Coast-to-coast toast

That was some shakin' goin' on out there in L.A., and we're not talking earthquakes. That swaying everyone felt in the Staples Center was the arrival of the NBA's new Superfriends team, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, who decided L.A. was the place for them.

But not, you know, that L.A.

No, that L.A. -- the iconic Lakers, once one of the NBA's pillar franchises -- but the Clippers, aka the Comic Relief. Now the Clips are the stable grownup adept at adulating, and the Lake Show is the goofy child forever stumbling into some mess of its own creation.

Or to put it in old people terms, the Clips are Ward Cleaver now. The Lakers are the Beaver.

To be sure, they've got their own Superfriends -- LeBron and Anthony Davis -- but they had to give away most of their team to get them. LeBron and the bumbling Rob Pelinka had alienated most of them anyway, so perhaps it's no loss. Now they've got LeBron, Pelinka and a compliant Frank Vogel as coach.

You'd like to think this will work. But it's the Lakers, so ...

This of course is what we used to say about the Clippers, not to put too fine a point on it or anything. It's also what people used to say about the Knicks, although not for 20 or so years. Now what people say about the Knicks is "Hey, look! It's the new Nets!"

That's because the same seismic role reversal that's happening in L.A. is also happening in New York. The Nets, long the eclipsed afterthought in the Big Apple, are now the grownups. The Knicks are the dysfunctional child, forever smearing cereal in their hair and throwing the empty bowl on the floor.

Ostensibly they made a play for Kevin Durant, but KD said, "Oh, HELL, no."  Instead he decided he'd rather hang out across the river in Brooklyn. Worse, Kyrie Irving decided the same thing. And who could blame them, given the buffoonish James Dolan era in Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks haven't mattered for two decades?

Knicks fans like to pretend their team is still one of the linchpin franchises in the NBA, but more and more this just means they have an active fantasy life. Willis Reed, Walt Frazier and Dave DeBusschere didn't play for them yesterday. Neither did Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley and John Starks. They're the Sacramento Kings now, is who they are.

And playing in the Garden, in the heart of the media center of the world, doesn't have the juice it used to. It's 2019, and the world is a fully connected, live-streaming place. Everywhere is New York now.

In other words, you've got to actually work at it, in order to land the Kawhis and KDs and Kyries. You can't just say you're the Knicks or you're the Lakers and expect it to be the lure it used to be. Competence matters now, not just branding.

Especially when the brand you're selling is mostly just nostalgia these days.