There are droughts. And then there are Droughts, with the capital D. And then there are DROUGHTS, where you lock the all-caps key and you keep it locked.
And if you want to add to the effect, you put in boldface, and italic, and you underline it a time or three, and you maybe bump the point size up to about 128, and you open a window and you shout it to the street below.
And that approximates where the Knicks are right now.
Think of it this way: The Knicks have now gone 36 years without winning a championship, and I don’t think that even the most ardent, optimistic fan among you will deprive me the pronouncement that in a matter of months, that number will grow to 37.
OK. Now, the Jets fans among you immediately will stand up, raise your hand, and say, “Um, hello? It’s already 40 years and counting for me. Don’t even think about shortening my status as a long-suffering fan.” And there are a few Rangers fans among you who will snort, “Thirty-seven years? Please. I seem to recall a certain 54-year streak that used to keep folks around here tied up in angst.”
And I am here to tell you, folks, that you don’t get to speak in this support group. You, Rangers fan? You won your Cup, and you’re on to a fresh streak of 15 years, so you’ll have to be content with that. And you, Jets fan? Yes, it’s true, you haven’t won a Super Bowl since 1969. But you won a couple of playoff games in 1982, and another one four years later, and a couple more since, one as recently as January of 2004, in fact.
Would you like to know the last time the Knicks won a playoff game?
That would be April 29, 2001. They beat the Raptors at the Garden, 97-89. Jeff Van Gundy was the coach. Allan Houston and Latrell Sprewell combined for 44 points. Glen Rice — Glen Rice! — added 18 off the bench. Charles Oakley and Chris Childs played for the Raptors. Dell Curry — Dell Curry! — scored seven points off the bench for the Raptors, which is worth pointing out only if you consider that Curry’s eldest son, Stephen, played at the Garden two nights ago as a member of the Golden State Warriors.
As if you really needed prompting just how long ago April 29, 2001, was, right? Hell, the Yankees were three-time defending world champions on April 29, 2001. The Mets had just raised a National League championship pennant over Shea Stadium a few weeks earlier. George W. Bush was enjoying his 99th day in office. “Friends” was still a hit. “Gladiator” had just won Best Picture. Most people still used dial-up Internet. And compact discs. And VCR’s.
That’s how long it’s been.
And that, my friends, is a DROUGHT.
The Knicks have played all of six playoff games since then, and have lost all six — two more in 2001 to blow a 2-1 series lead to the Raptors and then four straight in 2004 to the Nets.
They have played 666 games since their last playoff win. They lost 415 of them. They have lost more than two-thirds of the games they have played since April 29, 2001. And there is no end in sight to the losing. The Knicks twice have lost as many as 59 games since then, and there’s every reason to believe they might not even slow down as they race past 59 this year.
And that is beyond depressing.
This, after all, is a city that always has fancied itself the title character in basketball’s timeless description as “the city game.” What city do you suppose people were talking about? Decatur? Sheboygan? Lubbock?
And it’s more than that, really. There is an entire generation of sports fan in this city that has no idea what the sporting calendar is supposed to look like. For so many years — years we never did get around to appreciating until long after they were gone — baseball season wouldn’t begin until the day after the Knicks were eliminated. Oh, the city would breeze through the spring training reports, and dutifully would check in on Opening Day, and there would be plenty of saloon chatter about the Mets and the Yankees.
But it was all part of the Greek chorus of city sports. The Rangers, when they were rolling, would occupy their share of the conversation. But April, and May — and, a couple of times, June — still belonged to the Knicks. Fewer and fewer remember that. Fewer and fewer can recollect that for every Yankees run and Mets push that have boiled the city’s blood, even those nights don’t compare with 1994 and 1999 and all the foiled attempts against the Bulls and the Pacers and the Heat.
There are some who will find this hard to believe. But on the night Dwight Gooden pitched his feel-good no-hitter in 1996 — a championship year for the Yankees, remember — he was the second-biggest story of the night. For the Knicks had been eliminated from the playoffs, falling gamely to the 72-win Bulls. That was the back page. That was the big story. Gooden got his fair share of attention. But that no-hitter? Only 20,786 were inside Yankee Stadium that night. New York followed Doc’s no-no during commercials of the Knicks game.
Think about that. Think about how it used to be. Your inclination is to think that those days and nights weren’t all that long ago. And then you realize that it has been 2,995 days and nights since the Knicks last won a playoff game. And you can be forgiven if you feel awfully thirsty . . .
Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail address is michael.vaccaro@nypost.com. His book, “The First Fall Classic,” is in bookstores everywhere.
VAC’S WHACKS
You know how you can tell Lane Kiffin hasn’t been working in the SEC long enough? Because he actually talked about how few off-field incidents his Tennessee Volunteers had encountered on Wednesday, and a few hours later three of his players were charged with armed robbery. That’s like riding on the Cross Bronx at rush hour and talking about what good time you’re making.
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I wonder how glad Coach Ryan will be to hear Jets fans be loud if things don’t shake out so well by Exit 16W this afternoon.
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I miss “Mad Men” already. Nothing since the threat of demerits in high school has made me want to wear a necktie more than watching how Don Draper wears one.
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I get the sense that if Coach Mangini has another son anytime soon, the middle name will be neither “Brady” nor “Derek.”