It is an age-old question: Which is a better professional sports town, New York or Boston? This question is not just a matter for scholarly debate. It is a ritualistic argument that allows fans to demonstrate their faith. Much has been said about the relative performances of these two cities’ sports teams in the 20th century. As a native Bostonian, I will not offer comment other than to say that in between the Celtics’ 16 championship runs, a lot of awful things happened in the past century.
The new millennium is a natural breaking point — an opportunity to escape the curses of the past. Since 2000, Boston has had a slight advantage in hockey, basketball and football. In baseball, the Yankees and Red Sox have each won two World Series.
The miseries of the Mets, however, cannot be quantified (except in the civil suit against Mets ownership in which a jury will have to award damages) and are perhaps too emotionally complex to be expressed in prose. Overall, Boston would seem to have a clear advantage. New Yorkers, after the Giants victory, however, may sense a shift in momentum. What will the next half-decade bring? In this column, I will limit my analysis to the two cities’ competition in basketball.
In basketball, New York is doomed in the near future. For the next three seasons, the Knicks will not be able to overcome overpaying Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony maximum contracts. Amare’s knees have already declined to the point that he is no longer a good starting power forward, let alone a star. His defense has reached new levels of atrociousness, and his contract is completely uninsured.
Melo has not so much declined as failed to address the major shortcomings in his game. Melo’s assist to hold-ball-and-jab-step ratio is impossible to calculate because you can’t divide by infinity: He needs to pass more. Defensively, Melo remains subpar. The four-year deal given to Tyson Chandler is more palatable, but at the age of 29, things only go downhill from here, and he already is quite injury-prone.
Jeremy Lin will be a restricted free agent this year, and resigning him will push the Knicks further over the cap. The Knicks will likely be just good enough to make the playoffs and continuously miss the lottery. They might grab a star in the middle of the first round of the draft, but, absent this unlikely outcome, the Knicks roster will be barren in the summer of 2014-15.
As attractive as New York is as a destination, the Knicks under owner James Dolan have always sought immediate gratification at the expense of long-term planning. They might build a super team in four years, but, more likely, they will overpay fringe stars to inspire false hope.
It gets worse for New York — the Nets are coming to Brooklyn. That the “Nets” sound like the “Mets” is instructive: This is a franchise with poor future prospects. In the past two years, the Nets destroyed their future prospects. First, the team signed a fringe rotation player, Travis Outlaw, to a five-year, $35 million deal. This year, the NBA’s amnesty clause allowed the Nets to waive Outlaw, but the Nets still have to pay part of his contract even if his salary does not count against the salary cap.
The Nets’ greatest mistake, however, occurred last February, when the team traded promising rookie Derrick Favors, Devin Harris, a lottery pick in 2011 and the Golden State Warriors’ pick in 2012 for All-Star point guard Deron Williams. Williams has refused to sign an extension and is thought to be headed to Dallas.
The Nets recently traded their 2012 first-round draft pick for the overpaid and declining Gerald Wallace. In short, the Nets sold tremendously valuable future assets for players that have not even managed to get the Nets into the playoffs. The Nets could salvage the latter half of this decade if they tanked for the next few years and assembled picks, but I would bet on a Knicks-esque spending spree on mediocre players.
The Celtics’ situation is better, though not great. Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett become free agents after this year and not a moment too soon: This core is done. A trade of veteran Paul Pierce might be emotionally difficult but could allow the team to rebuild quickly, tanking next year. Rondo’s contract is a fairly large bargain and could be shipped for future assets, or held onto in the hopes that the Celtics can be great again before it expires.
But the Celtics’ greatest asset is that their upper-management has proved to be pretty competent. Unlike the Knicks and Nets, the Celtics have not and will not hand out crippling contracts to mediocre players. The Celtics will likely struggle next year but are not burdened by the ghosts of past decision-making.
In basketball, the Celtics will at least have a chance to compete at some point in the next half-decade, while the Knicks and Nets will toil in mediocrity, awaiting shifts in management.