We have completed another sports year after the Penguins won the Stanley Cup and the Warriors won the NBA Finals. It’s another year that New York does not celebrate a championship in the four major sports and college sports. Depressing.
It’s been five years since Gotham celebrated a Canyon of Heroes parade. That was when the Giants won the Super Bowl in 2012. Ever since then, it has been downhill. My oh my where have the glory days gone!
Five years is what we call a drought in the Big Apple. It is unacceptable for a city that has rich history, not to mention teams are rich with resources that no other teams in other cities have. There’s no reason to have any championship drought at anytime.
The Yankees, Jets, Giants, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Rutgers, Seton Hall, and St. John’s have given nothing to watch or enjoy. The best thing we’ve had lately was watching the Mets participate in the World Series a few years back. Of course, they have to ruin it by losing to the Royals, who clinched their championship at Citi Field.
Who knows when it’s going to get better? It doesn’t seem like it will. Sure hope springs eternal, but what evidence is out there that one of the teams will finally win a championship anytime soon?
The Yankees and Giants provide hope for their fans, but that’s what it is. It remains to be seen if either or both can get it done come postseason. Figure both of them will be playing in the postseason, but only thing that matters is if they win a championship.
New Yorkers have to hope either or both of those teams come through. The rest of the teams don’t represent a chance.
The Mets are technically not out of it, and they have a chance to win the wild-card by battling the Marlins, Phillies and Braves during divisional play. But will that be enough? The starting rotation has been underwhelming, and the bullpen has been unreliable. Maybe Yoenis Cespedes, Seth Lugo and Steven Matz coming back can give them a boost, but they need Matt Harvey to be the ace again, and that may be too much to ask. Unless the pitching gets better, it’s hard to take the Mets seriously.
Even if the Amazins make the playoffs as a wild-card team, their postseason is likely going to be short as last year when they lost the wild-card game to the Giants.
By releasing all their core players, the Jets have made it clear they are tanking this season to get the No. 1 draft pick next year, which would mean they would draft a quarterback of their choice whether it’s USC quarterback Sam Darnold or UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen. It’s actually a great idea since this franchise has not had a game-changing quarterback since Joe Namath. But a New York franchise should never be in a position to tank at any time. This is not something to be proud of.
The Knicks are a mess, and they will be a mess as long as James Dolan owns the franchise. Everything he touches turns into garbage. He can’t get it right in getting players and getting the right management. His problem is he wants yes men that will agree with him in running the team rather than hire a professional to run a team. He has hired so many executives, coaches and players to turn it around since his stewardship, and they still stink.
The Knicks want to trade Carmelo Anthony, but there are obstacles. What team would want an aging player who can’t shoot? Also, he has a no-trade clause, so he can dictate what he can do. It’s doubtful he wants to go elsewhere, and he wants to stick it to Knicks basketball boss Phil Jackson by exercising his clause. He wants to get Jackson to leave by staying. Basically, it’s a battle of wills of those two men. That sure does not sound encouraging.
There’s nothing to say about the Nets. They stink, and they have no draft picks to build around after foolish trades such as trading picks for Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Jason Terry. It was painful when they found out their 2017 draft pick will be the No. 1 pick, which belongs to the Celtics. They have no players to build around for years to come.
The Rangers have been Stanley Cup contenders in recent years, but their window of opportunity is closed. Their core players are not good enough to perform in the playoffs, and Henrik Lundqvist always stinks come playoff time. They blew their opportunity of winning the Cup in 2014 when Lundqvist could not protect leads in Games 1, 2 and 5 against the Kings. There was a reason no one in town was excited about them in the playoffs this year.
The Islanders are not good enough to win the Stanley Cup. They don’t have much speed, and their defense leaves so much to be desired. John Tavares hasn’t been great enough to play like a star, and with him being a free agent next season, there is a good chance he will be playing elsewhere rather than waste his career with a team that has no idea how to win a championship.
The Devils have had some lean years, but maybe there is hope in that they won the 2017 NHL Draft Lottery in getting the No. 1 pick. Here’s the problem, though: Nolan Patrick is not Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews or Sidney Crosby. Think of him as Seth Jones, who has developed into a serviceable player for the Predators. They need more than Patrick and Taylor Hall to be good. They need better goaltending, much-needed depth and competent defense. Devils general manager Ray Shero has ways to go in building that team, and it’s not going to be easy.
Rutgers, Seton Hall, and St. John’s have no chance of a national championship in basketball anytime soon. They can’t keep up with the blue bloods in college basketball. Rutgers has no hope in college football, especially being in the Big Ten. If Rutgers football coach Chris Ash somehow finds success, he will be moving on to another powerhouse football program.
The Yankees and Giants are the city’s best chances of participating in the Canyon of Heroes parade, but there are questions about both teams.
The Bronx Bombers are a good story this year, especially with Aaron Judge being the unanimous favorite to win the Rookie of the Year with the home runs he is hitting. But it’s only June, and it’s hard to believe this starting rotation can do this in the playoffs. Winning the AL East is nice, but let’s not fool ourselves. The division is not that great with the Red Sox and Orioles being mediocre and the Blue Jays being awful.
The Giants are touted to be a Super Bowl contender this coming season. They have the defense to get it done, but there are questions about the offense. Eli Manning had a rough year with the 16 interceptions he threw, and Odell Beckham Jr. is not only a headcase, but he was terrible in the postseason by dropping four passes against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC wild-card game. This Giants team does not have a look of a championship team, and the coaching leaves so much to be desired based on how unprepared they were against the Packers in their forgettable playoff game.
Maybe the Yankees and Giants will surprise, but they have to show it for anyone to believe it. They will get their shot when they participate in their respective postseason sport.
It would be nice if they did. These last six years have been boring in New York sports. It has gotten to the point where every team is irrelevant here.
The fanbase here deserve better considering they pay expensive tickets to see their teams play. There has to be a payoff, and the only payoff is a championship.
Back in my day, all the teams in town were competing for championships in the 90s. It was a sure thing. Now, we are banking on hope rather than expecting it.
If hope is the buzzword in New York sports, then we have really gone downhill where there is no where to go but up.
-Leslie Monteiro
