During the final minutes of Wednesday night's embarrassing loss to the Memphis Grizzlies -- which featured both teams nearly coming to blows following Elfrid Payton showing Jae Crowder to the ground -- Knicks fans chanted "Sell the team!" for all to hear, expressing their frustration with the team ownership group, led by James Dolan.
On Thursday, former 10-time All-Star Paul Pierce echoed those sentiments on ESPN's The Jump, saying the Knicks could become a contender under different ownership.
"I've been talking about this the last 5-10 years. This is not a new low for the Knicks because you can't get any lower than they've already been," Pierce said. "Everybody is waiting for this franchise to get some relevancy.
"Free agents are passing on them. Losing (Kevin) Durant and Kyrie (Irving) to Brooklyn, not getting Zion (Williamson). Something has to change for the Knicks and I truly believe once they get new ownership you'll see change. You saw it with the Clippers. Look what happened with the Clippers. Now they're a perennially playoff team, they got better ownership and they're a championship-contending team now."
Pierce, who spent most of his career as a Boston Celtic, played his final two seasons with the Clippers, a team that changed ownership following Donald Sterling's racist remarks and subsequent lifetime ban.
The Knicks fell to 13-36 following Wednesday's loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. The Knicks have not had a winning season since 2012-13 and have won just one playoff series since 2000.
To make Wednesday's loss even worse, Payton was suspended one game for his involvement in the fourth-quarter scrum between the two teams. Meanwhile, Marcus Morris was fined $35,000 for his involvement. Morris also said that Crowder had "female tendencies," a comment that he would later apologize for.