IT IS TIME.

The offseason sucks. I'm so glad it's over. The season will be long. It will fluctuate. It will tax you. It will elate you. There will be moments at which you feel like the Knicks can win the championship. There will be moments at which you feel like they're doomed. When it ends, there will be leaves on the trees, pollen in the air, and only a slim chance you'll feel satisfied. But between now and then, no matter what else happens, there will be basketball, which is so much better than no basketball. That's why we're here. Knicks basketball is fun. Watching the Knicks is fun and it is fun to do it together.

This is P&T's eighth season-- seventh full season-- and things will be as they have been. We'll experiment with some new things along the way, but the general rhythms should remain the same: There will game threads for games, post-game threads for post-games, and recaps yammering about what happened at some point thereafter. In between, I will share and remark upon every idea, fact, bit of news, story, image, video, and recipe I find worthwhile, and I encourage you to do the same in the Fanpost section. You can follow P&T on Twitter and Facebook if you're so inclined. I aspire to make both of those sOciAl mEdiA spots-- especially the Facebook-- a little livelier this season.

The Knicks and Bucks tip off tonight at 7:30. There'll be a preview-type post up between now and then. For now, you know what to do: Fetch your scimitar and a goat from your herd, hoist the goat above your head, stride into the middle of the nearest street such that traffic stops and motorists exit their cars to gaze upon you, and spill the animal's blood over yourself and the pavement beneath your feet while chanting each name on the Knicks' 15-man roster. Even Chris Smith. If anyone dare disgrace your public display of devotion, hand them a 3 x 5 card featuring this icon:

They'll shut up. Let there be Knicks.