I am going to write the fourth part, and it will be final. It is about infighting.
In first part, I talked about the psychological shift. It is not that people to be a Melo fan (or anyone's fan) then come here and pretend to be a Knicks fan. It is just a mental practice which helps us to feel better. Humans want to be related to a winner rather than a loser. Subconsciously he would focus on a single player instead. Then the devoted love is born, and this player turns into this fan's favorite son. While it is not a bad thing, sometimes it has a number of drawback, like affecting a team to discipline or trade their players.
In second part, I talked about how we actually acts like over-protective parents in secret. We treat the player we love like a favorite son. It really makes the job of coaching very difficult.
In third part, I talked about how this mentality affects management. We always treated our players very well, at least we always tried to do what they wanted. I am not here to blame the players. They are all good and well. It is all about the balance of power, like we should not give a U.S prez too much power even though he is the best politician ever.
I said it before and I said it again. Everything I wrote is not to aim to any specific person. It is like, if I write something about global warming, I say humans caused global warming. Some dudes jump out and protest "I did not cause global warming!" Yeah, you are right. You did not cause it. I know that. I just go to a place and it happens to be here. I talk about it and I look at it in a very board sense. It is about the community as a whole. It is totally not personal.
In this final part, I will talk about the relationship among players and fans alike.
In these few years, we hated a lot of people. Jose, Sasha, Rambis, Phil, Noah, D.Rose. Sometimes it was Quinn (when he plays badly ) or Lance (when he was awful). They were all gentlemen and made no trouble. They didn't break any law. (I see D.Rose no wrong as he were brave enough to go to court means he really thought he was innocent ) The hatred made me think a lot about who we are, collectively. Again I have to repeat I don't mean anyone doing any wrong here. It is just that the hatred made me feel strange. Sure, we are sporting fans. Sure, there is trash talking. Sure, it was just trolling. But still, they were/are all Knicks. Especially Noah, that dude wanted announcers called him coming from Hell Kitchen. Well, I am not sure if he still feels he is at home now.
Hatred usually comes from love. We hate someone who hurts our love. This was the starting point for me to examine this topic. How the psychological shift changed the focus from the team to a single player, and we start to feel like that player = Knicks, and pushed a lot of things which was not helpful to the situation. For example, we trashed D.Rose not passing the ball to KP enough, and badmouthed him wherever we go in the internet. Very soon his name was ruined (who wouldn't when he was related to Knicks?) and his trade value dropped, then in return the team couldn't trade him for anything.
The same thing happened to Melo. We really wanted to side with him so we tried so hard to show the world outside NY how unlucky he was. How bad he was handled, and how evil Phil were. Phil even used his friend Charley Rosen to write something bad about Melo! Sure Melo's media friends and everyone knowing him did the same things to Phil but you know, Melo didn't ask them to do so (and Phil must have asked Charley Rosen) so it doesn't count. At the end, every team looked at the situation and low-balled us. Their stance were very tough because they thought we had no choice at all.
Before we really start the this part, we can think about something first.
We are Americans, right? We are all different but at the end, it is something we still can share with.
However, if people put something like Democrats or Republicans before "Americans", this country will be divided. (Actually, it has already happened. )
If people put something like "I am black", "you are white" before "Americans", this country will be divided. ( unfortunately, I feel like it is where the society are going now )
It is the same that if we put our favorite son before the team, Knicks fans will be divided too. I have a feeling we treated outsiders very poorly. D.Rose and Melo both didn't play defense and both played like a black hole, but people treated them totally differently. Rose was new to the team and Melo were always with us so it is understandable. But still, shouldn't we put the team first? Phil traded a lot for this guy and we just let him walked away for nothing. JR Smith was like "we got him for nothing." Total gain for Cav, total loss for us.
KP vs Melo, Melo vs Lin, or someone vs someone. It was always a topic among us. We really want to support our favorite sons, and in this way we start to look at our fellow Knicks fans differently. In order to our son to get to the upper hand, we are not hesitant to paint his "enemy" in a very negative way. It is like Democrats to Trump or Republicans to Hillary Clinton. (Besides, if what both side said is true, I have a strong feeling they both should go to jail. )
Jose had done nothing wrong, but he was the starter while Jerian Grant was not. So Jose = enemy.
Sasha had done nothing wrong, but he took away the minutes from younger guys and he was a pet of Phil Jackson so Sasha = enemy.
Noah had done nothing wrong (except he played poorly), but again he is a center and he takes away the minutes from KP and Willy. Noah = enemy.
They played for Knicks. They made no trouble. They didn't deserve the hostility. Before last reason started, Noah told Rose something like " I played at your place, now you come here and play at my place. " At the end, NY is not Noah's place, no one looked at him like he was part of Knicks. I don't want to think about how Noah would feel now.
We actually are one of the reason to make the environment so toxic. Keep in mind that I am not here to blame people. I just try to be objective and look at things from outside. If there is a lot of infighting, we have to understand we often put a single player above the team. In this way, the infighting must happen, and soon enough we start to hurt other Knicks players in order to help our favorite sons "win".
This part is about to end. The idea is that, as sporting fans, we can't help but love some players. It is just human nature. But we should not take New York Knicks as a public battleground for our favorite sons to advance his career.
At the end, thanks for reading. I would like to express that I don't write for fame or attention. I don't do twitter. I don't try to change people. Of course I don't try to show how smart ass I am or something like that. If there is a reason I try to write that much, it is my conscience. I really feel like I have seen something which I can't say it is right. I would feel bad if I didn't express it at all. Again, I don't aim to anyone here. I post here just because people here are willing to give me a chance to express my thought.
The day Phil Jackson got fired, I immediately had a feeling that it is a great unjust. (I can understand a lot of people would not agree with me, and it is fine. I totally understand your viewpoints ) It is not that he didn't make mistake. It is just like things shouldn't have been worked that way. It is like you are a soldier, even you don't agree with Iraq war you should not walk away from your post. By firing Phil that way, the balance of power has been destroyed, and management has no authority anymore. He could have been replaced in a way that it would not hurt the authority but what is done is done , and the king (Dolan) has spoken. He likes his star more than anything. No one can touch his star.
Well, if you are a older dude, you sure now realize that I am actually quite naive. Yeah, that is why I write this stuff. I don't know much about b-ball. I am not Gaines. I just don't know which player will be better. I am sure not Phil Jackson. I didn't understand triangle and I still don't.
So I just write it for my conscience, if you believe me.
Thanks for reading.
(I will reply to anyone who bothered to reply this thread. But currently I have to get some sleep. I moved to Hong Kong last year and here now is mid-night. )