Read This Post If You're Against Stabbing Babies.

Facebook groups fascinate me. I read the name of every one joined by my friends. Some of them are funny, and those I'll join. Some, on the other hand, were created by some loser who couldn't come up with anything clever but wanted to have a group with a lot of members so he could feel accepted so he uses some cheap tactic to get people to join. It'll always have a title like "Let's See How many People form New Jersey are on FB!" or "I Bet There Are Over 100,000 Yankee Fans on FB". There's also, my personal favorite, "If You Fear Allah, Join This Group". Really? That's what I should do if I fear God? Join your Facebook group? Funny, I always thought that I should do something crazy like maybe pray. Hey now that I know that all I have to do is join your group, it's all good!

I think it all started with that one group started by that guy who's girlfriend would marry him or a girl would go out with him if he could get like a hundred thousand people to join his group. That was succesful and people saw that they could simple try to get people to join their groups without having any real hook.

I was thinking about athletes who are known for choking today, when my mind went to an athlete who literally choked... his coach. Was it just because I was only around 11 or 12 around that time or was not a big enough deal made of Spreewell? I mean, he choked his coach! He physically assaulted his immediate superior, and was back in the NBA the next year. He got the same punishment that Arenas and Crittenon got for jokingly threatning each other. Then Spree was dealt to the Knicks and went on with his career as if nothing had happened. How crazy is that? If an office employee even verbally abused his supervisor he'd be fired immediately. No way would he be suspended for the rest of the fiscal year and then transferred to a more successful branch. I mean Owens didn't choke Andy Reid nor did Keyshawn to Gruden. And those guys were benched. Spree just thought he wasn't being used right and he choked his coach.

Then, of course, there's the Knicks. Sigh. What can you say? They dealt away a Knick hero, a fan favorite who, admittedly was at the tail end of his career, for a guy who choked his previous coach. That's where the Knicks started going downhill. They became increasingly short sighted. They did go the finals a couple of years after with Spree, but that was the worst thing that could've happened. The Knicks were rewarded for their short sightedness. They went into a "We'll just take on overpaid players from other teams who seemingly are still good and therefore will never have to rebuild" mode. That's when the Knicks made the trade that sent the team into a decade long funk. A decade long run well over the cap, a situation they are just now recovering from. I speak of course to the Patrick Ewing trade. Rather than just let Ewing's contract just expire at the end of the year, they traded him for a boatload of terrible contracts. They then tried to recover from that trade by making the same types of trades for the next 10 years (Marbury, Penny, JJames, Curry, Francis plus many more."

Well, the Knicks are finally out of that, but on that Ewing deal. As much as I love football and baseball, until the 8th grade the NBA was IT for me. The Giants were terrible more often than not throughout my childhood and I started watching baseball in 96 so I took the Yanks for granted. I loved the Knicks. I remember watching a Knicks-Pacers playoff game with my dad. By the way, I'm not trying to pull a Bill Simmons here. Knicks were down by three with under fifteen second left. My dad tells me the game's over and is openly wondering why I'm still watching. When LJ hit the four point play I erupted, even my dad was impressed. I remember Houston's shot against Miami. That shot that Made Gus Johnson who he is today in my mind. I'll never forget his call "Down the lane... running one handerrrrrrrrrr.... OFF THE FRONT RIM AND IN WITH EIGHT TENTHS OF A SECOND TO GO!!!" I think that's verbatum. I should look it up.

Anyway, before I started rambling what I'd meant to say was as much as the Knicks were IT for me growing up, I loved, I mean LOVED, Patrick Ewing.I mean how many kids, before they've started growing, wanted to grow up to be an NBA center? Kids want to be guards or, at the most, small forwards. I wanted to be a center. I'd play basketball with my back to the hoop. Couldn't hit a fade away, but would try at least five every game. I was so much into being a center that even today my game, such as it is, is more suited for being a center. I'm the shortest guy out there, but still I live in the paint trying to get rebounds and posting up. That's how much I loved Ewing. When the whole Gold Club thing happened, I barely understood it but was still upset by the sole fact that it was obviously something negative happening to Pat. I loved the guy so much that it still bothers me when people don't put him at the level that I think he should be at. I know, I probably overrate him. I can't help it. You never love a player the way you did when you were a kid. I was always flabbergasted by the treatment Ewing got from Knick fans toward the end of his career. I admit, had I been older then I might have been acting the same way.

So you could see why I was so crushed when the Knicks traded him away. I know it sounds melodramatic, but I never felt the same towards the Knicks after that. They betrayed me. They sent my hero to Seattle for freaking Glen Rice. I didn't understand the whole cap part of it. All I knew was that Ewing was gone and Glen Rice and Shandon Anderson were Knicks.

What's the point of all this? I don't know. I planned to just write about Spreewell and was reminded about the Ewing trade. I guess this could serve for any non Knick fans to excuse me for being giddy at the fact that the Knicks have a chance at greatness again. So forgive me if I'm overbearing if the Knicks land a big free agent or tow, and forgive me if I'mm too much to handle if the Knicks ever win it all. See, I'm not sure I ever thought the Giants would win the Super Bowl in my lifetime, I never really thought about. I mean REALLY thought about it. But the Knicks, the Knicks I was sure would win. And they didn't All that expectation, all that excitement, wasted. So yeah, a Knicks title would be an unbelievable sports experience for me. But it won't be what it should be because in the back of my mind I'll always remember that they dealt my hero.

Sorry, I just went over this and saw how carried away I got. I'll try to not let it happen again.

Peace.