Jeremy Lin’s done some amazing things the past two weeks, including making me not hate the Knicks quite so much. Make no mistake, I’m a Knicks fan, have been since I was a kid. But I’ve also spent the past year largely detesting the team because there was so little to like.

The sad part is that for a while last year, after a thoroughly dark decade, I actually had a Knicks team that I could get behind. Through his sheer competence, president Donnie Walsh had put together a squad that was not just good, but fun to watch. He had accumulated plenty of legitimate assets and set the team up for long-term success. I finally went back to the Garden, and it actually felt like home again.

But as I often say, your team is only as good as its owner. In idiot cable scion Jimmy Dolan, the Knicks have the worst owner this side of racist “Lob City” beneficiary Donald Sterling. When Dolan superseded Walsh’s trade leverage and headed to last year’s All-Star Game to take over the Carmelo Anthony negotiations, it obliterated three years of groundwork and signaled a demoralizing return to the previous decade’s hallmarks of cronyism, ineptitude and entitlement.

(Sidebar: Though I didn’t think Carmelo had any intentions of ever agreeing to play in New Jersey, I actually thought it wouldn’t have been such a bad thing for the Knicks if that happened. That would have given Walsh the flexibility to explore other available options, including a much better fit in Deron Williams, as Walsh later lamented he was unable to do after Dolan acquired Anthony.)

Besides the All-Star Weekend Carmelo debacle, Dolan and company destroyed Willis Reed’s tunnel so the corporate types could have a glass wall through which to watch the players walk to the court. Muzzled Dolan puppet Glen Grunwald set out to construct a team with literally no point guards and actually believed – at least I assume he believed? – that it would work. Carmelo and Amar’e appeared on the court to have never met before.

With Walsh predictably yet ridiculously phased out, I thought the Knicks deserved every last bit of the enmity they absorbed over the past year.

That’s why the emergence of Lin as a genuine phenomenon over the past two weeks has been so conflicting for me: Despite playing for a thoroughly unlikable franchise, he’s been impossible not to like. On top of his incredible run on the court, there’s been that irresistible back-story – the first American-born Asian NBA player, the fact that he went to Harvard, the relatively non-threatening religious zealotry. Ostensibly, all of this couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

I can’t give the clowns running the Knicks credit for finding Lin when they had no idea he was any good at all. I’d assume they signed Lin as a practice player and roster filler only because Larry Hughes wasn’t made available until Feb. 1. They even sent Lin to the Developmental League a month ago (where he had a triple-double in his only game). Obviously, it does sometimes pay off to be more lucky than good. I’d assume Grunwald gets a lifetime extension because of Lin.

The resulting media firestorm has been overwhelming – rather, it would have been if I deigned to read literally any articles or watch any programs about Lin. Much like with Tim Tebow, I find when the media takes a narrative like this and runs with it, it’s really only insufferable if you pay attention to what they’re saying. I watch the games; that’s enough for me.

And to be certain, I’ve enjoyed riding the wave. Lin is a lot of fun to watch and as I said, a very easy guy to root for. I also like that the heat is off Mike D’Antoni for the time being. I don’t think D’Antoni’s perfect, but he’s won big at times, and he’s been dealt a pretty lousy hand for the most part. You coach a team with no point guards.

*****

But I just can’t get this one image out of my head; I picture Jimmy Dolan sitting in a conference room somewhere with his sycophants, gloating that the Lin hype will force Time Warner to acquiesce to his demands. Dolan, of course, doesn’t care whether Knicks or Rangers fans can actually watch their team’s games provided he wins his latest shoving match.

Next bullet point: Dolan reads off a CBS Marketwatch report that has MSG stock near an all-time high, up 10 percent since Lin started playing. That constitutes yet more financial gains Dolan hasn’t earned, coming from a team that fell into his lap because of who his father is.

Next bullet point: With a grin, Dolan asks: Why not raise ticket prices to take advantage of Knicks fans desperate for something to love, not to mention Asian fans who worship Lin?

This made-up but completely plausible boardroom scenario gets to the main problem I have with Linsanity: Not very much under the surface has changed. As great an American dream as Lin is, I still have zero respect for the people fostering the consistently toxic environment at MSG, bottom-feeders who epitomize my absolute least favorite things I’ve seen in the corporate world. I still view Dolan as the sword of Damocles that hovers above this franchise, liable to stumble into the action at any time and destroy any good will Lin has cultivated.

After all, the opening might be there. Given how stellar he’s been in all facets of the game, I don’t think Lin is going to regress very much. But playing point guard in a D’Antoni system is a double-edged sword; Chris Duhon was a very good player for the Knicks for about 2 ½ months until it caught up to him that he didn’t have a credible backup.

Lin doesn’t have one either, and I have to think if something happens to him, the Knicks are right back to the 8-15 caliber ball they were playing before he appeared out of thin air. Not to mention, Lin has conquered the Lakers, but every other opponent during the six-game streak has been lousy and the schedule gets markedly harder in late-February and March.

For old times sake, I’d rather the Knicks actually be good, and I plan to enjoy watching Lin for however long he ends up doing this. The thing I may never be able to fully reconcile is how much Jimmy Dolan is enjoying it at the same time.

Make no mistake, I’m used to being in weird environments. Last year, I helped set the Guinness Record for participating in the largest gathering of zombies. But from a sports perspective, sitting at the Hoophall Classic last week, I couldn’t help but think the whole thing was pretty perverse.

Most people think this is at least a little weird, but big-time high school basketball is one of my favorite things. The passion is real, the competition is generally pretty fierce, and I love getting in on the ground floor with players before they become household names. (Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, for one, has been a personal favorite for two years now.)

But at the same time, at its highest level, the whole scene is pretty out there. Last week at Springfield College, Coach K sat to my left under the basket, with John Calipari looming a few seats to his right. I sat next to the guy who runs NBADraft.net, comparing our views on Brad Beal’s NBA prospects. And every eye in the building was fixated on 18-year-old wunderkind Shabazz Muhammad, who overpowered a bunch of overmatched teenagers en route to a dunk-heavy 37 points.

For the most part, regardless of talent or status, the players carried themselves like the would-be LeBrons they would have you believe they are. Wearing the requisite outfit of Dr. Dre headphones, a sweatsuit bearing their high school team nickname and retro Jordans that originally dropped around the time they were born, lanky adolescents strutted their stuff while casting sideways glances at Coach K. They all then told the media that had descended on frigid Springfield that they model their games after Kobe Bryant.

Speaking of which, attending my first Hoophall, I found Springfield to be an interesting location for the tournament. I’d only been up there twice: a trip to Six Flags New England about a decade ago, and a solo journey to the Holyoke Mall back in 2005 because they had literally the only Best Buy in America with a Michael Jordan brand MP3 player. (That’s a story for another day.)

Springfield doesn’t really have a ton going on. Obviously, there’s the Hall of Fame a couple miles away. My Comfort Inn in West Springfield had a Hooters across the highway, which came in handy for a late-night dinner after a long day of games. (I’m probably the only person in Hooters history to get the grilled chicken salad, and definitely the first to order take-out. Like I said, long day.) Google Maps told me there was allegedly a Dr. Seuss exhibit or something like that right around there; I never saw it. On top of all that, it was literally seven degrees.

But while driving 150 miles of notably non-scenic landscape in Connecticut – excepting the kitschy thrill of passing WWE headquarters about an hour before Monday Night Raw – it became apparent that the pre-eminent high school tournament was basically in the middle of nowhere. That seemed to make perfect sense; I got a kick out of the idea of Mike Krzyzewski flying on a private plane into nondescript and beaten-down Hartford, known as the “Insurance Capital of the World” according to Wikipedia.

The whole thing was weird and wonderful, and brought to mind for me its various geneses. There was that night in Trenton I watched LeBron return from his throwback jersey suspension to score 52. The dunk-and-crossover YouTube highlight tapes of today were preceded by the And 1 Mixtape I eagerly jammed into my dorm room VCR. The former exceeded even my outlandish expectations, while the latter was a disappointing reminder that a constant stream of crossover dribbles and windmill dunks minus any exposition or rising action is actually kind of boring.

I’ve railed on the narrative-starved media judging 17- and 18-year-olds as if they were finished projects, a la Austin Rivers. And yet, how else could it possibly be when high school games are treated like it’s the Final Four, complete with Jay Williams calling the action?

You reap what you sow. As a fan, I loved LeBron on the cover of SI at 16, loved when ESPN began running high school basketball during the LeBron era at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s. That all has led to where we’re at now, with recruiting becoming mainstream. We used to read about commitments on shadowy bulletin boards; players now get air time on ESPN to sit at a table with five hats.

Not that any of that is necessarily bad. In an information age where anybody who deigns can communicate with these players on Twitter – which is mutual, as they retweet every last mention – this is manifest destiny. As probably the last Luddite in the United States to get a smart phone before I caved in November, I’m obviously a bit reticent to change, but I’m not so naïve as to cower in fear at the thought.

That said, watching literally a dozen reporters chase Muhammad in a futile attempt to pry clues about his college decision process, I couldn’t help but shake my head a bit.

And then ask him about his decision process.

I’m not about to tell you it’s entirely possible to make decisive empirical conclusions based on watching someone, particularly a high schooler, play exactly one game. With that disclaimer, I think it is possible to frame an idea of what a player’s strengths and weaknesses are. It’s one of my favorite pastimes at high school tourneys: trying to figure out what a player is going to be like on the next level.

I caught most of the games on Sunday and all of them on Monday, and here are some thoughts on some of the significant players I saw last weekend at Hoophall.

Shabazz Muhammad, Bishop Gorman: Jay Williams pointed out to me a couple things Muhammad needs to work on, namely that he can’t go left and can’t finish with his left hand. When I watched the game again at home, he was right on the money with both assessments.

That doesn’t mean Muhammad isn’t a very good player. Having never seen him live, I was surprised at just how solidly built he is. He really did look very much like a man amongst boys while scoring 37 points in a rout of a very good Dematha team, and it seemed as if he was simply outworking everyone to go along with his talent advantage. I don’t think his athleticism jumps off the charts, especially since he appeared winded at times. But I have no doubt that as he continues to improve his jump shot and conditioning, Shabazz is the sort of player you can build a program around.

Jeremi Grant, Dematha: Harvey Grant’s son couldn’t really slow down Muhammad, but that doesn’t say much. I thought Grant was a stupendous offensive player with a ridiculous vertical leap and a tendency to be right in the middle of the action. Grant went 5-for-6 from the field for 12 points and would have scored more if not for 2-for-7 free-throw shooting. Grant is on his way to Syracuse next year, and to use an uncreative but potentially accurate comparison, he reminds me of Hakim Warrick. I really like his chances of being an impact player.

Rosco Allen, Bishop Gorman: A perfect Stanford player, heady and leverages his 6-foot-9 frame well. I see why Carolina wanted him, he kind of reminds me of Tyler Zeller. He really needs to fill out more, but on this level, who doesn’t? A perfect indication of what he brings: On a fast break late in the game, he tapped it back perfectly for a crazy windmill dunk by Muhammad. Shabazz got the attention, but the play told me far more about Allen.

Nerlens Noel, Tilton: My favorite player I saw at Hoophall next to Muhammad, Noel had 22 points, seven rebounds and an outstanding seven blocks. A legit center with room to fill out, I think he’s potentially the most transformative player on the next level, an Anthony Davis-level defensive weapon. As a Duke grad, I’d kill to have him anchor their front line for a year or two.

Mitch McGary, Brewster Academy: McGary was completely immolated by Noel. He shot 1-for-8 for three points, and though he had 12 rebounds, he looked very ordinary for someone as big and physical as he is. I’ve long wondered whether McGary skyrocketing to become a Top 5 player was more a function of his crazy dunk over the summer, when he shattered the backboard and came up bloody in a cool visual. His performance didn’t exactly allay those concerns.

Jabari Parker, Simeon: I think I caught the No. 1 player in the Class of 2013 on an off day, and he was still obviously a very good player. Simeon got swamped by a Findlay team that features talent at all five spots and threw waves of players at Parker. (They did the same thing to Muhammad later that week.) Parker still went 24-12, he just didn’t look comfortable doing it, floating a bit. I want to see him again against good competition.

Kyle Anderson, St. Anthony: What a difference a year makes. I somewhat liked his game last year, but Anderson has gotten a lot stronger, picking apart Miller Grove. I still don’t see Anderson as much of a point guard, but if you put him in the high post, he’ll control the entire tempo of the game from there. If I’m Muhammad, I could do far worse than going to UCLA and benefiting from Anderson’s playmaking abilities. Consider me a big fan, at least as a college-level player.

Sidebar: One of my favorite moments from the tournament came postgame, when ESPN was interviewing Anderson, delaying the traditional team picture. Bob Hurley just stood there glaring at them, attempting to mind-meld Anderson into wrapping it up so they could get on with it and he could get the hell off the court.

Tony Parker, Miller Grove: Coach K would die for this guy, and I get why Miller is coveted, since he’s enormous. But as much as he physically looks like Elton Brand, his game needs a ton of work. Against the disciplined St. Anthony, Miller Grove didn’t stand a chance, specifically Parker, who was bodied out by guys not even close to his size. I hear effort level is an issue, but I wouldn’t think that would dissuade anyone from wanting his services.

Noah Vonleh, New Hampton Prep: The No. 2 sophomore, Vonleh resembles Harrison Barnes in body type and facial features. I absolutely loved his game and the way he carried himself. Vonleh scored seven points and had nine rebounds in a loss to Notre Dame Prep, missing all three of his three-point tries and turning it over eight times. The key number was the 30 minutes he played as a sophomore. Make no mistake, he’s going to be a stud and he’s ranked as such.

Steven Adams, Notre Dame Prep: Committed to Pitt, the New Zealander is a top 5 player in the Class of 2012. I didn’t see much of him – he missed most of the first half with foul trouble and a head injury and didn’t really distinguish himself – but he’s certainly enormous. He also seems to have a dry wit and a charming accent, for what that is worth.

Myles Davis, Notre Dame Prep: I originally saw Myles singlehandedly lead St. Peter’s Prep past Oak Hill two years ago at the Primetime Shootout in Trenton, stealing the show with big shot after big shot. I was selfishly disappointed when he transferred to Notre Dame, since I’d see him play less, but it’s worked out well for him. Davis scored 24 in ND Prep’s win over New Hampton, and told me after the game that he relished the opportunity to be a leader of a talented group. (He also told me he does listen to some jazz music, because I mean, come on. If your name was George Lucas, you’d watch the Star Wars movies at least once even if you didn’t care for them.) He’s headed to Xavier next year, and I expect him to be a good college player at the very least.

Sam Cassell Jr., Notre Dame Prep: I don’t recall much about Cassell’s game; he had eight points in 29 minutes. Luckily, he isn’t the spitting image of his father. And if you want to feel really old, I’d prescribe watching Sam Cassell’s kid play high school ball.

Right before Christmas, I flew down to North Carolina to visit Duke, something I’d previously done five times since I graduated in 2001. Though a lot remains unchanged in my life since my last trip three years ago – same job, same apartment, same obsessive sneaker collection – I’ve since met my future wife, which qualifies as a very significant positive change.

When we stopped for a snack at the general store adjacent to my freshman year dorm, a couple of wide-eyed freshmen, still shell-shocked from their first final exams, asked me what had changed about Duke in the thousand years since I’d been a student, and it got me to thinking.

Most of what jumped out at me was cosmetic. The big stone walkway to the student center now features various sets of furniture; when I was there, it was simply a walkway and nothing else. Mike Krzyzewski also apparently commissioned an entire museum attached to Cameron Indoor Stadium, which looked remarkably similar in décor to his home office.

But for the most part, as I gave my fiancée a tour of the landmarks that defined my college years, not a whole lot seemed different. The enormous and beautiful chapel still loomed regally, while my old dorms looked pretty much the same. The radio station at which I conducted interviews with Elton Brand and Shane Battier looked frozen in time, down to the “Nas is coming” sticker on the door to the studio to promote 1996’s It Was Written.

We also attended my first basketball game since I was a student, a run-of-the-mill exam break blowout of UNC Greensboro which served dual purpose: I interviewed Austin Rivers for Dime, and my most recent game in Cameron was no longer a Senior Night debacle against Maryland in which Carlos Boozer broke his foot.

Certain things about Cameron had changed, and not necessarily for the better. A trumped-up Knicks-style introduction on the new video board was subtraction by addition, as was the loud music blaring on the PA. Of course, I couldn’t have expected things to remain as they were when I was a student, back when I was still a good two years from sending my first text message.

And when it came down to it, Cameron hadn’t changed all that much. The 2001 championship banner I watched unfurl from directly beneath it in the upper deck was still right where I left it. Coach K walks out the same entrance he always did. The band plays on.

Walking through Clocktower Quad toward Cameron Indoor that night, I could vividly picture making that exact walk countless times as a student, never believing for a second that those weren’t the best years of my life, and swearing that I would never let myself take them for granted.

*****

I’ve noticed that the groupthink on nostalgia has rendered it somewhat taboo. I often see nostalgia referred to as a dirty word, a sign of weakness – not something you explore, but something you lapse into.

I obviously don’t ascribe to that all or nothing theory. I branch into nostalgia here from time to time, looking back on cherished things or experiences in my life, and I’ve never figured that for a character flaw or anything.

I do understand the reticence toward sentimentality, since as a general practice, living in the past is a dangerous concept. We all know people who continue to pine for a lost love way too long after that flame was snuffed out, at the expense of healing and progress, who haven’t learned from their past painful experiences.

Admittedly, if we live through them long enough, our memories become excessively lionized. To believe that one point in time was as good as it gets is to dismiss the reality that life simply gets sweeter as we age. As Incubus wryly put it, “There’s no such thing as the good old days. The older we all get, the better we all were.”

Yet, I don’t find anything wrong with taking a few minutes to look back on the wonderful things we leave in our wake as we unflinchingly head toward where we end up. Our experiences and memories don’t just dissipate a la Memento. They’re forever a part of us that we can and should draw upon when we need to, or when we want to.

This is why we do things – not just for the experience at the time, but for the knowledge that we’ve done them.

I consider it a golden opportunity when I can revisit my old stomping grounds and visualize the person I was back then, primarily for a base of comparison. College life was idyllic, a truly amazing time for me; I nonetheless unequivocally prefer where I’m at now.

In a similar vein, I truly enjoyed showing my fiancée around Duke, and it was a blast to watch some wrestling with the newest member of one of my best college friend’s families.

But after four days, I was more than ready to head north to resume exploring new horizons.

*****

When I was a junior and senior, I did the majority of my studying in a building they called “Old Chemistry.” They’d long since built a state-of-the-art chemistry building, leaving this relic to house the German and statistics departments, stuff like that. Nobody else ever came there and the couches in the lobby were comfortable, so I’d set up shop and read in peace.

One night, the pen I was using ran out of ink. I’m not quite sure what thought process went into this, but I decided to clip it to a vine attached to the building outside a second-story bathroom window. When I graduated a few months later, it was still there.

With a bit of trepidation, I went to check two weeks ago. Sure enough, despite all the rain and wind over the past 10 years, the pen – now completely drained of color – still clung to that vine. I instinctively reached out and touched it, and when I did, the vine crumbled and the pen fell into my hand.

I found it incredible that the pen was still right where I left it, somehow hanging on to that vine after all that time. But a decade later, I guess it was finally time to let go.

Back on July 4, I stood on a balcony in Union City and watched the fireworks over the Hudson with my friend Sam Reiss. I had gotten engaged to a wonderful girl four days ago, the possibilities seemed endless, and life was good.

Five months later, I’m typing this while lying in bed with my fiancée, resting up before we ring in the New Year on our couch. On our bedroom television, the Real Housewives of Orange County are screeching at each other at decibel levels that could drown out a jet engine.

And I absolutely couldn’t be happier.

*****

As I’ve said here many times, with the exception of Halloween, I don’t have a use for most holidays, but I do very much like New Year’s Eve. It’s one of those rare times when you remember to stop and take inventory, to consider how far you’ve come and where you’d like to go next.

I’ve always been a bit of a loner, so to look back at 2011 as the year I got engaged to be married is weird, wild and wonderful. Honestly, Montana is one of the best things that ever could have happened to me. She’s beautiful, fun, smart and driven. She recently passed the bar exam in both New Jersey and New York. She’s also an excellent cook, and I would starve within days without her.

Despite all that, she patiently puts up with the fact that at 32, I remain fixated on LeBron James, Freddy Krueger, Air Jordans, Ghostface Killah and Spider-man. Lord knows what I did to deserve her.

Obviously, my life is changing, in a very good way. But you find that your priorities change as well. Cooking a quiet dinner at home minus the Internet or televised sports becomes a coveted event; a movie and beer in bed is a blessing.

It does, of course, mean that things aren’t quite the way they used to be. For one, I’ve definitely been less prolific in recent months in terms of posting at SportsAngle.

Truth be told, the majority of my posts here over the past few years have been written between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m., which isn’t always preferable for me at this point.

In addition, I’ve started doing some writing for Dime Magazine, which is sort of a full circle thing for me. A decade ago, Dime was the first publication to actually take a chance and let me write for them, back when I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I always appreciated that, and with a little more experience under my belt, it’s good to be a part of their team again.

Between all of that and a job that makes plenty of demands on me, it definitely took me away from SportsAngle, especially the past couple of months. But you know, I think that’s okay. It doesn’t mean I’ve lost one bit of my passion for expressing myself here, it’s just that there are only so many ways I can stretch myself before it’s too thin, and doing a weekly football post (for example) is no longer one of those ways.

Rest assured, I still have plenty to say. When my good friend Terry Rains helped me bring this site back after about a four-year hiatus, it was to give me a creative outlet I lacked. I think at times this year, like back in the spring, I was doing some of the best writing I’ve done anywhere. I have no plans to stop doing that, just maybe not quite as often.

And honestly, I really did get around this year.

I got to interview Penny Hardaway, Bryce Harper, Austin Rivers, Elton Brand – and sentimental favorite Oliver Perez. I saw Justin Verlander pitch in Cleveland in a pennant race.

I watched Jay-Z and Kanye West in Baltimore, and Incubus at the Jersey Shore.

I got to write about Mike Krzyzewski’s 903rd victory. I attended my first Duke game in Cameron in over a decade, and got to show my fiancée my old stomping grounds.

I drove through Western Pennsylvania thinking how glad I was that I wasn’t sitting in traffic trying to get to work, and sat on the beach in Cozumel thinking how glad I was that I wasn’t at a desk.

Essentially, though I’ve struggled at times with the idea of not having the time or energy to bring to fruition some of the ideas I’ve had these past few months, I’ve come to realize that real life getting in the way isn’t even close to a bad thing.

SportsAngle has long been a big part of who I am, and I love writing here. But one thing I’ve learned is that life is way too short to dwell on the things I’m not doing, while overlooking the things I am.

*****

In two hours, my fiancée and I will watch the ball drop on television and toast with a rare true splurge: a bottle of Dom Perignon.

Why Dom P over, say, Korbel? I find I have more than ever to celebrate. We’ll toast to Montana passing the bar, to all we’ve accomplished over the past year and all the experiences we’ve had, and to the arrival of a year in which we’re going to get married to our respective best friends.

Even as our lives change, it’s all part of becoming the people we’re meant to be. And though life seems to speed up a little more every year, I think that’s because we just become more and more aware of how sweet it is to wake up every day, take a breath and feel alive.

My best to all of you for a prosperous, healthy and happy New Year. God bless.

I still remember like yesterday the day Darryl Strawberry left the Mets for the Dodgers. I was waiting to get a haircut in fifth grade when the news on the television at the barber shop told me Darryl had jumped ship. I melted out of my chair and sank to my knees.

Straw was my first sports love; it was as if my best friend had moved away. (That actually happened a couple years later, and I don’t recall it hitting me nearly as hard as losing Darryl.)

Going through that was rough when I was 11, but it was a necessary lesson about two years into being a sports fan: Nothing lasts forever. Players leave, teams change, eras come and go. I eventually came to grips with it – years later, I even bought a Dodgers Strawberry jersey.

Now somewhat jaded at 32, with Dan Marino and Patrick Ewing and LeBron James the Cavalier in my rearview mirror, this sort of thing honestly doesn’t faze me anymore. Our teams are inextricable parts of our identities, but the players on them shuttle in and out like friends from various chapters in our lives.

As such, I always just have to shake my head at people’s knee-jerk reactions when a star player leaves for another team. If you’re 12, sure, it’s a crushing blow. But if you’ve been watching sports for any legitimate portion of time, how can’t you know by now this is the way it goes?

The easy narrative when Albert Pujols left the Cardinals for the Angels last week was to turn him into the baseball version of LeBron James, but it didn’t really take. Pujols didn’t have a reality show to announce his decision, nor was he a native of St. Louis, and the tired “damaging his legacy” argument holds no water. Pujols’ legacy is going to be that of an awesome baseball player.

I heard people say Pujols should have finished his career in St. Louis, that they thought he’d be there forever, and I might be willing to go along with that if Pujols had played 18 years or something and only had a few seasons left. But Pujols signed a 10-year deal with Anaheim; that’s a long time to stay somewhere just to say it’s the only place you’ve been.

It’s not hard to comprehend why Pujols went to the Angels. They offered him a lot more money, and he now has the opportunity to live on the beach in Malibu (or wherever) year-round. Not to mention, the Angels are a good team, and with the Dodgers flat broke, Pujols has the opportunity to be a big-time star in a major market with a strong Hispanic community.

Not to be overlooked, 11 years is simply a long time to work in one place. Sometimes, it’s just time for a change.

As for Cardinals fans, I don’t feel for them in the slightest. They got 11 years of the best player in baseball, along with a team that contended basically every season over that span and won two World Series titles. That’s not a bad return for lucking into Albert Pujols in the 13th round of the draft. But their focus has been on Pujols’ decision to leave, rather than the fact he helped their team win the World Series two months ago.

Mets fans were kind of the same way with Jose Reyes, blaming the Wilpons, the Marlins and the universe, pining away like Drake making a drunk phone call – “I’m just saying, you can do better…” – . I obviously would prefer if the Wilpons sold the team to someone who can actually afford to own it, but independent of that, nobody knows if giving Reyes a six-year deal would have actually worked out.

Perhaps not right away as currently constituted, but it’s obviously possible to compete without Jose Reyes. Reyes is exciting, but he’s also notably flawed – and he’s certainly not the be-all, end-all.

In fact, nobody is – not Pujols, not LeBron James, not Dwight Howard.

To dwell on your team losing a star player, even if you felt a strong attachment to him, seems okay when you’re 11 and don’t have a whole lot else going on. But these players are just flesh and blood, like anyone else. And the older I get, the more I find I have going on. I have dishes to wash, a wedding to plan, a professional and personal life to continue to carve out.

At the risk of cliché, life is too short to spend worrying that much about what team someone plays for, even when you have a decade of good memories watching that player.

*****

I wrote this yesterday on a bus to New York, and as I got up to leave, the commuter sitting in front of me noticed my Mets jacket, told me he was a fan, and asked how I thought they would do without Reyes. I offered my standard line, which is that things are pretty certain to get worse before they get better, but that Alderson knows what he’s doing. My new friend slyly asked if I thought Sandy had something special up his sleeve, and I said no.

We left in agreement that things were lousy, but hopefully better times were ahead. Jose Reyes is no longer a Met, but sure enough, the buses still run. (Not generally on time, but that’s always been a trademark of New Jersey Transit.)

We all want our favorite teams to compete, so we can vicariously thrill in the pursuits of a winner. But there’s literally nothing we can do to make that happen, and you can take it from a Dolphins, Mets and Knicks fan – your team is really only as good as its owner.

The memories of Pujols’ three-homer World Series game or Reyes smoking cigars on the field in ‘06 may fade, but they’ll never completely fade away. There will unfailingly be new moments to treasure. And sure as clockwork, there will be new heroes to root for, new jerseys to buy, ones that we’ll never burn in effigy — or at least that we shouldn’t.

We want our teams to have the best players, players we can love, and we want our teams to be good. But though time doesn’t heal all of our wounds, it takes care of most of them.

And when it comes down to it, the main thing we want is simply to have something to root for.

21,000 people sold out Madison Square Garden on Saturday to watch Miguel Cotto give Antonio Margarito his comeuppance, and there would be no other acceptable outcome.

A Margarito victory would have been catastrophic, as would have a run-of-the-mill boxing debacle akin to Bernard Hopkins’ aborted match against Chad Dawson a few weeks back. As such, with the exception of the first Mets game at Shea Stadium after 9/11, I’m not sure I’ve attended a sporting event where the outcome seemed quite so crucial.

The run-up to the fight was superb and full of intriguing storylines. During their Face-off moderated by Kellerman, Cotto pulled out an iPad to submit to the court of public opinion photographic evidence Margarito had cheated, while Margarito chose to argue the merits of being willing to die in the ring.

On what I think was the best 24/7 ever, you had Cotto chillingly accusing Margarito of possessing the countenance of a hardened criminal, eliciting Margarito’s pretty hilarious retort (even if you despise him).

The temporary uncertainty over whether Margarito’s surgically reconstructed face and eye would even allow the fight to happen added another level of high drama, particularly if you had purchased tickets, not to mention airfare and a hotel room.

The fans that filled the Garden pushed their chips in against a basic sports maxim, which is that try as you might, you can’t control the outcome. You attend a fight like Cotto-Margarito II hoping to see a satisfying action fight, for sure, but more so in the hopes of drinking in the sweet vicarious catharsis of a vindicated champion avenging himself against a villain of the highest order.

Personally, I thought there was a good chance Cotto would win. Though Cotto was underwhelming in his several most recent fights, Margarito has looked markedly unimpressive since the hand-wrap debacle, even before Manny Pacquiao literally rearranged his face.

The general thinking was that Margarito had indeed used illegal hand wraps underneath his gloves in their first fight, and that a resounding Cotto victory would prove that.

But what if Margarito hadn’t used illegal wraps in the first fight? Or worse yet, what if Cotto couldn’t get over the visage of Margarito prancing across the ring at him right before the noble warrior was forced to take a knee?

I thought Max Kellerman termed it well: The sword of Damacles hovering over the evening was a potential Margarito victory. This wasn’t like paying 10 dollars to see a movie that you know, or at least suspect, has a happy ending. The possibility that Margarito could gleefully flip the script loomed large.

My fiancée has taken an interest in boxing over the past couple of years, so I bought us tickets to the fight for her birthday. She had been to two cards in Atlantic City, but I thought it important that she experience what a sellout fight in the Garden looked and sounded like. I also wanted her to witness a great fighter’s moment of redemption.

But obviously, I could only guarantee half of that equation.

*****

Bob Arum cited a sellout crowd at the Garden as evidence that boxing (read: Top Rank) is alive and well, but that’s not necessarily true. Rather, it’s evidence that Cotto, the heir to Felix Trinidad’s throne, is a phenomenon among the Puerto Rican fans that made up probably 95 percent of the crowd.

Cotto’s New York fan base is reminiscent in its ethnic pride of what Arturo Gatti used to draw in Atlantic City, where he was like a one-man Giants game. The Garden exploded during Cotto’s ring walk as if L.J. had converted another four-point play, and greeted Margarito with a firestorm of enmity.

The undercard had a number of very good fights, most notably Delvin Rodriguez’s masterful performance in a rematch with Pawel Wolak (who subsequently retired), and a washed-out Brandon Rios nonetheless stopping a tough-as-nails John Murray.

But the crowd paid the action little mind, with the exception of scant boos for Rios for being Margarito’s compadre. They directed the vast majority of their alternating worship and scorn at Cotto and Margarito, erupting whenever either was shown on the big Garden screen in between rounds. We saw several fights in the crowd between Cotto sympathizers and the few Mexican fans who delighted in channeling Margarito, brandishing flags and donning sombreros.

In effect, the Garden thematically became the modern day manifestation of the Colosseum, eager for Cotto to avenge his attempted maiming at the hands of the hated villain. The evening invited a desire for Cotto to leave Margarito bloody and perhaps blind, turn his thumb down, and ask us if we were entertained.

It became apparent that Cotto is not merely a beloved fighter, he was ostensibly a member of the family. And with such a charged atmosphere and so much passion invested, I couldn’t help but wonder with a bit of trepidation what would go down if Cotto were to lose.

As it turned out, Cotto was indeed a lot better than Margarito – not quite vintage, but definitely good enough relative to what his opponent had left. Cotto opened up a cut over Margarito’s right eye, targeted the eye until it closed and mostly battered him for 10 rounds.

For his part, Margarito was his usual zombie self, staggering forward and shaking off punishment, though the relative lack of damage to Cotto’s face indicated that his thudding blows were perhaps somewhat less so this time around.

When the doctors wouldn’t allow a half-blinded Margarito to answer the bell for the 11th, the crowd around me seemed a bit disconcerted that their hero wouldn’t be able to cement his victory in the middle of the ring during combat. But that segued into a feeling of contentment with the growing realization that the situation was perfectly black and white: Cotto had won, which was far better than the alternative.

“I’m here with all my crowd and all my people. He means nothing to me,” Cotto insisted after the fight, as if one could simply make that so after so many years spent despising someone.

We went to Foley’s for a postfight “tweet-up,” at which everyone knows each other primarily by their screen names. There actually was little talk about the fight, animated passion replaced by a general feeling of contentment. Everyone’s shared burden cast aside, we were free to enjoy a few drinks and each other’s company.

*****

While I drove us back to New Jersey later that night, my fiancée expressed understandable mild disappointment in the anticlimactic nature of the conclusion of the fight. But we agreed that you rarely get explicitly what you want out of boxing, and that the end result truly was what mattered in this case, along with the experiences we’d had along the way.

Essentially, the fact that the fight happened at all given Margarito’s physical state was a victory in itself. That it was a good fight was icing on the cake, and Cotto’s triumph was the cherry on top.

And let’s face it, there are a lot of wrongs in life we don’t ever actually get to correct. If the main thing to take from Cotto’s great victory is that once in a great while, everything works out exactly the way it should, it’d be difficult to consider the evening anything other than an unqualified success.

After Thanksgiving dinner, my fiancée dozed off at around 10 p.m. while I watched episodes of The Walking Dead – pretty standard.

Amazingly, she still insists she intends to marry me after I woke her up at 11:30 to drag her to Wal-Mart.

Most holidays, to me, just seem like a waste of time. Everyone knows I’m a big fan of Halloween, and I do like New Year’s Eve, but everything else is pretty much nonsense, including Thanksgiving. I think this is the bah humbug stance you end up with when you grow up as one of two Jews in your entire high school.

Black Friday, however, holds appeal to me. I like that if you happen to need something, it’s probably being sold at a discount. I like that my New Jersey suburb runs a fairly ridiculous parade down Main Street right outside my window.

But the main reason I like Black Friday is the same reason I usually head out shopping at midnight with a bunch of maniacs instead of simply placing orders from the safety of my bed: Like the Joker, I enjoy a healthy dose of chaos. Provided you can stay above the fray, as I detailed last year, Black Friday is pretty awesome to watch unfold, as entire families camp out for hours and jockey for position in an effort to secure a $200 laptop.

I have two televisions and I’m fine with computers, so I had no desire to battle for the majority of the more coveted doorbusters. But I wanted a blu-ray player, and my fiancée also wanted one to give to her boss for Christmas. I put on a Barry Bonds jersey and headed out to get a first-hand look at the grand fiasco.

The police were out in droves. True to form, most of them had coffee and mustaches.

We went to the back of a sizable line, which nonetheless moved pretty well for the first 20 minutes until the electronics doorbusters went on sale at midnight. At that point, we stopped dead like Lincoln Tunnel traffic while the police presumably readied their pepper spray.

The people we were on line with seemed mostly sane, huddled together to ward off the wind and discuss their plan of attack. The guy ahead of us — who had his much younger brother and sister in tow — badly wanted a computer of any sort, and moaned his disapproval every time someone swaggered by with an enormous box in a shopping cart. Twitter told me that inside the store, two people staged a fight over a blender. Unless that blender also cleans your house, I can’t picture brawling about it.

We got inside, and it was a post-apocalyptic wasteland as people stormed through Wal-Mart like many bulls in one china shop, knocking over store displays and each other. Here, a group of women sift through “supplies limited” baby clothing.

At the discount DVD rack, I was greeted with a variety of The Rock’s hits, including “The Tooth Fairy” and “Walking Tall,” all on sale for two dollars. We purchased a copy of “The Illusionist” because my fiancée likes Ed Norton. I somehow resisted buying a $2 blu-ray of “Super Troopers,” one of the greatest movies of all time.

There were various balloons hovering throughout the store, letting you know what treasure you were standing on line for. Luckily, there was no line for the blu-ray players we coveted. Perhaps the allure of blenders was too great.

Me: “So, uh… how’s it going?”

Guy at register: (Long pause) … “Great.”

Here’s our haul, including the ingredients for Black Friday survival celebratory s’mores.

The next day, we went to Ikea to shop for an armoire, and then at my behest to Toys “R” Us, where we saw these adorable dolls of Eli Manning and Mark Sanchez. I think they truly captured the essence of both cuddly quarterbacks. Check out that grin on Eli!

We finished the day by having a few friends over to watch the holiday parade from my apartment.After partaking in all Black Friday had to offer, I’d say watching my high school shop teacher wear a Santa suit while riding by my window on a float for the 1,000th year in a row actually seemed to make perfect sense.

And that’s the great thing about Black Friday: We have to play it rank and file so much, that provided you play it relatively safe and stay out of the line of pepper spray, it’s great once in a while to immerse yourself in complete and total retail-fueled insanity.

Especially when s’mores are involved.

*****

I wrote this for Dime a couple days before the lockout ended about whether fans would willingly embrace the NBA, given that it took them an entire decade to recover from the last lockout. But starting the NBA season on Christmas is a masterstroke.

One way to get people to come back is to give them something they really want. After a long day of Christmas festivities with their families, the NBA games are a welcome respite. As a Jew, I work every year from home on Christmas Day – kind of like taking one for the team – and I was pleased to hear the NBA would have games for me to watch.

Christmas games are always something of an event; game aside, the NBC intro to Bulls-Knicks on the right is stupendous. But the fact that these are the first games after a brutal lockout not only provide satiety to those fans who craved NBA basketball, but they add a healthy bit of spectacle to the proceedings with what likely will be the only time we ever see the Christmas games mark the start of the season.

With the shortened attention spans cultivated by a Twitter-borne society and the added buzz of starting the season on Christmas, when it comes to restoring momentum after a terrible and unjustifiable lockout – difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week.

*****

WEEK 13 PICKS
Season record: 14-13-3
2 weeks ago: 1-2. Hit on Chicago, missed on Giants and Cowboys.

Broncos +1 at Vikings – I see no reason to pick against Tebow until he loses.

Chiefs +7 at Bears – Kansas City played Pittsburgh tough last week, and Caleb Hanie isn’t much to call home about. Neither is Tyler Palko, but I expect a close game.

Ravens -6.5 at Browns – I ‘d expect Ray Rice and the Baltimore defense to completely dominate.

The night Prayer for a Perfect Season premiered on HBO, I sat in a banquet hall watching it with the people who had the most personally invested in it.

The documentary was moving, but as it portrayed the fading vestiges of a golden era, the reactions of the St. Patrick High School community while watching it were far more so.

*****

Living in North Jersey, I’d been to several St. Pat’s games earlier this decade to watch the team with Mike Nardi and Derrick Caracter, but I started attending with more frequency two years ago, when Duke-bound Kyrie Irving was a senior there.

At the first game I went to, I met Ryan Biddulph and his father, Keith. They attended virtually every St. Pat’s game and assured me that Kyrie’s relatively quiet game that night was an anomaly. (This was true; he’s been sensational in literally every other game I’ve seen him play.)

I ended up going to about a half-dozen games, and the Biddulphs and everyone else involved with St. Pat’s truly made me feel like a welcome part of the school community, which was tightly knit and deeply invested in the success of the basketball team. So when they got in touch with me and invited me to a fundraising dinner/screening of Prayer for a Perfect Season the Tuesday before Halloween, my fiancée and I were happy to come support the school.

Besides watching the movie, the reason for the fundraiser is that parochial schools in New Jersey are hurting financially. That isn’t a new thing per se, but the lousy state of the economy has exacerbated the issue.

The departure of rock star coach Kevin Boyle, kind of a high school version of Rick Pitino, didn’t help matters, but it’s unclear whether the school would be in that much better shape had he stayed. St. Anthony has to fight hard to stay in business every year despite the presence of legendary coach Bob Hurley, and North Jersey institution Paterson Catholic went under last year.

The turnout for the fundraiser was outstanding and included Irving, who I interviewed for Dime Magazine. Seeing the amount of people who showed up to support the school and watch the film bred a sense of optimism, which nonetheless was dampened by an underlying yet overwhelming feeling of melancholy.

*****

The basketball team attended in their traditional Jordan Brand warm-ups, and they were treated warmly, but there wasn’t a single player from last year’s team. Underclassmen like Austin Colbert and Dakari Johnson who had figured heavily in last year’s run at a national title had transferred to other schools, with the 6-foot-10 man-child Johnson following Boyle to Montverde Academy.

SPOILER ALERT – If you intend to watch the film but haven’t yet, don’t bother reading the rest of this now. Feel free to come back and finish once you do.

The documentary was akin to ESPN’s Fab Five doc in that even though you know the ending, there’s a part of you that wants your recollection to somehow be wrong after getting thoroughly invested in the characters.

I knew some of the storylines in Prayer for a Perfect Season, such as Michael Kidd-Gilchrist’s uncle passing away the day he would sign his letter of intent to Kentucky, though I was unaware that Derrick Gordon had a twin brother in prison. And I was well aware of what happened to St. Pat’s in the de facto national title game.

Like with Michigan after Chris Webber’s fateful time out, St. Patrick’s climactic loss to St. Anthony means so much more knowing that it comes at the end of an era. Webber was going to go pro regardless; Boyle’s ticket to a far more lucrative life in sunny Florida would certainly still have been stamped, understandably. But instead of riding off into the sunset, both walked away with the taste of defeat still bitter in their mouths and fresh in everyone’s minds.

For the St. Pat’s community that night, it seemed equal parts catharsis – the validation of having the program featured in an HBO documentary – and sadness that they were watching the specter of something their program no longer was going to be.

When Boyle would rant and rave at his team, the St. Pat’s faithful would exchange knowing glances and wry grins. When one of them would appear on screen, all eyes would turn toward them like they’d just been an extra in a Brad Pitt movie. When St. Patrick would secure a big win, they’d celebrate all over again.

And when the national title game against St. Anthony started to slip away, the room got deathly silent. After all, it wasn’t just one game, albeit a very important game, slipping away.

It was the way things were.

There are periods in your life you simply want to hold on to, times so good you want them to last forever. Duke was like that for me, though it made it easier to move on that they won it all mere months before I was to graduate.

For St. Pat’s, watching the documentary was a reminder of how good things were, and that even if they keep the school going — which I very much hope they do — things would likely never be that good again. And it didn’t help that they couldn’t take with them that one final victory that would have tied things up the way they were meant to be.

That’s how it goes, though. Times in our life come and go, we move on and leave things behind in search of new beginnings. Yet we endeavor never to forget how good things were – even if they don’t necessarily end the way we’d like them to.

*****

You can catch Prayer for a Perfect Season with HBO On Demand until Monday. If you don’t have that, it airs on Wednesday on HBO2 at 10:30 p.m. ET. I highly recommend you check it out.

WEEK 11 PICKS

Season record: 13-11-3
Last week: 2-1. Hit on Patriots, Bears. Should have hit with Giants.

Bears -3.5 vs. Chargers – San Diego is too beat up to keep up with the Bears.

Giants -4.5 vs. Eagles – No Vick means a far less exciting game, and I doubt the Giants will let up at all given how they were humiliated at home by Philly last year.

Cowboys -7.5 at Redskins – Washington is terrible, and DeMarco Murray is the man.