These are tempting times for the Knicks and their newly assembled front-office team. Kyrie Irving, a bona fide All-Star, is lobbying to play for them, signaling that the stench of the Phil Jackson era has been quickly cleansed.
Longtime followers of the Knicks, without a championship to crow about since 1973, may also recognize this as good news and bad news. They’ve been here before. These breathless pursuits of stars tend not to end well.
Still, intrigue has settled over the metropolitan area like a summer haze. Fans are filling sports talk radio lines, clamoring to know if the Knicks can land Irving, the disgruntled Cleveland Cavalier, in a trade that the flashy point guard has requested in an apparent effort to separate himself from LeBron James.