Can villains become heroes?

o, what's happening? I got a serious question that's been bothering me a lot as we've approached the summer of 2010. And now that July 1st is almost here, I'm more frightened than ever.

Okay, so if you're a diehard basketball fan, and you've been watching the NBA for years, then you know that after a while you start to really love and hate certain players. Sometimes, you don't really know why you love or hate a player, but you just do. Sometimes you know exactly why you love or hate a player, and you're happy to break down your reasons in detail, but no one wants to hear you out.

Let's talk about the ones you hate. Let's call them villains. Every diehard fan has villains. Think of the NBA villain you hate the most. You know that guy you can't stand, and you get mad just seeing them. Okay, now suppose that Donnie Walsh brings them to the Knicks. What do you do?

You guys have expressed your intense hatred for certain players in this league, and now they may be coming to the Knicks. Can they become a hero in your eyes? As for me, I just don't know. That's why I'm scared. I've been waiting for the Knicks to win a championship my entire life (I wan't alive for '70 and '73). What if they finally win, and they have a big parade, and leading the parade is the stupid looking face of ______________ who I've hated my entire life, and __________________'s face is on billboards and commercials everywhere, and all the championship gear I buy has _____________________'s face in the center of it. Will the event I've dreamed of my entire life be tainted, poisoned, or even ruined.

Okay, so let me clear. I'm not posting this to start an argument about who is a villain why? We all have different ones. The point is to explain how you will deal with it if your most hated player ever came and led the Knicks to a championship. Could you embrace them, or would you always be secretly bitter? I don't know what I would do, and that's why I'm scared.

Here's a list of my villains (not ranked in any particular order), just in case you're curious. I'm doing current players only, otherwise this list would be like 200 names long:

Shaq

Dwayne Wade

Yes, they're are a lot of foreign players on this list. No, I'm not racist, I just hate all their damn flopping and pleading with the referees.