Anytime someone asked if I was watching Game of Thrones, I explained that it wasn't my kind of show. They always had the same reaction: "What????? It's a great show! How can you not watch it? It makes no sense!"

From there, I'd explain that the whole dragon/sword/forest era was never really my thing — dating back to the 1980s, when the Dungeons and Dragons kids took it to a pretty creepy place — and somewhere along the line, I decided that I just didn't enjoy voyaging into the forest. For any reason. If I could hold out on Lord of the Rings, then I could hold out on Game of Thrones. What changed? On the day after Season 2's epic "Blackwater" episode aired, I happened to be in Grantland's office as everyone was breathlessly rehashing it. At one point, Hollywood Prospectus editor Mark Lisanti glanced over to me and said, "I can't believe you don't watch this show."

I knew that disappointed, semi-incredulous look — it's the same one I direct at my father every time he admits that he hasn't started Mad Men yet (even though I bought him the Season 1 DVD two years ago). What are you doing? I thought you liked TV. This makes no sense! That night on the phone, my buddy House agreed with Lisanti's disbelief and added, "Just so you know, that show has a ton of nudity." Well then! I started watching that weekend and the rest was history.

By the fourth episode, I knew we had a winner for my annual "Recap the NBA's summer movement by handing out TV/movie quotes as awards" column. The overriding theme of Thrones — jockeying for power by any means necessary — should sound familiar to any basketball fan. Maybe the NBA doesn't have dragon babies, beheadings and incest (at least not yet), but it has just about everything else. Without further ado …

"I'm looking at spending the rest of my life being treated like a fool and a eunuch by my own people. Ask yourself: Is there anything I wouldn't do to stop that from happening?"

For Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who took the phrase "all in" to new levels with his dogged pursuit of Dwight Howard. At this point, Dork Elvis has done everything short of holding a boom box in the pouring rain outside of Dwight's Los Angeles hotel … and that's probably happening tomorrow night. His strategy makes sense: You can't win the title without a top-10 player. Unfortunately for the Rockets, they've been trapped in NBA no-man's-land ever since T-Mac and Yao broke down. Last year, they barely missed the playoffs AND paid the luxury tax, which simply can't happen — in a 30-team league, you either want to bottom out or contend, but you can't be in the middle. The Rockets spent the last three years stockpiling assets and cap space for this exact moment. It's Howard, Bynum or Bust.

Were there a few days when it seemed like Morey had outsmarted himself? Actually, yeah. The Rockets allowed an emerging offensive star (Goran Dragic) to leave for Phoenix (four years, $34 million), then dealt one of the league's best bargains (Kyle Lowry, owed just $12 million total for the next two seasons) for a future lottery pick to help The Howard Trade That Might Not Happen, going from two quality point guards to zero in about five nanoseconds. That's when one of my incredulous readers e-mailed me, "At what point are we going to find out that Dork Elvis overdosed on bath salts and tried to eat Kevin McHale's face off?" He salvaged that mini-crisis by giving Jeremy Lin a back-loaded offer sheet ($24.9 million, three years) that the Knicks didn't match. Why not just re-sign Dragic (a better player than Lin) instead of sweating out an offer sheet and banking on James Dolan doing the wrong thing?

(Wait … I forgot … there are few safer bets in sports than James Dolan doing the wrong thing. You're right.)

"We've had vicious kings and we've had idiot kings, but I don't know if we've ever been cursed with a vicious idiot for a king."

(Cut to the Knicks fans nodding.)

Here's the thing: The Knicks haven't worried about the financial ramifications of a basketball decision since Dolan's daddy turned the team over to him. Even the most grizzled, beaten-down Knicks diehard would admit, "Dolan might be incompetent, but you can't say he's afraid to spend money." That why I agree with what Jay Kang wrote earlier this week — this wasn't a financially motivated decision, just a spiteful one. Dolan didn't appreciate Lin's agent proactively screwing him over with a poison pill offer, and responded accordingly.

You don't pull that sneaky shit with me after everything I did for you! I'm James F-ing Dolan! Go to Houston for all I care, you'll never be seen again!

That was the only plausible explanation: pure, unadulterated spite. When you're hopelessly over the cap like New York (thanks, Amar'e!) and you've already proven that you don't care about being fiscally responsible, why allow a 23-year-old asset to leave for nothing … especially someone who resonated with your fan base like no Knick since Latrell Sprewell? Lin would have been underpaid in years one and two and violently overpaid in year three (including luxury tax ramifications, Lin would have cost the Knicks $43 million in year three). Well … so what? What about Lin's value overseas, or even his undeniable effect on MSG's stock? (It couldn't have been a coincidence that Houston, the one team that knew exactly how valuable someone with a Far East marketing reach could be, was the one that pursued Lin.) Couldn't Lin have helped the Knicks contend next season? And after that, they could have traded him in year two or year three to a team with cap space (or for a better player) with other pieces thrown in. Who said they had to keep him for all three years? Why not bring him back and figure the rest out later?

For everyone dismissing last season's Linsanity binge as something of a fluke, here's a news flash for you: This isn't baseball. This isn't Kevin Maas or Phil Plantier catching fire for a few weeks before the league figured them out. I watched those games. Even in a somewhat small sample size, Lin proved that he's either a quality starter (best-case scenario) or something of a rich man's J.J. Barea, an irrational confidence guy who gives you instant offense off the bench (worst-case scenario). Letting an asset leave for nothing? Really stupid. Letting that asset leave because you'd rather spend that money on Jason Kidd (39 years old, effectively washed-up), Marcus Camby (on his last legs) and Ray Felton (the most loathed Trail Blazer maybe ever)? That's really stupid AND an appallingly bad business decision. And by the way …

"Tears aren't a woman's only weapon. The best one's between your legs."

Smart advice (at least in medieval times) for the entire Knicks fan base. You only have one weapon as fans: The right to stop supporting your...