Visits: 4
In the midst of the morning rush hour, the billboard appeared across from the main entrance of Madison Square Garden, just in time for Friday’s game between the New York Knicks and the Golden State Warriors. Underneath a plea — “Can You Make NY Sports Great Again?” — Kevin Durant and Kristaps Porzingis, in matching blue jerseys, held the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
If only …
The N.B.A. season just started, but Knicks fans are fixated on acquiring Durant, the Warriors star forward who can opt for free agency next summer. He will be in New York this weekend to play the Knicks on Friday and the Nets on Sunday.
At their training facility in Tarrytown, N.Y., on Thursday, Knicks players were unaware of the billboard on their home turf.
“I didn’t see that. I will definitely look at it, though,” said Knicks center Enes Kanter, who has publicly tried to recruit star players to New York through the megaphone of social media.
Still, he claimed no responsibility for the billboard.
“It was not mine, no. I didn’t pay for it,” he said with a sly smile. “Waiting for the summer.”
Two fed-up Knicks fans, who own a marketing and advertising company, couldn’t wait any longer. “It’s been gut-wrenching,” said Benjamin Pokh, 31, the co-founder of nycadvertisements.com. “It’s tough to consistently watch a poor product.”
Hence the billboard.
Pokh painfully recounted the missteps of recent seasons, how his hopes were crushed (see: Carmelo Anthony), punctuated with the debacle of last season. “Last year was so disgusting,” he said. “We wanted the voice of fans to be heard.”
Pokh would not reveal the cost of the billboard. “It’s about the size of a 350-square foot apartment in New York, and it cost about three times as much,” he said. “In the Jewish religion, you don’t want to talk about the cost. It takes away the karma of it. And I really want this to come to fruition, from the bottom of my heart.” And wallet.
Knicks Coach David Fizdale insisted he hasn’t paid attention to Durant’s contract status.
“Not even a little bit. Nope. I don’t even like saying it when it’s not about anything, because he’s a killer,” Fizdale said. “I was watching film on him the other day, and the guy’s just so efficient. He’s a special player. But no, I can’t talk about that other stuff.”
Fizdale said his immediate focus was on preparing his 1-4 team for a murderers’ row of opponents. Stephen Curry. Klay Thompson. Draymond Green. And, yes, Durant.
“Oh goodness. I don’t know if you can describe the challenges,” Fizdale said of the Warriors. “I like the opportunity myself. For our young guys to go up against the champs in the Garden, that’s a great opportunity for us. They can play free, and no one expects us to do anything against them. Except for me.”
The Knicks are expected to have enough cap space this summer to pay a free agent such as Durant if he enters free agency, as many think he will. But would Durant leave a team poised to win its third consecutive N.B.A. championship for a franchise that last held the O’Brien Trophy in 1973?
“He’s one of the top, top-two scorers in the world,” said Kanter, who was Durant’s teammate in Oklahoma City and also will be a free agent next summer. “He’s an unbelievable guy. A very good locker-room guy, a very good friend. Obviously, he’s a two-time finals M.V.P. You cannot say enough about the guy. He’s definitely earned that respect for himself.”
But does he want New York for himself?
“Man, I have no idea,” Kanter said. “I’m not in his head. But one thing I am right now: I’m worried about the Knicks.”
After an entertaining start to the season, filled with comebacks that have fallen just short, the Knicks suffered their worst loss of the season Wednesday, falling 110-87 in Miami.
“Losing those three close ones was tough, and then obviously, the culmination of getting your butt kicked,” Fizdale said. “You have to get up the next day after getting punched, and really getting smacked, but the other three games were right to the wire. So we have to wake up to a 30-point loss and Golden State. But hey, this is the league.”
And this is reality: The Knicks will struggle with Porzingis out for most, if not all, of the season because of a knee injury.
Porzingis can thank Durant for coining one of the best nicknames in the N.B.A. “He can shoot, he can make the right plays, he can defend, he’s a 7-footer that can shoot all the way out to the 3-point line,” Durant said about Porzingis in early 2016. “That’s rare. And block shots — that’s like a unicorn in this league.”
Porzingis initially wasn’t sure it was a compliment. “At first, I was a little confused. I was like, what is this?” he said on an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show last year. “A horse with a ponytail? What does it mean? But then they explained it to me. What he tried to say was that I am a unique player. It was nice to hear him say good things about me.”
And now the two players are side-by-side in a mythical rendering about 15 feet tall and nine feet wide.
Expect Knicks fans’ fixation with Durant to grow as well.
“We’d be a shoo-in for the finals,” Pokh said. “With K.D., we could match the Celtics and the 76ers.”
Of course, Durant isn’t about to forecast his future, instead leaving die-hard Knicks fans searching for clues, looking for hidden messages as if they were Easter eggs in a Disney movie.
“Did Kevin Durant like a post about Knicks’ Frank Ntilikina?” read a recent headline on the SNY’s Knicks blog. When Durant clicked on the post’s heart icon, did he realize that he was doing just that to Knicks fans — setting their hearts aflutter?
Then why exactly did Durant, whose Instagram handle is @easymoneysniper, subsequently break those very hearts by unliking his like? Did Durant suddenly realize the implications of his initial keystroke? The alleged like occurred just before the Warriors’ season opener.
And now this. When Durant walks into the Garden on Friday, the billboard will be hard to miss.