
God Shammgod.
Photo: Chad Gittens/SHOWTIME & Boardroom
New York’s status as the “Mecca” of basketball can be summed up in three monuments — all located off of the B train between midtown Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. On the north end is Madison Square Garden, home to the Knicks, who haven’t been to an NBA Finals since 1999 and may be the most chronically mismanaged NBA franchise of the last 20 years. On the south end is Barclays Center, where the Nets relocated from New Jersey in 2012. Last season, the Nets spent 48 percent more money than the Knicks to sell 1,000 fewer tickets per game, get swept out of the playoffs, and see their star player, Kevin Durant, reportedly ask to be traded. And in the middle is “The Cage,” the cube-shaped playground at West 3rd Street and Sixth Avenue. Players flock from across the city to take advantage