't my team but that's my home state, so I can't hate without hating myself a little bit (which a lot of Jersey cats do, myself included).

Now the Nets USED to be the New York Nets, and some of y'all may have been fans way back in the day. And I know that Brooklyn pride runs deep. So if they become the "Brooklyn" Nets, I'm not sure I could get too mad at BK heads switching. What say you Brooklynites?

Posted by djsunyc:

i think a bigger question is whether you would ever switch sports teams. i have but if your answer is no, can you elaborate why you wouldn't switch...

i'm not the type to switch because sports, to me, have that sort of blind allegiance type of spirit. it's the one thing in life that i choose to bind myself to. if i don't like my living situation, i'll move. if i don't like my job, i'll get a new one. if i don't like my career, i'll change it. but my teams always stay the same.

as a long-time giants fan, i suffered through some tough years. the dave brown era. the danny kannel era. even kerry collins time was up and down (mostly down). but when my team finally won a superbowl i got to laugh at all those eras and now i realize it was worth suffering. mostly, because i never suffer that much. afterall, it is just sports. so when my team is bad, sure, it's not as fun as when their good, but really, how bad can it be. it's just sports. so the knicks have sucked for the last 10 years. big deal. all in all, i've still managed to find ways to have fun being a knicks fan. this team has been comedic gold for many years now. ultimately, cheering for a bad team can be fun. you just can't tie your emotional well-being to the outcome of a game. at the end of the day, the rooster could care less if i can't pay my loans. so while i'd like the kid to be successful, if his back explodes -- my life doesn't change for better or worse.

if i just changed teams on a whim, i'd lose that sense of history, that sense of artificial sports fan struggle. when the knicks finally win a title, it's gonna be euphoric. i can't say i'd feel the same if they were some newly adopted team i picked up for the sake of abandoning my old suck ass squad.

[Edited by - eViL on 09-24-2009 3:18 PM]

Posted by metra:

Posted by GKFv2:


I'm gonna be honest with you. If all it takes is a new franchise moving into NY to switch teams, then you were never a diehard fan of the Knicks to begin with. Hell, the fact that you would switch indicates that. People want to mock loyalty in sports. They say the teams don't care about the fans so why should the fans stay loyal to the team? Everyone has their own opinion. Me, personally, I wouldn't turn my back on my team for anything.

True, according to your (and I'm sure many others', especially on this forum and forums like this) definition of die hard fan, I wouldn't fit the criteria just cause I'd consider switching.

But the Knicks management has slashed and burned the TEAM so many times that at this point the only thing that has been consistent is Dolan, the Garden and the Knicks blue and orange logo.

Isiah comes in and kicks off the Layden players.
Walsh comes in and kicks off the Isiah players.
Even worse, Walsh puts in temporary players meant to fool the public into watching a team that really has no intentions of making a playoff run. (But that's rebuilding and I won't be a hypocrite to attack the plan when this is what I've wanted all along.)

Simply put the Knicks have had no team identity for the past 10 years. Who am I a fan of? Dolan? If the Knicks don't make the playoffs in 2010 and Lebron is on the Nets, that loyal fan mentality wont be enough to put me through another 10 years of Dolan's nonsense.

I don't root for the owner of the team. I don't root for the names on the back of the jersey. I root for the Knickerbockers franchise that plays in MSG. If 10 years of lackluster results has you questioning if you are a fan of the team, then maybe this team was never for you. Maybe sports isn't for you. Some teams have some terrible luck and go through some dry spells. Unfortunately we went through some major crap with Dolan and Isiah and it damaged the team but no damage that is done isn't repairable. One day, eventually, the Knicks will be on top again. Or at least not this bad. The payoff of going through the losing is the ultimate win in the end. That's why it felt so great when the Giants won. I got to see Eli develop into one of the game's clutchest QB's right before my eyes and my team get their first SB title in 18 years. It was an awesome feeling but it wont compare to a Knicks victory, which would feel 10 times better.

The Knicks are still the Knicks. Losing or no losing, the jersey still says New York on the front, they're still called the Knicks, they still have their history and retired numbers and they still play in the World's Most Famous Arena. So nothing really changed about the Knicks besides the fact that their losing. What exactly have they been "stripped" of? The team is still legendary and an NYC attraction (hence the massive attendance during all these losing seasons). When the Knicks were good, it was baseball and basketball dominating the airwaves. Without them, football has ascended to the top spot. One day, basketball will be a hot topic in this town again and it wont be because of the Brooklyn Nets. I don't care if they sign LeBron and Michael Jordan to coach, that team doesn't play in the Garden and doesn't carry the entire city on its back. There is only one NY basketball franchise - the Knicks - and all the other wannabes will take a back seat to them win or lose.

Posted by eViL:

Posted by djsunyc:

i think a bigger question is whether you would ever switch sports teams. i have but if your answer is no, can you elaborate why you wouldn't switch...

i'm not the type to switch because sports, to me, have that sort of blind allegiance type of spirit. it's the one thing in life that i choose to bind myself to. if i don't like my living situation, i'll move. if i don't like my job, i'll get a new one. if i don't like my career, i'll change it. but my teams always stay the same.

as a long-time giants fan, i suffered through some tough years. the dave brown era. the danny kannel era. even kerry collins time was up and down (mostly down). but when my team finally won a superbowl i got to laugh at all those eras and now i realize it was worth suffering. mostly, because i never suffer that much. afterall, it is just sports. so when my team is bad, sure, it's not as fun as when their good, but really, how bad can it be. it's just sports. so the knicks have sucked for the last 10 years. big deal. all in all, i've still managed to find ways to have fun being a knicks fan. this team has been comedic gold for many years now. ultimately, cheering for a bad team can be fun. you just can't tie your emotional well-being to the outcome of a game. at the end of the day, the rooster could care less if i can't pay my loans. so while i'd like the kid to be successful, if his back explodes -- my life doesn't change for better or worse.

if i just changed teams on a whim, i'd lose that sense of history, that sense of artificial sports fan struggle. when the knicks finally win a title, it's gonna be euphoric. i can't say i'd feel the same if they were some newly adopted team i picked up for the sake of abandoning my old suck ass squad.

what if you just didn't change teams on a whim. what if you consciously made a choice to change b/c you no longer cared for them? would you ever consider it possible to just stop caring about a team? you ever watch a tv show that you were into then it became crap and you stopped watching? what is the difference between that and switching a sports team? both are entertainment vehicles. both require you to become invested in it emotionally.

i believe there are developmental years as a fan. and that creates the type of fan you are today. also, how you became a fan of a team plays into it as well.

i've noticed many fans of the yankees that grew up in those developmental years during the mid to late 90's often get upset quickly if the yanks don't win it all nowadays. it's b/c they are used to the winning. i grew up my developmental years when the yanks were bad...and then when they won in 96...it was euphoric. and it gives me a perspective on the team today and how difficult it is to win it all $200 mil payroll or not.

for the knicks, i grew up during the big time run from 1991 on. those were my developmental years. so anything short of title contention made it easy for me to dislike the team. but what made me actually dislike the team more was becoming a season ticket holder during this recent stretch of ridiculousness. and that's the straw that broke the camel's back.