Madison Square Garden, the home of the NY Knicks is a sad place to be these days. Lots of seats are left empty, the beer is warm, popcorn stale and the fans who consistently cheer the team on are let down night after night as the players start bricking it, get butter fingers and lose big leads in the fourth quarter.

There was a time when the Garden was the hottest ticket in town, Spike Lee danced along the sidelines and it was packed with stars and frenzied fans. Now that the Knicks have a 23-38 record - 12th place in the East, celebrities only come through if they have nothing else to do. Season ticket holders give their seats away so they can get home early. The lone soldier, the most loyal fan of them all, is Spike Lee. He still makes it to every game, but he’s not jumping up and down anymore.. maybe he uses the time to think of the new movies he should be making. (heh heh, when does he work?)

For some reason though.. the Garden is known.. as Michael Jordan puts it, as “the mecca of basketball.” It’s a respected place, but the Knicks only won two NBA championships, and that was in the 70’s.. Go figure.

Magic Johnson is another person who regards the Garden as a big deal. When I was at one of the games earlier this year, I saw Magic Johnson sitting in the Spike Lee section and figured he was slumming for the evening. But he might have been doing research.. yesterday the NY Post reported that he’s interested in taking on the job as General Manager for the team. It’s obvious that the current GM Scott Layden and Garden President Jim Dolan are clueless. Magic sees himself coming in and playing a role similar to the one he currently holds with the Los Angeles Lakers.. in a consultant/recruiter capacity.

That may sound unbelievable, to leave a championship franchise for the… umm.. Knicks. But here it is, in his words.. “I’d be interested. I would definitely sit down and talk with them. To leave the Lakers, you’d have to leave them for another great franchise, which has a history, with the fans. I love it here [in New York]. So when I was saying it, I was saying that that would have to be the only situation that I would probably leave the Lakers for.”

As a Knick fan, it’s like God has opened the heavens.. he’s blessed us.. fuc some yellow and purple.. drape that orange and blue over your shoulders Magic. And he knows exactly what he can do for us.. quotes please “You need a salesman in the Knick organization, somebody who the athletes can look at and say, ‘Oh, wow, OK, Magic’s coming to the Garden. I went and recruited Shaq for the Lakers. And with the Knicks right now, they need a recruiter.”

Buy your tickets now. Because if this happens there’s gonna be a whole lotta bandwagon hoppin. By the way, when is Allen Iverson’s contract up? I’ll have to have Magic give him a call.

*Edit - Mar 14th 2002, 01: 39 PM *
The fact that Magic would even consider coming to the Knicks is amazing.. but for them to say they don’t need his help, only demonstrates how lost the team’s management is.. but that’s exactly what they told the Daily News.. that his help wasn’t wanted.

Ha ha.. What idiots.