The Knicks Are the MSG Humiliation Society

Each morning, before getting ready for work, I watch ESPN SportsCenter to catch up on the previous evening’s scores and highlights. Last Friday, as the scoreboard of the upcoming evening’s NBA games is being displayed, my bleary eyes see the Knicks-Kings graphic as:

Knicks
Kinks

(That's what happens when you mix so many k's early in the morning.)

I realized my mistake soon enough—but it got me to thinking: Wouldn’t the game be better if the New York Knicks did play the Kinks instead of the Sacramento Kings? I mean, the Knicks were on a four-game losing streak and off to a 2-5 start. Their highest-paid player, Stephon Marbury, was fined nearly $200,000 for skipping a game and didn’t seem much interested in earning a penny of his $20 million salary. Not to mention the franchise’s shame stemming from the sexual-harassment suit of Knicks' Head Coach/President Isiah Thomas.

Let’s face it: the Knicks had no chance of defeating Kevin Martin, Ron Artest, and co. (True enough, New York lost that evening, 123-118.)

But the Knicks—a team in turmoil—become instantly competitive against a bunch of sixty-something Brit-rockers who probably never picked up a basketball in their beer-sodden lives. Ray Davies has penned some of the greatest songs of the rock era, but his penchant for portraying lower-middle-class English life isn’t going to stop Zach Randolph and his 12.3 rebounds per game. Sure, Dave Davies and his surly attitude might hang with Eddy Curry for a quarter, but Curry’s got nearly a foot on him and would dominate the Muswell Hill guitarist in the paint. Yeah, you’d better (Wish You Could Fly Like) Superman, David…

I know what you’re thinking: the Kinks are only four members—how could they possibly compete with the New York Knicks? Well, you’ve got the Davies brothers at small and power forward, Mick Avory in the middle, and spunky Pete Quaife working the point, with Quaife’s successor, John Dalton, at shooting guard. Then there’s John Gosling, their keyboardist in the 1970s, as sixth man, rounding out with Jim Rodford, Ian Gibbons, and Bob Henrit from the Arista years off the bench.

Wanna make a team of overpaid, dysfunctional prima donnas look like a well-oiled machine? Have ‘em play a band of senior-citizen musicians who couldn’t tell Lola from Tom Gola.

Now if we could only get the Seattle Sonics to play the Rolling Stones…