Given the right mix of environmental factors, a terrible idea will behave like a virus, inasmuch as it’ll be about as contagious as measles and largely resistant to intervention. In a wholly coincidental nod to Knicks guard Jalen Brunson, the R0 value for the terrible idea currently plaguing New York’s media class is a pestiferous 11, and the bug that’s going around seems to prefer munching on the brains of the city’s business reporters.If a cerebellum-chewing genetically engineered superbug isn’t rampaging through Manhattan’s newsrooms, how else does one explain the sudden proliferation of think pieces about James Dolan’s “redemption arc?” Since the Knicks Brunson-ed their way into the NBA Finals for the first time in nearly 30 years, the local dailies and their online simulacra have been awash with riffs on how a victory over the San Antonio Spurs will transform the team’s, erm, polarizing owner into some kind of folk hero—an argument that is as untenable as it is stupid.The past few days have given rise to a hellstorm of musings on the impact a Knicks title will have on Dolan’s legacy, with similarly themed stories mushrooming up everywhere from The New York Times to The Wall Street Journal to the Financial Times. Like the products of one of those meal-prep services for the profoundly lazy, each piece seems to have arrived fully cooked and ready to cram into the nearest undiscriminating cakehole. For a bunch of wised-up Noo Yawkers, there’s an awful lot of wholesale credulity at work here, as if the prospect of a long-awaited banner drop has transformed the Fourth Estate into a gaggle of excitable hayseeds.These speculative musings admittedly go down a little easier in light of Dolan’s recent string of business dealings, which are exemplified by the success of his celebrated Vegas orb. Since U2 cut the ribbon on Sphere with a 40-date residency in fall 2023, the venue has not only thrown off bundles of cash, but has ingratiated itself into the very fabric of the city. Less than three years in and Sphere already feels like an indispensable feature of the Vegas dreamscape.But to suggest that fans are about to embrace the owner of their beloved Knicks after three decades of screaming “sell the team!” at his retreating form is to sever ties with consensus reality. For one thing, Gotham’s opinion of the billionaire bluesman is almost entirely inconsequential; even in years when the Knicks have stunk like a Penn Station platform on an August afternoon, the Garden is almost always sold out. Knicks fans are characterized by a sort of intractable sense of loyalty, and they’re willing to put up with all matter of indignities—invasive hyper-surveillance (biometric and virtual), the banishment of Charles Oakley, and other forms of petty sociopathy—and their feelings about Dolan aren’t sufficient to keep them from converging on 4 Penn Plaza for every home game like a swarm of leather-lunged locusts.Case in point: During the 2014-15 season, when the Knicks finished at the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings with a historically awful 17-65 record, the team ranked fourth in the league in attendance. That same year, Dolan memorably responded to a disgruntled email from a 73-year-old lifelong Knicks supporter by firing off a typo-riddled note in which he accused the fan of being: a) an “Alcoholic maybe,” b) a “hateful mess” and c) the sort of person who “likely [has] made your family miserable.” The frontman of JD & the Straight Shot concluded by advising his interlocutor to “start rooting for the Nets because the Knicks don’t want you.”Now, admittedly, this is sort of hilarious—if nothing else, it’s so on-brand for New York that it may as well have been dictated by Pizza Rat®—and given sufficient reserves of rich-guy empathy, it’s not too hard to see why Dolan may have felt justified in reaching for his poison pen. Maybe he was a little grouchy after snapping the “B” string earlier that same day as the band rehearsed the 2011 dirge “Fix the Knicks.” Or it could be that Dolan’s just like everyone else as far as his limited tolerance for unsolicited criticism is concerned. (Also: New York is a crabby place! You’ve seen all the movies: “I’m walking here!” “Are you talkin’ to me?” “Ghostbusters!”)Setting aside the fact that Dolan’s abrasive personality—he’s what you’d get if razor burn were to gain sentience and never stopped banging on about how great the Eagles were—is no barrier to MSG’s cash generation, all those redemption fables conflate likeability with success. Mets fans may want to weigh in here. How’s the lovefest going up there in Queens?Parasocial relationships by their very nature are profoundly weird, and the thesis that Dolan is about to make a turn for the cuddlesome is symptomatic of the insidious way our brains have been gummed up by the folkways of always-online culture. To celebrate the owner of a sports team because he finally decided to step out of the way—since hiring him six years ago, Dolan (largely) has ceded control of day-to-day operations to president Leon Rose—is like throwing a birthday party for the neighborhood dog who finally stopped biting you in the ass after all his teeth fell out. It’s a grand gesture and all, but people are going to make fun of you as soon as you get up to fetch the Carvel cake from the fridge.The hypotheticals about whether New York will embrace Dolan if the Knicks sew up a title not only overlook basic human nature, but fly in the face of an established dynamic that everyone actually seems to enjoy. Again, this is New York, and we like hating stuff. For the most part, Yankees fans despised George Steinbrenner, which was convenient given how eminently despicable the micromanaging, be-turtlenecked loudmouth was when he owned the club between 1973 and his death in 2010.Those same fans also miss the Boss, because at least he made you feel something. His heir, son Hal, evokes almost no emotional charge whatsoever, largely because the man is a cypher, an excluded middle. Every day his Yanks took the field, George wanted a win, and when they failed to deliver he’d get all huffy and blab to the papers. To root for George’s Yankees was to revel in the sort of dysfunction that leads to the oft-fired manager getting into fistfights with marshmallow salesmen and the publication of Sparky Lyle’s riotously unbothered The Bronx Zoo. That era of Yankee history felt like a wedding where everyone secretly resents at least 20 other people in the banquet hall, but then the DJ plays “Crazy in Love” and it’s smiles all around.N.B.: In Boston, it’s “Sweet Caroline,” and you still get in a donnybrook with your cousin Phil—but only after he’s finished doing the worm.Dolan just turned 71 last month, and if there’s one thing that applies to all men who’ve reached that milepost it’s that they are incapable of material change. That human beings calcify like stalagmites is one of those idiosyncrasies that is hardwired into our genetic coding, and at a certain point everyone becomes a caricature of themselves. Meanwhile, after 30 years of not caring much for something, it would be folly to suggest that such a long-held opinion might be open to revision. Encino Man still sucks today as much as it did in 1992, and an Oscar win for a fat-suited Brendan Fraser 30 years later didn’t change anyone’s opinion. Even if we’re treated to the vision of Pat Ewing ceremonially snipping a section of net cord while the confetti flies in Herald Square, James Dolan isn’t going to wake up all fluffy and loveable the morning after. He’s not going to turn into some sort of blues-besotted version of the redeemed Ebeneezer Scrooge, all exhorting an area urchin to rush off and buy the biggest goose in the window of the Islip C-Town. And that’s fine. If nothing else, the universal (and seemingly reciprocal) enmity only serves to somehow bring into greater relief the genuine fondness New Yorkers have for their Knicks.For what it’s worth, the subjects quoted in many of these redemption stories are identified as “power brokers” and “equity managers.” These are not the ham-and-eggers who’ve stuck with the Knicks through all the lows (and occasional highs) of the Dolan era, the people who support the team with their frequent visits to the Garden and their cable TV subscriptions. The American predilection for assigning genius to anyone with money is such that those who control a disproportionate share of wealth are also proffered a larger share of voice in the inevitable NYT/WSJ/FT trend-surfing think piece.Ask a real Knicks fan if they’ll be willing to let bygones be bygones should the team prevail over San Antonio, and I’ll bet you dollars to donuts your question will be interpreted as an invitation to ridicule. Nobody whose brain isn’t teeming with aphids is going to change their mind about James Dolan; odds are, nobody’ll be thinking about him at all.