The Charlotte Hornets’ first home preseason game felt more like it was being played 600-plus miles northeast, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in Manhattan.
Blue and orange garb overpowered teal and white inside the Queen City’s Spectrum Center. There were more Jalen Brunson and Patrick Ewing jerseys than LaMelo Ball and Kemba Walker. The loudest cheers of the night came for the road team, and intensified when second-round Knicks rookie Tyler Kolek scored his first unofficial NBA points.
New York fans love their basketball team, especially their rookies. They take pleasure in taking over another team’s domain. Since 2001, though, they’ve sat through more seasons with 30 or fewer wins than playoff appearances. They haven’t seen their team get beyond the second round of the postseason since the start of the new millennium. That’s why the season ahead means so much.
The Knicks’ roster, on paper, features one of the best starting lineups in basketball, equipped with players in their primes, including a 6-foot-1 point guard who finished top five in MVP voting a season ago. They added arguably the two best wings in basketball who have never made an All-Star team. And earlier this month, New York added one of the best shooting big men to ever play. The front office is…
