If you a) haven't closely followed the New York sports scene lately (chances are you haven't) and b) harbor a certain distaste for New York teams (chances are you do), now is a pretty good time to tune in.
The area has nine teams in the four major sports and each team is fairly rich. So it stands to reason that two or three or seven of the clubs will be winning at any given time. But this isn't 1969, when the Mets and Jets were champions; it isn't 1994, when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup and the Knicks reached the NBA Finals; and it sure isn't 2000, when the Mets and Yankees played in the World Series, the Giants went to the Super Bowl and the Devils were NHL champions. The Gotham sports bubble has burst, as a look at the news reveals:
On Tuesday, the Knicks, who have recently alienated cantankerous star Latrell Sprewell and seen newly imported power forward Antonio McDyess suffer a season-ending knee injury, announced they were extending the contract of head coach Don Chaney through the 2003-04 season. Chaney is the guy who sparked the Knicks to a 20-43 record after taking over a 10-9 team last season. "They didn't have to do it," said Chaney of his bosses, before uttering the scariest news of all to Knicks fans: "They like the direction the team is going."
The Giants, whose coaches have been mismanaging games all season, offered no such contract assurance to Jim Fassel. Maybe that's because the team is coming off a 17-3 loss that dropped its record to 3-4. The Giants have yet to beat a team with a winning record this year and on Tuesday learned that receiver Ike Hilliard will miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. Jeremy Shockey, the tight end who's the key to the Giants' offensive scheme, is hobbling about on a badly injured toe.
Still, a football fan would rather root for the Giants than the 2-5 Jets, who succeeded in turning a 21-3 lead into a 24-21 loss to the Browns on Sunday. That game, which belongs in the crowded pantheon of heart-wrenching Jets losses, was conspicuously mis-coached as well. Now, less than halfway through a season that began with Super Bowl visions, the Jets are talking about being "spoilers" for other teams' playoff chances.
The other spoiler in town is new Mets manager Art Howe, who may yet end up helping baseball's most dysfunctional and underachieving team, but who spent his meet-the-press Monday showing how artfully he could handle the uneasiness of being the Mets' last resort. General manager Steve Phillips has boosted his new manager's confidence by openly discussing why the Mets had to settle for something less than their first two choices: Lou Piniella (who went to Tampa Bay) and Dusty Baker (who's a Giant for one more week, at least). And Rey Ordonez says Mets FANS are stupid?
Managerial uncertainty is foreign to the Yankees, who'll have Joe Torre crying in their dugout again next year. But Yankees fans are still reeling from a first-round playoff loss to the Angels, a defeat that had owner George Steinbrenner citing melodramatic Scottish proverbs about being wounded and rising again, and that, according to one tabloid, caused shortstop Derek Jeter to fall into a depression.
The Wednesday papers also brought news that the Devils had lost again to the Hurricanes and fallen from first place (the Devils have scored the fewest goals in their division) and that the Islanders had also lost, to the mediocre Coyotes, to solidify their grip on last place. The Rangers, mercifully, were off Tuesday night, which meant they couldn't worsen their 4-5-2-0 record and also that none among their core of 78-year-old stars could get hurt.
All this dark news has turned New York sports fans in an unfamiliar direction as they seek warmth in the autumn of this hopeless year. They look to the Nets, who begin their defense of the Eastern Conference title. There, on the Jersey flats, is a team thin on stars (save Jason Kidd and the declining Dikembe Mutombo). It's a team that has risen up in stirring, underdog style after so many years as cellar-dwellers. It's a team that after seasons of fan indifference is attracting a following of its own. It's a team that is run tightly and firmly. (Nets GM Rod Thorn, for example, recently suspended key reserve Chris Childs for being overweight, and ordered him to get into shape before coming back.)
This Nets news all sounds very appealing, but it doesn't sound like news from a team in today's New York, now does it? This sounds more like a team that'll make a fan feel good, that'll give rise to some optimism. This sounds like a team that anyone from anywhere could love.
Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides every Wednesday
at CNNSI.com.
