The Circus is Leaving Town

...or maybe it's just arriving.

Tomorrow night at 9pm, LeBron James makes the decision all the world has awaited for months and months. It is only fitting that we lucky viewers are spoiled with a one-hour special to commemorate this monumental event.

All sarcasm aside, this is a pretty big deal. Yes, this whole process has been ridiculous. Yes, NBA free agency has become a glorified form of college recruiting, except these guys are too old for this (and are getting big paydays no matter what). Yes, LeBron, Wade and Bosh have made themselves look like clowns at the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey, posting incessant Twitter updates, pictures and now the final straw, this LeBron primetime special.

But as much as the media, the players, the teams and owners have created a circus out of this, you can't tell me you're not at least a little curious where this guy is going. Sure, he hasn't won a championship yet. That said, he is the league MVP and his decision will completely change one team's fortune.

As much as LeBron has reaffirmed for me how much of an attention seeker he is and that it is all really about him, I can't say I don't want him to come to my team. And it's not really about him, it's more about my selfish desires. As a Knicks fan, the past decade has been one really long wait which has yet to reap any benefit. Ever since the 1999 Finals and Patrick Ewing's departure, it has been a long, painful waiting game.

Back in the early 2000s, it was waiting for Allan Houston's $100 million dollar contract to come off the books. I remember looking forward to 2007, when the Knicks would finally have cap freedom. When that team of players more broken down then the toys exiled to the tots at Sunnyside daycare would finally be sent to the dumpster. Can you believe that Allan Houston, Shandon Anderson, Jerome Williams, Maurice Taylor and Jalen Rose made more than $60 million in the 2006 season?

It takes too long to list and subsequently explain the disastrous tenures of two of the worst GMs in NBA history, Scott Layden and Isiah Thomas. From 2000 to 2008, these two absolutely buried a team that had been a perennial playoff contender. New York became the dumping ground for players who didn't deserve the money they were making. Layden pulled in most of the names from the earlier group and Isiah did his best to outdo his predecessor putting together this backcourt for the 2006-7 season: Houston (retired): $20M, Stephon Marbury: $18M, Rose: $16M, Steve Francis: $15M and Crawford: $7M. Oh, but Isiah brought in some big-time big men, Eddy Curry through trade and Jerome James through a five-year, $30-million deal more bloated than Curry's waistline.

The Knicks not only became absolutely irrelevant. They became the joke of the NBA. I am a big jersey guy. The last Knicks jersey I am willing to display is my Patrick Ewing one. The only other one I have from the past decade is Latrell Sprewell's #8 I got as a gift. That's now in jersey purgatory in my closet.

So, this is a taste of what it has been like to be a Knicks fan for the past decade. With Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni coming in, there was a glimmer of hope and another imposed wait, summer of 2010. Now it's here. All of this misery has led up to tomorrow night.

Amar'e Stoudemire's signing was a good first part. But what is Buzz Lightyear without Woody? LeBron is the cool toy on the block. The one that garners the most attention and everyone waits for to rescue them.

If LeBron does choose NY, there will be thousands of new Knicks fans. It will be obnoxious and maddening. But the diehard Knicks fans who have been through this decade know what tomorrow night means. The last really good thing to happen to this franchise was when the lottery balls worked in its favor and it got Patrick Ewing. That was 1985. Since then, there's been Reggie, MJ, John Starks' nightmarish game seven, Hakeem, Robinson and Duncan, James Dolan, Layden, Isiah, and on and on and on.

So, I'm looking forward to tomorrow night. This one guy can change this franchise's future. I can picture the Garden being electric again. Or him back in Cleveland, or even worse in Chicago or Miami. All we can do now is sit and wait. 24 hours seems like a lot but Knicks fans can handle a wait, just no more shattered hopes.