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Brooklyn Nets: Did James Harden troll Knicks with New Yorker tweet?

By Adam Weinrib

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 05: James Harden #13 of the Brooklyn Nets passes against the New York Knicks during their game at Barclays Center on April 05, 2021 in New York City. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 05: James Harden #13 of the Brooklyn Nets passes against the New York Knicks during their game at Barclays Center on April 05, 2021 in New York City. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images) /
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The Brooklyn Nets are battling it out for the one-seed in the Eastern Conference, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the NBA team in the other borough.

To be fair to America’s publishers, though, the Nets-Knicks rivalry has never been hotter.

New York isn’t just a scrappy 8-9 seed anymore, either. As of this writing, they sit in the East’s No. 4 spot, though an extremely difficult west coast road trip awaits them.

Still…two top-four teams in a conference residing in one city? What is this, Los Angeles, California! Like it or not, it’s newsworthy.

Put James Harden firmly in the “not” category, though.

The Brooklyn Nets were honored with the New Yorker cover this week (yes, a real thing that happened), which also featured Julius Randle and RJ Barrett illustrations nipping at their heels. The Nets were the giants, and the Knicks were frittering about between their tree-trunk legs. It was symbolism at its easiest.

Harden didn’t care much for the blue-and-orange portion of the artwork, though, and cropped them out entirely when he reposted the cover.

James Harden definitely trolled the Knicks with his Brooklyn Nets New Yorker cover tweet.

There! That’ll show ’em!

So, what’s the vote, intentional or not? It’s obvious, but…we’ll leave the cropping up to interpretation. Maybe James was just messing with the Twitter algorithm and he was getting sick of the app cutting off the byline or the magazine’s price up top?

Even a representation of the Knicks being comparatively small was too much for the Nets’ brightest star, it seems.

Knicks fans had their own reactions to the Harden cover crop, though, most of which were not very kind to Brooklyn’s super team.

Of course, the Knicks’ recent 12-1 run, which followed almost immediately in the wake of Randle claiming New York features a “Big 15” has definitely factored into their confidence a bit.

Some Knicks fans even took the liberty of showing off a bigger, better magazine. The type of magazine that doesn’t need to be cropped to get a point across.

https://twitter.com/seth_rosenthal/status/1389631561243451394?s=20

There are plenty of ifs involved, but if the Nets surpass the Sixers once again and if the Knicks stay sustainably hot through four games against the Nuggets, Suns, Clippers and Lakers on the road, these two teams might be on a second-round collision course.

In other words, Harden will get another opportunity to make the Knicks look small on the court.