5 teams to root for now that rooting for the Knicks is (still) misery

It’s a bad time to be a Knicks fan. How do you fix that? Stop being a Knicks fan.

Have you tried being a New York Knicks fan? Don’t. It’s painful. It’s less walking in somebody else’s shoes and more trading your shoes for being held down by a grade school bully and getting flicked in the head repeatedly while your parents look on and laugh. It’s exactly like that.

This is an emotional experience you don’t need in your life. It’s an emotional experience no one needs. Look, just because a team is close to you doesn’t mean you need to attach yourself to them on a personal level. There are a lot of teams out there. Many of them could use a stalwart Knicks fan to come join them in their fervor.

I’m not saying this is something you have to do. Altering allegiance is a complicated procedure, and it’s not something you should be pushed into. I just want to lay out some options. Here are a few other teams you could root for instead.

5. Team Rocket

“But Pokemon is for kids!”

Shut up, mom. I’m a 30 year old man, and I can do what I want. Also, we’re out of Easy Mac.

I know what you’re thinking; Team Rocket are the bad guys. They do the bad things. They try to steal Ash’s Pikachu, and they employ a talking cat, and they ride in balloons sometimes. These are villainous hallmarks if there ever were any.

But consider this: they’re largely inept. Moving from Knicks fandom to Team Rocket fandom wouldn’t involve any real personal shakeup to your sort of fandom. You’d just be rooting against all odds for something good to happen for a team that’s broadly disliked. It’d be like trading raisins for dried cranberries. There’s no real point, but there’s no real difference.

They too have heavy handed leadership in a shadowy figure named Giovanni. You barely see him, much like Dolan has fashioned his approach to leadership since deciding to pay Phil Jackson to build a fictional team in his own mind while sowing dissent in the actual one. Giovanni might have a band as well, but there’s only so much time in an episode, and one does want to focus on the crazy antics of Ash and friends as they travel around doing the same thing over and over.

They’ve also had a bit of a face turn in recent seasons. They’ve gone from the big bad to the smaller, more charming bad. This could be right up your alley as a Knicks fan. Just give it a thought. That’s all I ask.