Tuesday Morning Bathroom Break (2-23-21)
This Day in Music (2-23-1999)
Philadelphia Hip-Hop group The Roots releases album, “Things Fall Apart.” On the same day Detroit artist Eminem released his debut album “The Slim Shady LP,” but it’s my birthday damnit and I like this song better. Fight me.
Yesterday shit hit the preverbal fan for the Artemi Panarin and the New York Rangers. My colleague Nick did a good job presenting the demented facts of the situation last night, but seeing as this is a matter of foreign affairs, well, I had to add my two cents. This is no doubt a tricky situation, even before we add any of the reported espionage to the table. As I tried to discuss to the best of my abilities yesterday, the type of violent act Panarin is accused of committing has no place in sports or any decent form of society. If these allegations did prove to have merit, that’s a black mark that would need to be dealt with to the highest level of discrimination against the offender. The validity of these claims has absolutely come into question granted the source and situation. We as Americans, probably too often, fall into a trap of assuming that any information coming out of a country like Russia must be a bogus thought-control exercise. The country does have a checkered history of manipulating the truth in order to fit a particular narrative. In truth all countries do this, even our own, so to make the assumption based on those beliefs alone doesn’t strike this writer as the proper thing to do. Most have found the singular source of these reports to be a nefarious character, popular consensus seems to be that Andrei Nazarov has an axe to grind. The Rangers franchise has gone as far as to assert this belief on record in a statement of support for Panarin. The statement is strong, showing the Rangers are willing to accept whatever comes from taking on a foreign power. I certainly did not have the Rangers entering a Cold War with the Russian government on my “2021 events,” bingo card. Let’s all hope the hit didn’t come from such high places.
As life without fans draws to a long-awaited close, we can now begin to wonder just how much the landscape has changed in NY basketball. Things have changed quite a bit in just under a years time, as the Knicks appear to be on a come-up rarely seen by this generation of fans while the Nets ascend to the very top of the NBA. With a triumvirate of mega-talent with equally-tumultuous personalities, the Brooklyn outfit should be the hottest ticket in town once such a thing becomes practical again. We have not yet seen what a feature attraction of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving looks like, but I can’t help the suspicion that it will remain a decidedly off-broadway production. This is not in any way a means of knocking the Nets as a team or the players they’ve collected. It would frankly be a welcomed change of pace to have a team in this city capable of unadulterated dominance. The issue here is more one of circumstance, as their cross-town rival Knicks find themselves in the thick of things under the leadership of a veteran coach who preaches intelligent basketball and a defense-first mentality. The team plays well-above fighting weight, and the fact is New York lives vicariously through the Knicks in good times and bad. Can the glitz and glamour of the Nets over-ride every natural instinct in the New York fan? As much as fans and drive-time callers like to play fantasy GM, NY is a city that celebrates underdogs in a sort-of backwards Napoleon-complex. The immigrant-mentality of our ancestors bonds us to the allure of a rags-to-riches story despite the city itself existing as the ultimate power broker in the free world. The Nets are an ideal match for the facade of Manhattan, but the soul of the city will always be reflected in their beloved Knicks.