With the Knicks, there’s always something. Last year, Ewing was injured during his final Knick playoff run, and the Indiana Pacers’ frontcourt dominated the glass to advance to the NBA Finals. The year before that, Ewing tore his achilles during the playoffs, but the Knicks miraculously made it to the championship series, anyway. Fans began to talk about how much better the team was without Ewing-until San Antonio Spurs’ tandem of Tim Duncan and David Robinson made them realize that sometimes, even a sullen, aging center is better than none at all.

The amazing thing is that those were relatively boring exits for the Knicks. In the early 1990s, the Knicks contended every year only to be crushed by Michael Jordan and the Bulls. The image the New York faithful took from that era was Charles Smith’s four missed layups at the end of a critical clash with Chicago in 1993.

After Jordan left, I hoped the championships would start rolling in. Instead, the Knicks only found new ways to lose. One year, fan favorite John Starks would inexplicably go 2-for-18 in Game 7 of the Finals, and Pat Riley would refuse to take him out in favor of sharpshooter Hubert Davis. Another year, Reggie Miller would score eight points in 18 seconds to steal an early lead from the Knicks-the series ended when Ewing missed a game-winning layup from two feet away. Another year, the Knicks would go up 3-1 on Miami—only to brawl with the Heat in Game 5 and lose several players to suspensions. The Heat came back to win.

So fate has it in for us. But even if fate were to relent, what would it matter? I’ve read about the championship teams of the early 1970s, the Knicks of Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Dave DeBusschere. My mom has told me about how all of New York fell in love with them.

Few in New York really fall in love with today’s Knicks. A healthy following does exist, but the draw seems to be a sort of morbid fascination rather than real affection. Some fans are repulsed by the thug image perpetuated by some of the players—Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason four years ago or Latrell Sprewell and Kurt Thomas today. Other fans are only mildly interested by the constant subplot, but never really grow attached to the actual team.

There are other reasons. The NBA isn’t as popular as it used to be. The players are overpaid. Tickets cost too much.

Whatever the reason for New York’s inabilityto embrace the Knicks as warmly as it does its baseball teams, the end result is even more depressing than the consistently bizarre exits.

It’s worse because when that glorious day finally does come, once the Knicks finally do overcome the adversity that constantly plagues them, no one will care.

And that’s a curse even Red Sox fans don’t have to live with.