For two years, the New York Knicks have been selling hope at exorbitant prices and depositing the receipts in a high-risk account, to be used primarily this summer on LeBron James. All along, there has been a disquieting undercurrent to the plan, the specter of presumption or delusion. It wasn't quite all or nothing, with other free agents to pursue, or potentially overpay. But there was always an element of Wall Street speculation to the scheme, the over-the-rainbow belief that James -- a 25-year-old prince of the planet -- would be intoxicated by the opportunity to play basketball in New York City. Did the city also naively buy into the gutting of the team's roster and the tanking of two seasons after eight years of mediocrity or worse because, like the Knicks, it embraced a fool's-gold principle that James needs Madison Square Garden even half as much as the Garden needs him? There has long been a widely held belief that the NBA would exponentially be enhanced by having a powerhouse team in the New York market. By extension comes the premise that a superstar like James would equally benefit from playing in Madison Square Garden, locally known as the World's Most Famous Arena. But if ever there was discrediting imagery to that myth, it was when a Knicks contingent led by the owner James L. Dolan jetted into Cleveland on Thursday to, in effect, beg James to come save the franchise from its own sense of self-aggrandizement. With suitors other than Cleveland readying offers of almost $100 million on top of the ransom James takes annually from a multitude of endorsements, it is conspicuously clear that the sport has provided quite well for the league's gifted and talented despite a decade of Knicks irrelevance and no championship in New York since 1973. James may yet choose New York over remaining in Cleveland or going to Chicago or Miami or, say, even Newark/Brooklyn, and in the process bring along a desirable friend like free-agent power forward Chris Bosh. But if he doesn't -- and preliminary reports seemed to be moving in that direction -- the Knicks could be left with consolation prizes at paralyzing costs -- and that's if they're lucky -- along with questions about the two-year gamble that has now characterized them as the most buoyancy-challenged party in the deep end of the free-agent pool. If they do sink into another decade of underachievement and incur the wrath of their long-suffering fans, they will have only themselves to blame for failing to study the history and geography of the contemporary NBA megastar. Michael Jordan ruled the basketball universe for a decade from a throne in downtown Chicago. James became a money-printing icon without winning a single championship in his seven-year run in Cleveland. Did the Knicks really love the odds of winning his signature with celebrity chefs and video pleas from the rich and famous but without a modestly respectable cast of complementary talent? The Knicks have been far from alone in discarding players they weren't going to win a championship with in order to get in the game for James and the rest of this summer's splashy catches. The difference is that they have managed to position themselves as the most desperate of James supplicants based on who they are, how bad they've become, how much they've promised and how little they will have to offer their fan base if Plans A and B do not work out. The expectations for them are overwhelming, and the early tea leaves are not promising. Secondary acquisition targets like Joe Johnson and Rudy Gay are reportedly close to re-signing with Atlanta and Memphis, respectively, for more money than the Knicks could offer them under the complicated rules of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. Speculation has had James still feeling the love from Cleveland or going to Chicago, which created space under the salary cap without diminishing a core of young talent. Dwyane Wade has always been a long shot to leave Miami, where he has already won a championship and will attract a companion star like Bosh, who is said to prefer a place where he does not have to carry the burden as the No. 1 star, as he was in Toronto. Unless James comes with him, Bosh is unlikely to be in a New York state of mind, which means that the Knicks' foreseeable future now rides on Thursday's pitch to James. This is what happens when you aim for the stars without first building a strong foundation to stand on, when free-agent money must compensate for the lack of analytical prowess in the college draft and the careful compilation of assets, when the future of your franchise rests on a 25-year-old who has everything but a championship and must be convinced the best place to win one is in New York. Even if it's been 37 years -- or 12 years before James was born -- since that's been the case. 