MSG3 wrote:Melo winning a title here would totally flip what people say about him in terms of legacy. In terms of NY, I think he'd move into the pantheon of top 5 athletes in NYC history. For me personally he'd be #1. Yankees are the most famous team in the world, but when the Knicks are good this becomes a Knicks town, even if all other teams are great at the same time. Right now I think the top 5 athletes in NY History is:

Babe Ruth
DiMaggio
Mantle
Jeter
Messier

YOu discount what Joe WIllie did in superbowl 3! Yogi Berra!

There is a bigger list that must include Reggie, Willis, and Clyde. Football you hve Lawrence Taylor. MVPs who won chips and played most if not all of their career. With free agency it will get harder and harder to add names.

There are the guys that carried franchises like Doc Gooden Ron Guidry who had seasons that were Cy Young winners and their teams won a championship.

How can you leave off Yogi Berra????

From Wikipedia:

Berra appeared in fourteen World Series, winning ten championships, both of which are records. Partly because Berra's playing career coincided with the Yankees' most consistent period of World Series participation, he established World Series records for the most games (75), at-bats (259), hits (71), doubles (10), singles (49), games caught (63), and catcher putouts (457).

Berra was a fifteen-time All-Star, and won the league's MVP award three times, in 1951, 1954 and 1955. From 1950 to 1957, Berra never finished lower than 4th in the voting. He received MVP votes in fifteen consecutive seasons, tied with Barry Bonds and second only to Hank Aaron's nineteen straight seasons with MVP support. Between 1949 and 1955, on a team filled with stars such as Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio, it was Berra who led the Yankees in RBI for seven consecutive seasons.

One of the most notable days of Berra's playing career came when he caught Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, the first of only two no-hitters ever thrown in postseason play.

Im not sure I put Messier there unless your a huge Ranger fan, or undrstand what he did with them. Mess has 6 stanley cup rings. 5 was with the oilers. Thats iconic Edmonton/canada hockey great, but not NY great. He played 6 seasons of 25 in NY. Great player and a starphuch who delivered but not the icon that defined a generation in NY, he defined with Gretky his greatness in Edmonton THEN came to NY.

In the current incarnation of knicks we see Melo as the potential savior but we might have to anticipate he'll need a wingman and other players who will help Melo have those iconic moments, and they will have theirs also!!!

I'd say that for Melo to eclipse any of these guys, including Willis and Clyde he'd have to be an MVP and win at least 3 titles in NY. Knick fans will always adore him and he'll loom large for a new generation but it will be a shallow one compared to what some of these other cats accomplished.

lets get a one or two in the bag then we can have that discussion.

Melo in the new age of internet and thousands of cable channels will be a big deal but in the Mecca, im talking the real mecca where sports fans acutally know things would never ignore Yogi, Joe Willie, Willis for his symbolic contribution and Clyde who hung 38 pts and 19 dimes to win the game!!!

Syniko wrote:

ToddTT wrote:If Melo wins without being part of a trio, and does it in NY... that will be huge. Clyde will have to start worrying about his status as greatest Knick. And it will tarnish what the Heat have accomplished, if only a little.

However, if Lebron wins a third this year... that will be tough to eclipse. Trio or not, that is impressive.

Not to mention that Lebron has erased a lot of the negativity he had created for himself when leaving Cleveland. For me I think I stopped disliking the guy when he tackled that fan on the court.

That said, I really hope we don't have a similar thread to this in a year or two with Paul George's name in it.

Are you implying Paul George as a New York Knicks? Pacers doesn't have very many to cling on to but you know for damn sure they're going to cling on to Paul George as tight as tight can be.

I see Paul George as young Lebron James in Cleveland. He's only going to get better. In four or five years, Paul George is going to be criticized heavily if he walks away from Indiana.

Pacer struck it rich with PG.

No... I'm saying that Paul George could one day leave both Melo *and* Lebron in his dust.