HOLLANDER v. SULLIVAN

HOLLANDER: Just like the Giants and Jets, the Nets are simply another originally New York-based team that plays its games just outside the city in New Jersey's Meadowlands Sports Complex. Not only are they a legitimate rooting interest for New Yorkers, but the Nets are actually more New York than the Knicks.

First of all, the Nets are the last New York professional basketball franchise to win a championship (ABA, 1976). And the team was led by local boy Julius Erving. That's a fact.

Watch today's Nets play and you'll see an unselfish, fast-break style much more reminiscent of the championship Knicks than any team in recent New York metropolitan-area memory. Jason Kidd runs the point with an old-school cool that makes Clyde blush. (Ahem, Stephon: Kidd, not you, is the best point guard within 12 miles of Manhattan.) Foreign players like Zoran Planinic and Nenad Krstic give the Nets a hip, international sophistication that's very New York and sorely lacking from the Knicks.

Compare coaches: Nets coach Lawrence Frank conjures images of a feisty, young, over-caffeinated Red Holzman. The way he charged across the floor and verbally abused a referee early this season made this Gotham hoops fan a little misty. On the Knicks bench, Larry Brown is more like a tired actor from central casting. He looks and sounds like he belongs here but he's lost that essential New York truth.

Compare owners: Nets owner Bruce Ratner has been intensely involved in New York City's government, civic and philanthropic affairs, arts funding and private development since 1967. If you're not down with Ratner, try fucking with Nets minority owner Jay-Z's New York street cred. In stark contrast, the Dolans-piggish interlopers from Long Island-have done little but hoard and mismanage beloved New York City attractions (Madison Square Garden, Knicks, Rangers, Radio City Music Hall) and earn consensus enmity from all of New York City, especially sports fans.

Lastly, the Nets play-by-play announcer is Marv Albert. You don't get more New York than that.

Really C.J., I don't see where the argument is.

SULLIVAN: You defile the memory of Red Holtzman, the greatest Knick coach of all time, when you compare him to Lawrence Frank. Frank is a policy wonk compared to the balls-to-the-wall Holtzman. He died in 1998 and his bones just rolled over in his grave when he caught your comparison. Really, Dave, you need to be more careful when speaking of the dead.

I cannot and will not defend the Dolans-in that you are right. But Ratner? Come on, Dave, stop being naive. Ratner is only involved with the Nets so he can make a land grab in Brooklyn. He has no emotional stake in the Nets and will dump them once he gets the real estate he cravenly desires. He got Jay-Z involved so silly white, brown, and black men like yourself can thump your chest about how the Nets are keepin' it real.

Jay-Z-one Mr. Sean Carter-fronts as a street thug when he has become The Man. He is a millionaire many times over. He lifted himself out of the ghetto as many have before him and become a success. But when he was on the streets of Brooklyn he got scared straight when it got "too real."

Witness his 1999 stabbing of record-industry goof Lance "Un" Rivera-for which he got a mere three years parole. Any true Brooklyn street thug would have stabbed and killed "Un"-and then gotten away. Jay-Z stuck the guy like a punk to add to his Fugazy street cred and sell more CDs. These NBA and hip-hop wannabe thugs are not the playas they think they are. Hollander, all the tough guys are dead or in Rikers. They are not rapping, playing ball, or owning NBA teams.

It amazes me how you kick the Knicks when they are down. Yes, Jason Kidd is a better point guard than Marbury, and the Nets are the better team. But they are not New York and they know it-which is why they all crave the move to Brooklyn. Once that happens I will join you in agreement.

You can't compare the Jets and Giants to the Nets. The Giants and Jets had a long and storied history while playing in New York. The Nets began in 1967 as the New Jersey Americans and then in 1968 they moved to Long Island. I liked the ABA but the Nets always felt like a suburban neighbor-close to New York but not New Yorkers.

Any self-respecting New Yorker, Hollander, has to be a Knick fan. Your argument, like your life, borders on heresy.

HOLLANDER: C.J., the issue is not whether I'm a Knicks fan. (I am.) The issue is whether a real New Yorker can embrace the Nets. I'm sure your totally insane screed urging nascent violent criminals to consummate their homicides gets a lot of back-slapping support at your favorite Upper East Side watering holes, but it's irrelevant to the matter at hand. The Nets, I argue, are a perfectly reasonable New York fan option. The other reasonable choice is the Knicks. So far you've said nothing to refute that.

You do say once the Nets move to Brooklyn you and I will "join ? in agreement." Not likely.

The precise moment the Nets move to Brooklyn, real New Yorkers should shun them. Real New Yorkers must not stand by while hundreds of other real New Yorkers are dispossessed for one man's enrichment. Real New Yorkers shall not abide the handing over of $1 billion dollars in tax breaks, subsidies and noncompetitive bidding to Forest City Ratner. Real New Yorkers cannot stand in league with the dark forces who march unabated in their quest to turn this city into a theme park for Euro-idiots who want to say they visited "Brooklyn." [Preach it, Brother Hollander.-The Eds.]

While in New Jersey, the Nets, like the Giants, Jets, Yankees and Mets, considerately locate themselves in a place where real New Yorkers can conveniently go to enjoy a stadium-sized athletic spectacle and then return back to the diverse urban environment where they live. The Brooklyn Cyclones nestled themselves in Coney Island without ejecting long time residents. Currently, the Nets offer real New Yorkers a chance to see a world-class professional team without sucking the marrow from New York's backbone.

It saddens me that you so mindlessly lap up the slop served at the government-sponsored media trough. You're like a dumb, happy sheep totally unaware that he's heading to his slaughter. If we listen to you, real New York is in real danger.

SULLIVAN: Dave, embrace the Nets all you want, but New York remains a Knicks' town. Your fevered attempts at logic are quite funny-though not in a good way. You flip-flop like Ferrer over the Diallo shooting.

First Ratner is the "good," owner but should he develop a rundown part of Brooklyn he is "bad." Having lived in New York my whole life, this city is all about change. Chicken Littles like yourself can squawk all you want, but progress and change are as New York as, well, the Knicks.

Building a Nets arena would not suck the "marrow from New York's backbone." Hell, 9/11 couldn't do that. New York is bigger then me, you, the Dolans, or even Bruce Ratner. And that is why New York is great and a Knicks' town. We tear down our past, but we do not dishonor it.