Every Knicks game matters to someone

A chance to be seen through new eyes

I spent much of the weekend holed up in bed, battling a sinus infection. That meant plenty of my wife and children coming to check on me, especially my younger daughter, who noticed the Knicks-Clippers game on my television. (For those of you looking for game breakdown, our great Jonathan Macri has you covered.)

My younger is five, and she's displaying all the classic early signs of becoming a basketball junkie. We come home from some fancy event, and she's still in her formal shoes and a dress — no matter, she makes a beeline for the basketball in our garage and starts dribbling. She played her first organized game this weekend, and it has taken her level of interest up another notch.

So when she saw the Knicks down 14 entering the fourth quarter on Sunday, it didn't register as another potential loss in what has been a non-playoff season for New York. It was basketball. She wanted in, climbed into bed, and snuggled close, asking questions.

Focusing on the New York comeback, asking me how far behind the Knicks were as they made their run — "I don't know how to do minuses yet," she explained — she fell in love with the game Marcus Morris Sr. was having. She was incredulous that the Knicks hadn't managed to complete the comeback and win. She was utterly engaged, drawn to the game the way so many of you are, the reason you're here, reading, the reason I started covering basketball for a living.

I remember that first moment for me. It came a bit later (she's more advanced than I am) — I had turned nine, and was watching Game 3 of the first round series between the Knicks and 76ers. I'd experienced this rivalry up close, as a South Jersey kid going to The Spectrum, and I watched with great intensity as the Knicks furiously rallied to capture Game 2 and eventually, sweep the series. My father had explained to me that in the best-of-five, if the Knicks lost Game 2, they'd lose home court advantage. In a basic way, I understood the stakes. And Trent Tucker's three, to cap an 11-0 run, well, I felt it, viscerally. My dad noted my sweaty palms with laughter.

This is how my daughter felt Marcus Morris Sr.'s made shots in the fourth quarter. Seeing her rise on the bed, pumping her fist, as Frank Ntilikina's driving layup led to an And-1 — a motion familiar to fans as anything, but her first time doing it — I recognized something larger in the conversation about who the Knicks should consider trading between now and the deadline.

This is an entertainment business. The Knicks owe it to themselves to have conversations about Morris, about Ntilikina, about players who can be exchanged for other players and future assets, to turn a midseason loss to the Clippers into a first-round playoff series victory, exchanging lesser today for greater tomorrow. 

But know, too, that every single game the Knicks play carries with it an opportunity for a young fan to be engaged and won. Watching my younger daughter mimic shooting over defenders like Marcus Morris Sr. at the dinner table Sunday night (the defenders were her plate of salmon and vegetables), it served as another reminder that this is a human business, and not just on the team side, with Morris making it clear he prefers to stay, but on the consumer side.

Will it matter to the long-term future of the Knicks if Morris plays in a game in March? Probably not. Will it matter to a young fan who attached herself, emotionally, to Morris on Sunday? Certainly, multiplied may times over. This is the nature of fandom.

A trade has costs. And not just in terms of wins and losses. This is not to say the Knicks shouldn't consider it. But it's worth thinking about it in full.

It's hard, sometimes, for those of us in the press box to believe the level of engagement on Twitter, when another team goes on a 12-0 run against the Knicks, or the way the crowd rises late in the fourth quarter at The Garden, even in what is the latest of a series of losing seasons.

It's a business. A sport. A game. A passion.

NBA basketball is all of those things. It's my job not to lose sight of any of that.