It's New York. What's the Big Deal?

The New York Knicks and the New Jersey Nets both cleared massive amounts of cap space to try to sign at least one of, and in their dreams, two of the top three free agents. New Yorkers have always thought highly of themselves, so it's no surprise that they thought it logical that Wade, James, or Bosh would come running to play for them. New York is the greatest city in the world they said. New York has a rich basketball tradition, and bringing a championship to New York would greatly enhance your legacy they said.

After all of their shameless self promotion, the Knicks landed.....Amare Stoudemire. That's it. And the supposedly soon to be residents of Brooklyn, the current New Jersey Nets acquired...., well OK, they didn't really land any big name players. They did manage to hire one of the worst available general managers in Billy King though. If you're not familiar with King, talk to a Sixer's fan and ask them how he destroyed basketball in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future.

I'm sorry to tell you this New York area basketball fans, but when it comes to the NBA, New York's past basketball glory doesn't mean anything to current players. Willis Reed may have been great, but that was years ago. The current Knicks are a floundering team that is still trying to recover from the ineptitude of Isiah Thomas. To put it bluntly, the Knicks suck, and you're not going to win a title there.

The Nets are a somewhat unknown commodity. They were the worst team in the league last year, but they are now under new ownership. You just don't know what will happen in a situation like that. While the promise is that they will be moving to Brooklyn, it hasn't happened yet. They could be in Jersey for years to come. As far as I'm concerned, New York and New Jersey are the same thing, but most would disagree. Big name free agents aren't heading to New Jersey.

Miami, on the other hand, has the legendary Pat Riley making the important decisions and Wade was already there. Also don't underestimate the effect of New York winters versus the beach.

So if you were LeBron James or Chirs Bosh, would you go to New York?