Seventeen years to the day before I was born, the New York Knicks won their first NBA championship. Three years and two days later, they won another. It took 53 years — 19,392 days, of which I was alive for 14,281 of them — for it to happen again. After waiting my entire life, I can finally say it: the New York Knicks are NBA champions once again.
I sat in front of my laptop for a long time last night, staring at a blank screen. Over an hour of just me and the page. And I couldn't come up with anything that properly captured what I was feeling.
If you know me at all, that's probably not surprising. I don't like talking, much less writing about myself, or especially about my emotions. Even if you don't know me personally, if you're reading this newsletter and/or website, or if you listen to my podcast, you know that my comfort zone is writing and talking about what actually happens on the court. And don't get me wrong, what happened on the court was incredible, and I will certainly get to it. But I wouldn't feel right just writing about that here — not when I've had so many feelings wash over me over the last two months, and especially last night.
I didn't think I was going to cry. I'm not a crier, after all. I really can't remember ever happy-crying about, well, anything. But damn it if a few tears didn't sneak their way out of my eyes once Victor Wembanyama's shot bounced off the glass and the clock hit zero and OG Anunoby threw that ball into the air and Mike Breen told Knick fans to go ahead and cry. If Mike Breen, the voice of the Knicks, says it's okay to cry, then god damn is it okay to cry. So I teared up a little bit, and I hugged my dog, and I opened my window and I listened to the city. And I thought about the journey to get here.
The journey through oh so many things and so many people.
Through the Charles Smith game and Scottie Pippen's dunk and Hakeem Olajuwon's finger tips and the John Starks game and the Patrick Ewing finger roll and the brawl with the Heat and the other brawl with the Heat and eight points in nine seconds and sexual harassment lawsuits and the back of trucks and bags over heads and fire Isiah and sell the team and The Decision and trading for Carmelo Anthony instead of signing him and The East Is Big, Man and Roy Hibbert's block and the Andrea Bargnani trade and 17-65 and Kurt Rambis' Twitter likes and not even being invited to the bubble and Trae Young and losing to the Heat and everybody and their mother getting injured against the Pacers and that damn Tyrese Haliburton shot and so much more.
Through Rick Pitino and Stu Jackson, Pat Riley and Don Nelson, Jeff Van Gundy and Don Chaney and Herb Williams and Lenny Wilkens and Herb Williams again and Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas and Mike D'Antoni and Mike Woodson and Derek Fisher and Kurt Rambis and Jeff Hornacek and David Fizdale and Mike Miller and Tom Thibodeau.
Through Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley and John Starks and Anthony Mason and Derek Harper and Mark Jackson and Allan Houston and Charlie Ward and Latrell Sprewell and Larry Johnson and Marcus Camby and Gerald Wilkins and Hubert Davis and Greg Anthony and Chris Childs and Kurt Thomas.
Through Mardy Collins and Jerome James and Randolph Morris and Travis Wear and Ricky Ledo and Kevin Seraphin and Andy Rautins and Travis Knight and Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries and Ignas Brazdeikis and Mario Hezonja and Walter McCarty and Dontae Jones and John Wallace and Vin Baker and Toure' Murry and Luc Longley and Shawne Williams and Jerome Williams and Trey Burke and Damyean Dotson and Cole Aldrich and Chris Dudley and Noah Vonley and Willy Hernangomez and Chris Mills and Nazr Mohammed and Landry Fields and Enes Freedom and Othella Harrington and Trent Tucker and Nate Robinson and Kenny Walker and Kyle O'Quinn and Mike Sweetney and Renaldo Balkman and Jimmer Fredette and Darko Milicic and Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley and Marshall Plumlee and Roger Mason and Metta World Peace and Samuel Dalembert and Anthony Randolph and Frank Williams and Cleanthony Early and Jordan Hill and Channing Frye and Maurice Ndour and Chasson Randle and Ron Baker and Antonio McDyess and Buck Williams and Doc Rivers and Rod Strickland and Scott Brooks and Billy Donovan and Rick Brunson and Lavor Postell and Erick Strickland and Xavier McDaniel and Herb Williams again and Glen Rice and Bill Cartwright and Mo Cheeks and Earl Barron and Austin Rivers and Beno Udrih and Mike Bibby and Penny Hardaway and Tracy McGrady and Zach Randolph and Stephon Marbury and Jerian Grant and Larry Hughes and Mindaugas Kuzminskas and Cam Reddish and Alexey Shved and Sasha Vujacic and Josh Harrelson and Alonzo Trier and Chris Copeland and Kenyon Martin and Quentin Richardson and Clarence Weatherspoon and Kristaps Porzingis and Frank Ntilikina and Raymond Felton and Courtney Lee and Pablo Prigioni and Al Harrington and Toney Douglas and Shane Larkin because I refuse to end this run on a guy from Florida State so I have to cleanse it with a guy from Miami and yes I'm doing this all from memory.
Through Julius Randle and Immanuel Quickley and RJ Barrett and Donte DiVincenzo and Isaiah Hartenstein and Alec Burks and Obi Toppin and Derrick Rose and Precious Achiuwa and Nerlens Noel and Evan Fournier and Kemba Walker and Quentin Grimes and Taj Gibson and Jericho Sims and Delon Wright and Malachi Flynn and Ryan Arcidiacono and Theo Pinson and Kevin Knox and Cameron Payne.
I thought about allll of that. And then I arrived here, at the one thought that stuck with me overnight: I lived to see this.
Last year, after the Knicks lost in the Eastern Conference Finals, I was on the phone with a friend with whom I talk about basketball more than almost anyone else in my life. He asked me straight up if I thought the Knicks would ever win a title in our lifetimes. I sat there and really thought about it for almost a minute — a lifetime is a long-ass time, so the question needed proper consideration — and then just said, "No, probably not."
I talked through the logic behind the answer. Only one team wins every year. There's a 97% chance that the team that wins won't be your favorite team. And that number doesn't even factor in the fact that your team has to be good enough to win in the first place. The odds might even be higher than 97% that you won't root for the team that wins it all in any given season. Blah blah blah. And with the Knicks, they've given us no reason to think they can overcome the odds. Blah blah blah.
If you know me at all, you know how much I love being right. About everything. I have never in my life been so happy to be so wrong.
And so now I come to these guys. The ones who proved me — and a whole lot of other people — wrong.
What else is there to say about Jalen Brunson that hasn't already been said? He is a stone killer and — despite what his father said on the Inside the NBA broadcast during the postgame celebration — I think I can confidently say he is the best Knick of my lifetime. At least, he is the one I have come to expect the most from, and hot damn if he hasn't delivered the most in every possible way and more. Right up through last night, when he went and stuck a stake into the Spurs with a 45-ball on the road, dragging his team back from down double digits for the fourth time in the series. He is the guy who started this all, and he is the guy who finished it. This team and this city have had so many would-be saviors over the years, and it's fitting that the guy who declared himself decidedly not the savior when he first signed with the team, ended up being the savior after all.
Karl-Anthony Towns turned into the best possible version of himself for a glorious stretch during these playoffs. For so many years, so many people — myself often included — would get so frustrated watching Towns, because it was so clear that he had the talent to be so much more than he was, even while he was already great. I've said it often throughout his career: he has the talent to be the best center in the league. For about six weeks, he tapped into every single inch of talent he has and became exactly that — on both ends of the floor.
I will remember where I was for OG Anunoby's tip-in — and really, every single second of his remarkable playoff heater — for the rest of my life. Nobody can take that away from me. The Knicks traded a guy who, at the time, was my favorite player on the team, in order to get him, and I said that very day that they traded him for the one player in the entire league where I couldn't get mad about it, because OG was the best version of his archetype of player in the entire league. He proved it and then some over these last few years.
I'll always have a soft spot for Mikal Bridges. I wanted the Knicks to draft him when they took Kevin Knox. I wanted them to trade for him when I knew he was available. I didn't want them to give up as much as they did, but you know what? Fuck them picks. It was all worth it. Mikal's mid-playoff heater of his own, coming back from being benched in the Atlanta series, was incredible in its own right, and I'll never forget that, either.
I have loved watching few players in my life as much as I love watching Josh Hart when he is having one of those Josh Hart Games. When he is flying around all over the place, spinning like a whirling dervish, snagging offensive rebounds, dishing dimes all over the court, locking in defensively, and just generally doing everything the team needs, depending on what it needs at any given moment.
Mitchell Robinson, man! This guy endured the early years, before Leon Rose (more on him later) and Thibs and Brunson, when the team was an epic disaster. He endured so much on and off the court. The injuries turned him into a role player rather than a starter, but damn if he doesn't play that role as well as humanly possible. It's poetic that he got the biggest offensive rebound of the night in Game 5, then showed the awareness to pass the ball out before he could be fouled. He would've gotten the board earlier in his career, but only in the last few years did that awareness come around. It mattered.
Landry Shamet's all-time conference finals will never be forgotten. Jose Alvarado's Game 4 vs. the Spurs will never be forgotten. Deuce McBride's explosion vs. the Sixers in the Round 2 closeout game should not be forgotten. Jordan Clarkson's metamorphosis into a defender and offensive rebounder should not be forgotten. Even Ariel Hukporti's two-minute stint of solid defense and big block in the closeout game of the Finals — and even more so, his legendary performance in the postgame press conferences — should never be forgotten. The lift Mohamed Diawara gave at times during the regular season will not be forgotten by me. The Tyler Kolek Game in the NBA Cup Finals will not be forgotten by me.
Mike Brown walked into an impossible situation, with impossible expectations. Anything less than a Finals appearance would be seen as a disaster. And according to the owner, anything less than a Finals victory might be seen as such. At times, the team looked on the brink of exactly that disaster. But whatever he did throughout the season, it was clear by the end that the team took on some combination of his and Brunson's personality, because to a man, they all quoted his "0-0, stay desperate at all times" attitude all the way through the postseason run. I wrote when the Knicks fired Thibs that I was less concerned with the potential downside risk of making that move than I was with the upside potential of finding someone else who could unlock something else, tactically, within this team. Then again, I also wrote when the Knicks hired Brown himself that it was, essentially, a fine hire. It took damn near 90 games for it to happen, but the team fulfilled his vision for what it could be and never looked back, ripping off a 15-1 stretch that is among the best in NBA history.
A special shout-out must be given to Leon Rose (and World Wide Wes), who I hope finally talks to someone about the spectacular job he did building this team. The story deserves to be told, and his perspective is the best one from which to tell it. From signing Brunson to a contract that many said was an awful overpay, to trading a first-round pick for Hart in a deal that plenty said was an overpay, to sending out two fan favorites in the deal for Anunoby, to trading not one, not two, but five first-round picks (and a swap) for Bridges, to sending out heart-and-soul guys in the deal for Towns, everything he did to piece together the backbone of the team was seen as somewhere between risky and possibly disastrous. And everything worked out exactly the way he thought it would. It's one of the great team-building jobs of all time.
I'm rambling now, and essentially just listing guys who deserve credit. Guys like cap god Brock Aller and Gersson Rosas and Walt Perrin and Frank Zanin and more in the front office. And assistant coaches like Chris Jent and Brendan O'Connor and challenge wizard Jordan Brink and a few more I'm definitely leaving out. I'll never forget the work any of them did, not for the rest of my life.
I don't know how to wrap this up in a way that would be remotely satisfying or capture my emotions in their proper context, so I'll just say that these have been the best two months of my life as a sports fan, and I'm not sure that anything could ever top it. This is the thing I have wanted most in my entire life as a fan, and it finally happened. I lived to see this. And I'm so happy I did.
