John Walters

The Super Bowl is history, Roger Clemens has already appeared before Congress and the first spring training games do not begin for a couple of weeks. And so we New Yorkers currently have nothing to distract us from the fact that we live in the worst basketball metropolis in America.

You could not pay me to attend a New York Knicks game this season. I wouldn't watch them for $20 million, which is roughly the sum the Knicks are paying their marquee player, Stephon Marbury, to not watch them, either.

The New Jersey Nets are so abject that last week Devean George of the Dallas Mavericks blocked a trade that would have sent him and other Mavs (all of whom have since probably texted "THX DEV") to the Nets in exchange for Jason Kidd. George did so by invoking the arcane "Bird rule," thus drawing the first and only comparison between himself and Larry Bird we will ever see.

Did you see the All-Star Game rosters on Sunday? Only one player from the Knicks or Nets is on the squad, and that man is Kidd, who it appears isn’t even on the Nets anymore.

College hoops is no better. The New Jersey Institute of Technology, located in Newark, is off to an 0-27 start. St. John's, once a heavyweight in the Big East, needed more than fifteen minutes to score its first bucket against Georgetown in a game at Madison Square Garden last month. Wagner College, located in Staten Island, has a head coach who wears a seat belt during games. But then Wagner is actually having a winning season -- perhaps the administration is just ensuring he doesn't bolt.

Honestly, had I known that "Finding Forrester" would provide the last compelling hoops scenes based in Manhattan back when I saw it in 2001, I might have moved a long time ago.

How do you explain a city whose street games are the stuff of legend, being so lacking in basketball prowess? And why must it be so difficult for us fans to find any player worth rooting for? The NBA league headquarters are located here. The NBA store is located here. So how come no NBA player worth giving a damn about is located here?

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Look at the Nets -- I promise, it won't take long. On Nov. 2, the Nets lost to the Toronto Raptors by 37 points -- at home. Kidd had a triple-single that evening, scoring 2 points to complement his six assists and three rebounds. Everyone has an off night, even the league's sixth-highest paid player, but New Jersey (23-30), has lost four more games by at least 24 points this season. The Nets appear to be able to coexist comfortably with embarrassment.

It extends all the way down to the high school level. Last spring's PSAL high school championship game between Lincoln and Boys and Girls, held at Madison Square Garden, was marred by so many brawls in the stands that the fourth quarter had to be delayed for 10 minutes. Finally, local hip-hop personality DJ Enuff, who was emceeing the contest, had had Enuff. "What the f___ is wrong with y'all?" he begged.

My thoughts exactly. At least the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) has an excuse. This is only the Highlanders' second season playing Division I basketball -- and my God, what must a recruiting visit to Newark entail, anyway?

St. John's, though, is more difficult to understand. The Red Storm (10-14) were a pillar of the Big East, and of college basketball in general, in the 80's. Last month St. John's hosted Georgetown at Madison Square Garden, which at one time would have been the toughest ticket outside of Durham to secure.

However, on that night, St. John's committed 12 turnovers and missed its first 11 shots while falling behind 31-5. The Red Storm did not score a field goal until there was 4:33 remaining in the first half. Georgetown's largest lead came later, when they went up by 39, 53-14, on a dunk by Patrick Ewing, Jr. I kid you not.

It is the 15-37 Knicks, though, who are most responsible for transforming Madison Square Garden into the world's most heinous arena. On Nov. 29, New York, playing its first of only two nationally televised games all season, lost 104-59 at Boston. And if that margin -- the greatest in the history of the Knicks-Celtics rivalry -- were not embarrassing enough, recall how the final 30 seconds unfolded.

The Celtics were up 104-56. Not wanting to humiliate New York, which had already been through an eight-game losing streak, with a headline-grabbing 50-point loss, Boston coach Doc Rivers had his Celtics dribble out most of the final 24 seconds of the contest. Boston intentionally took a 24-second violation rather than shoot. The Knicks, inbounding with two seconds remaining, launched a 37-foot desperation three-pointer that went in.

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