The Knicks are Trying to (and have already) Break your Heart.

Shall we take a look down memory lane:

1999 Finals: The “so this is what that feels like” moment of the season.  We dominate everybody in the playoffs and pull off some heartbreakers only to get destroyed by the Spurs.  The first Knicks related heartbreak I can remember, but certainly not the worst.   

2000 Eastern Conference Finals:  I get to stay up late to watch Game 6 and my reward is that Reggie Miller beats us at the Garden.  But such a fool was I to think that deep playoff runs and get ‘em next year was to be the norm.  I was so naïve. 

2000 Offseason:  Sure let’s trade our aging but still good franchise player and person who brought us back from the abyss for a bunch of scrubs I mean, Travis Knight, Luc Longley, and Glen Rice (to be fair not really a scrub but come on).  Sounds like a great plan that won’t doom the Knicks until 2011 and turn this once proud franchise into a perennial laughingstock.   

2001 Eastern Conference First Round: Everybody, including the 76ers, was craving that Knicks Philly match up but Vince Carter had other plans.  Who would think that this series would include the last Knicks playoff win until 2012?  Well, at least the Yankees were good during this time.   

2003 Preseason:  I remember it like it was yesterday, Antonio McDyess was to lead the Knicks back to relevancy and the playoffs but instead crumbled in a preseason game (after scoring 23 points and dominating the other games) and left us fans in a bind.  McDyess spent his remaining time on the team as an expensive tease while we waited for the time he would come back and live up to his promise.  He never did but what can you do.  At least he did well after leaving the Knicks. 

2003 Offseason: At the time of the deal my dad said, we traded somebody who chokes off the court for somebody who chokes on the court.  Everybody my age loved Sprewell for his intensity, ferocious dunks, and prolific shooting and we traded him for a guy who looks like a dorkier Mac Miller. 

2004: So I was wrong about Keith Van Horn and he was actually gelling well with this Knicks squad so naturally this meant that Isaiah Thomas (more on him later) would seek to trade him, and he did for Tim Thomas.  What was Tim Thomas’s lasting contribution to the team: calling Kenyon Martin “fugazy”.

2004 Eastern Conference First Round:  Getting swept sucks, but getting swept to the Nets?  I don’t care how good they are and how bad we are because Jesus Christ fellas it’s the Nets and we’re the Knicks.  Just win a single game so we don’t have to get ribbed by the fans in their half empty Jersey arena.

2005: Championship winning coach Larry Brown came in and brought the Knicks back – to being a complete joke.  The Post’s preseason prediction had the Knicks going 43-39.  They went 23-59.

2005 – 2010: The dark years.  Here’s a sample of misery: Marbury claiming he’s the best point guard in the league and the Knicks subsequently losing every game in January, Isaiah Thomas and sexual harassment, James Dolan becoming a household name for the wrong reasons, watching players like Jared Jeffries and Jerome James roam freely on the court, watching players like Zach Randolph and Jamal Crawford (still love you) dominate – when traded from the Knicks, Team Titanic II, Quentin Richardson calling out the Pierce-Garnett-Allen Celtics and then losing by 50, etc, etc, etc.  You catch my drift.

2011 Eastern Conference First Round: The Knicks finally return to the playoffs and then watch both STAT and Billups fall to injuries on their way to another first round sweep.  The consequences of that injury would linger as it would be the end of dominate STAT and the beginning of constantly injured but always working hard Amar’e. 

2012 Eastern Conference First Round: It was bad enough to lose Shump to that horrific leg injury and to watch the Heat get every single fucking call, but to see the Knicks lose by 33 points in Game 1?  That game made me woozy and ill.  I felt an emptiness akin to being dumped.  In short, that was a bad game.   

2012 Eastern Conference First Round: To add injury and embarrassment to insult, Amare Stoudemire punched a fire extinguisher after losing Game 2 and had to sit out Game 3 with a broken hand.  At times like this there are no words. 

2012 Offseason: Linsanity was lightning in a bottle excitement and made every Knicks game a must see.  James Dolan, being the savvy businessman he is, decided to let him walk to the Rockets and take all that Linsanity magic elsewhere (lucky for us, the magic had already worn out).

2013 Eastern Conference First Round: This didn’t break my heart but it did almost give me several heart attacks.  The Knicks nearly blew a tremendous Game 6 series clincher in Boston by spotting the Celtics a 20 point 4^th quarter run.  The clock seemed to be moving at half speed and the Knicks could only throw up bricks and bad passes until Melo iced the game.  If the Knicks lost that game, that may have been a breaking point (but probably not).

2013 Eastern Conference Semi-Final: The Knicks make a furious Game 6 comeback and look well on their way to forcing a Game 7 when Roy Hibbert juts out his hand and denies Melo at the rim.  The block shattered the ball, the rim, the Melo, and the will of my beloved Knickerbockers as they just collapsed and fell to pieces in Indianapolis.  The dream of losing a competitive Eastern Conference Finals to the Heat was dead. 

2013-2014 Season: Where to begin?  Should I start with awful last minute execution which resulted in countless loses?  Shall I mention the whole Raymond Felton gun saga coupled with the general malaise felt throughout the Knicks season?  How about the joy of the Andrea Bargnani experience and being a witness to one of the worst Knick trades of all time?  No I think the thing that stands out this season is it was the time we returned to being a laughingstock.

2014-2015: And I thought last year was bad (said in the voice of Heath Ledger’s Joker).  There is a very real possibility that the Knicks may end 5-77.  It may not happen, but then again, I wouldn’t bet against it.

2014-2015: I thought we got Reggie Jackson, a name that would fit so well in New York City, when in fact we just got a second round pick and the hope that people are actually going to want to play for the Knicks despite everything that surrounds this franchise.  Please, Phil Jackson stop the cycle of pain or else, as I said on Facebook, I will only watch 90% of the games next season.    

Feel free to add to the misery with your Knick related heartbreaks and traumas!