Knicks fans looking for positives won't find any

	The Knicks have collapsed since Isiah Thomas was given a contract extension. Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images

Isiah Thomas, if you're reading this, it's time to end the season. This is the part of the movie where Old Yeller gets taken out back and shot.

For all I know, Thomas might be reading this. He has plenty of time on his hands, since he doesn't spend much of it coaching. New York is still technically in the playoff race. With just a few games left, the Knicks have surprisingly not been eliminated. I was pretty sure they would've been by the All-Star break.

The Knicks' "playoff hopes" have been kept alive by the sheer awfulness of the Eastern Conference. Not only are some of the teams bad enough to lose to New York, but two of the teams poised to make the postseason are below .500. I always thought the playoffs were "win or go home." So if your team doesn't have a winning record, give the No. 1 seed a bye and go home.

But thanks to the awful New Jersey Nets and the more awful Orlando Magic, the most awful New York Knicks are not yet mathematically eliminated. Great. So we get to watch them writhe in crapulence for another week. Come on Kevorkian, pull the plug. The patient is dead.

I am a Knicks fan, and have been for the last 19 years. I watched them make the playoffs for 14 years in a row, with epic battles against the Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat. A John Starks 3-pointer would have won the whole thing in 1994 but it didn't happen. After that, 1997 was probably New York's best chance for a title -- before a brawl saw half the team suspended. In a shortened 1999 season, the Knicks made the NBA Finals again, in a series more lopsided than a fat kid sitting alone on a seesaw.

And then came the beginning of the end. In 2001, the Knicks hired Don Chaney and finished with a 30-52 record. It was the first time New York missed the playoffs since I'd been old enough to know who the Knicks were, and the team's worst finish in almost 20 years. The following season, New York missed the playoffs again, though it managed to win 37 whole games. Somewhere over the course of that, the Knicks gave Chaney a contract extension.

I still remain convinced that the Knicks thought they were hiring Lon Chaney. At least Lon would have been a more entertaining blood sucker.

So last year, I wrote a column about how I was rooting for the Knicks to lose just to see Thomas sent packing like he was a contestant on The Amazing Race. But somehow, it didn't happen. Despite an anemic .280 winning percentage, Thomas stayed on and hired himself as coach, too. Which brings us to this season -- with the Knicks fighting for the honor of losing to the Detroit Pistons.

Halfway through this year, like Chaney before him, Thomas was inexplicably given a contract extension. Maybe James Dolan was rewarding Thomas for leading New York all the way from the cellar to the basement. At this point, the Knicks might be better off with Rob Thomas as their coach.

I admire the devotion of any Knicks fans who have been able to still root through this. At this point, I've accepted defeat and I'm just rooting for the regime change.

And if you're not with me, let's imagine, for a moment, that the Knicks do make the playoffs. Imagine that at least two of the three teams ahead of them collapse, and New York starts playing not-disgustingly for the first time in more than a month. In their history, the Knicks have made the playoffs with a losing record six times, and were sent home in the first round in all six (half of those were sweeps).

So what would happen if they made it? The Knicks would have a road that probably includes the Pistons, Cavaliers, Bulls and Mavericks. And they must travel that road without Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Quentin Richardson and Jamal Crawford. And a funny thing about the Pistons and Mavericks -- they have fewer losses than the Knicks. Combined.

We'll miss you, Old Yeller.

Steve Hofstetter is a nationally touring comedian whose column appears every Monday on SI.com. See him make fun of more stuff or go and make fun of him at minuteorso.com