The Audacity Of Knicks Hope

Basketball is good. The Knicks are fun.

A friend asked me the other day what the vibe in New York was like with the Knicks in the Finals. So I explained:

“You know when you watch a sports comedy from the 1990s and the lovable team that had sucked for so long is finally doing good, and all the fans are strutting around and giving high-fives to strangers? It’s just like that.”

If you wear any piece of the team’s memorabilia and walk around for 10 minutes, it’s almost a guarantee somebody will yell “Go Knicks” at you. The amps are metaphorically at 11. People are excited and enjoying every moment of it leading up to tonight’s first game against the San Antonio Spurs. If there’s one thing in terms of fan demeanor that sticks out to me as different from other hopeful seasons, it’s that underlying desperation that usually accompanies a Knicks run, where you’re sort of waiting for the inevitable bottom to fall out, isn’t there. Fans have seen this team perform at the highest level in these playoffs and watched them claw back from deficits. Conversations leading up to the seventh game of the Western Conference Finals among fans usually started with the stats and matchup breakdowns, about how the Knicks would do against the Spurs or defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, but then it would end up with the declaration that this team would figure out how to win against whoever came out of the west.

Tonight, they’ve got the Spurs. It’s a rematch from the last time the team was in the Finals back in 1999—before most of the players on the court were born—and they Knicks are the underdogs. San Antonio won that first title, then took four more culminating with 2014’s win. Current team president and former head coach, Gregg Popovich, has built one of the great, durable franchises in modern history, and everybody on the team is better because of his wisdom. Victor Wembanyama, the guy who is on the cusp of being The Guy, is only more terrifying because he’s got Pop whispering in his ear. As a lifetime basketball fan, I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything like the 7′ 4″ Frenchman. He’s only 22, and in an extremely short time, he’s made Giannis Antetokounmpo look dated, and LeBron James seems a sturdy antique from the past century. It’s incredible watching what he does on the court on any given night, but I’m one of the people who wants to see the Knicks make sure his coronation doesn’t take place this year.

I wasn’t always a Knicks fan. My Bronx-raised father who used to root for the Knicks decided when I was 3 or 4 that he was fine with me rooting for the Chicago Bulls like everybody on my mom’s side did. Both teams were mediocre back then, but the Bulls had this guy that my dad figured might be pretty good that the team had drafted third out of North Carolina. Back then, they figured Michael Jordan was the next Dr. J, and Julius Erving was still the epitome of basketball excitement, having been the guy who elevated the slam dunk and ushered in the high-flying 1980s. I was a Bulls fan, but I went to my share of Knicks games and felt fine cheering for them when they did well—until about 1992. That’s when things got serious between Jordan’s Bulls and the Knicks with Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Anthony Mason, and Jordan’s old teammate, Charles Oakley. I almost always shy away from playing the What if game, but I’m almost certain that if the Knicks could have taken the Bulls one of those years when Chicago won one of the six titles they captured during the 1990s, then we wouldn’t be here talking about New York’s long title drought.

The thing was, maybe because I grew up appreciating the Knicks and what they meant to New Yorkers, I never felt any hate watching those games. When the Bulls battled the Detroit Pistons from the “Bad Boy” era, all I felt was rage at Dennis Rodman, Bill Laimbeer, and that smirking little shit, Isiah Thomas. When the Bulls and Knicks went at it after the Bulls captured their first title in ‘91, I remember very clearly understanding that I was watching some incredible basketball. All these years later, with all the rule changes, big money contracts, and focus on analytics, I find myself longing for something of that caliber again.

Around 1998, thing began changing. I always say the Bulls represented what was one of the rare constants in my life. From childhood to (technically) adulthood, they had been the only thing that brought me joy year in and out. Unlike so much else in my life, they didn’t disappoint me even when they lost, and I’m grateful I had something to cheer for. Then, a month before my 18th birthday, as Jordan and the Bulls walked off the court after defeating the Utah Jazz to clinch the sixth title, it was obvious to us all what was coming next. Jordan had retired just a few years earlier, then came back to win three more rings with the team. For whatever reason, he joined the Washington Wizards in 2001 for two seasons, but it was easy to tell that series against the Jazz was really the end. He retired a few months later, in January of 1999, and I don’t remember anybody being surprised. Sad, but not shocked in the least. The Lakers and Spurs were ascending, while Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and the rest of the Bulls were aging.

A few weeks after the Bulls won that sixth title, it was announced that the owners had locked out the players. It happened during the first week of July, which coincided with me visiting New York in what would be one of my first attempts at moving there. It didn’t work out that time, but I did end up at a thrift store in the East Village where, among other things, I found a vintage Kenny “Sky” Walker jersey that I bought for three dollars. I was a child of the Starter jacket age, back when you hoped for your team’s logo to show up as a birthday gift, but if your grandparents could only find a Pittsburgh Penguins or Detroit Tigers 1/2 zip, then you’d wear it and just tell your friends you were a fan since everybody needed a Starter back then. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with wearing another team’s hat or shirt if you thought it looked good. I still don’t. Feel free to call it a personal failing if you want.

Not long after attempt one at moving to New York City failed, I found myself walking around Chicago in my Walker No. 7 Knicks jersey. It was baggy enough that I wore a t-shirt under it and it looked good. Most of my friends were wearing basketball jerseys back then. We skated or danced at hardcore shows in them, and generally understood it as a fashion statement, but casual sports fans didn’t feel the same way. Wearing a Knicks jersey in Chicago back then even as the rivalry had calmed down was an invitation for all kinds of questions and comments. Most of them were just flabbergasted guys going, A Knicks fan???, as if they had believed the entire time the thousands they’d seen on TV were just a figment of their imagination. I used to try to explain I just liked the jersey, but at some point, my smart-ass side kicked in, and I just started saying “Yeah.” I told people I was a Knicks fan. I was just saying it to get a reaction, but after Jordan announced his retirement again in early-1999, I thought about it and decided two things: 1. My new top player was Allen Iverson. 2. I was going to root for the Knicks. Why not? I wanted to end up moving to NYC, and Chicago’s post-Jordan, Pippen, and Phil Jackson reality was hearing rookie Corey Benjamin had said he could beat Jordan in a game of one-on-one, only to provoke the retired Jordan—the greatest hater of them all—to show up at a Bulls team practice just so he could humiliate Benjamin. The Bulls weren’t the Bulls I’d grown up loving anymore, and to the surprise of just about everybody, the 98-99 Knicks squad that included one of my favorite players—Larry Johnson—ended up in the Finals. I cheered for them and got a little thrill out of being the only person I knew who wanted New York to win. They didn’t, of course, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t invested the years of hope lifelong fans had, so I figured it would happen sooner rather than later. Hopefully I’d be living in New York when it did, I told myself.

I’d say I was more of a Knicks enjoyer for a few years and not so much a diehard fan, if I’m being totally honest. I drifted almost totally away from the Bulls, only perking back up when they drafted local legend Derrick Rose in 2008. I cheered on those Chicago teams when they played teams like LeBron and the Miami Heat or the Boston Celtics, but by that point, I’d been living in Brooklyn and paid more attention to the Knicks. Their games were always on in bars and if I wanted to talk about my favorite sport, I’d have to hear about the local team first. I guess it was sort of a metamorphosis: One morning, when Jason Diamond woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a New York Knicks fan.

Basketball has always been my favorite sport, and despite the long title drought, it’s the game most New Yorkers can come together and appreciate without any argument. The Nets move from New Jersey to Brooklyn in 2012 didn’t drive a wedge in fandom the way you have hardcore Yankees fans and lifelong Mets fanatics. People root for the Rangers or the Giants, but there aren’t ice rinks or many famous football players associated with the five boroughs. Basketball was invented in Massachusetts, while Boston and Los Angeles have won the most titles. It’s a sport that has seen its popularity explode across the globe over my lifetime, but there’s something unquestionably New York City about it. From Catholic high school teams to college squads like St. John’s, the absolute fanaticism of New York Liberty fans, and the legendary point guards that came up playing on outside courts in the Bronx and Brooklyn, it’s the great connector here, so that’s what I connected with people on.

Sometimes I feel a bit of shame for my late-in-life team switcheroo. There’s this cultural expectation we have that you’re supposed to root for the same team until the day you die, and I often bought into that until my shrink told me that being able to switch allegiances is a sign of growth. Maybe that’s true, but I feel especially guilty when I tell people I grew up cheering on the Bulls to beat the Knicks, and now, over 30 years later, I’d take the Knicks over the Bulls any day of the week. During the 2011–12, in the middle of Jeremy Lin’s epic run that will forever be known as “Linsanity,” I had a lot of explaining to do since it took place leading up to my wedding day. Old friends from Chicago were confused and annoyed that I was so invested in the fortunes of the Knicks, while my New York friends could totally understand what the Chicago people were so weird about. I know it’s really nothing alike, but explaining to the Knicks fans that I used to be a root for the Bulls back in the ‘90s was like telling them that I’d fought for the Axis Powers during World War 2. I still catch shit for it, but it’s usually with an added, “You guys whooped us back then,” at the end. Knicks fans are loud and boisterous, but they’re also true basketball heads. They get how it works.

That Linsanity year, which coincidentally also started late because of a lockout like the 98-99 one had, was when I truly fell in love with the Knicks. With Lin playing like he had, and guys like Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire, and J.R. Smith, I felt like the team was on the verge of winning a title, but it never happened. Instead, I did something I hadn’t done since the days of Jordan with the Bulls, and I started counting down the days until the new season started. I followed along with every Knicks team since then, up and down, from “Tingus Pingus” to Charles Oakley’s MSG banishment, to fooling myself into believing that Julius Randle was That Guy. When the Chicago Cubs ended their 108-year title drought, I said that the only thing I had left to see was a Knicks title. The only difference is that, if the Knicks pull it off this year, I’ll go right back to getting excited for next season, and the next, and the ones after that. With the Cubs, it was more a feeling of, “Welp, glad I can die now,” especially since Donald Trump became president just a few days after the team’s celebration parade. With the Knicks, it’s about wanting to live to see what’s next, and being present with other New Yorkers who are feeling the highest of highs or lowest of lows based on whatever their basketball team is doing.

Although I sometimes still feel that little bit of guilt due to my former allegiances, two years ago, I made a legitimate sacrifice when I said that my kids can do whatever they want with their lives and I’ll support them—but we’re raising them as Knicks fans. We’ve got Chicago fans, Los Angeles fans, and my wife’s family roots for Boston. The latter would never be a consideration, just because I consider a New York native cheering for the Red Sox is like eating an entire suckling pig inside a kosher restaurant. If my kid said they wanted to cheer for the Giants over the Jets, or they got into the Mets and hated the Yankees, then more power to them. Islanders over the Rangers? Weird choice, but cool. My one rule is that we root for the New York Liberty and the New York Knicks in this house. To appease the basketball gods, the day before my daughter was born, I bought a new Knicks hat and wore it during the delivery. That night, the team beat the Indiana Pacers in game 2 of the semifinals to go up two games to zip. I can’t account for the next four games that the Knicks ended up losing, nor can I claim to have had anything to do with Jayson Tatum getting injured during the playoffs last year and the Knicks beating the Celtics before losing again to the Pacers in the conference finals. What I can say is that I put that hat on Lulu’s head, and it meant something that I hope she’ll carry for the rest of her life no matter where she goes or how the team is playing. I still have that hat, and consider it my lucky one. I’ll be wearing it when the Knicks win the title, and then I’ll take it off, write two dates in it: Lulu’s birthday, and the day of the clinching game, then put it away as a keepsake.

I hope the Knicks win the title this year partially because I really don’t want to be wearing a hat I’ve sweated so much in for more than a few years, but also because I’ve been going hard for the team for 14 years now. I’ve appreciated the Knicks for a much longer time, but the amount of time I’d say that I consider myself a true fan makes me feel like I have a fresher appreciation for them than many lifelong fans, but I’ve gotten into my teenage years. I haven’t been praying for another banner for over 50 years like some older fans, but I’ve talked basketball with enough of them to appreciate how deep this goes. I’ve put in a good amount of time hoping for a Knicks title, and whatever happens, I’ll still keep watching after this season. Yet, there is this odd sensation that if they do win it that, as a sports fan, I will have seen all I need to witness in my lifetime to be able to say all the teams I wanted to see win one did just that.

Besides that thought, I’m not really giving much thought to whether the Knicks will win this series or lose it. I want them to win, and more importantly, I think they will. That second part is crucial because if you’ve spent as much time watching sports as I have, you know there’s always the real danger of being disappointed even if the odds are heavily in your team’s favor. You can tell other people you’re totally, 110 percent confident your team will win it all, but there’s still got to be even a little doubt in your mind since nothing you do as an individual fan matters. You can cheer as loud as you want, but you can’t take or block that last-second shot that will decide it all. As a sports fan, I’ve gotten good at understanding how much lying to myself in order to stay excited I’m doing. It’s a weird thing, I know. Anxiety makes fandom tough in a lot of cases. Yet with this Knicks squad, I can’t help but notice that they’ve got something that I’ve seen before, almost always with teams I wasn’t rooting for, or that were on the other side of the court from my team. They’re confident, loose, playing incredible basketball, the team came together at the right time, but most importantly, they’ve got momentum leading into the last round. Josh Hart keeps the ‘90s sports comedy vibe going by being a goofy smart-ass Karl-Anthony Towns just seems like a really nice guy, Mitchell Robinson has been solid for the franchise for years, Jose Alvarado is a New Yorker, and Jalen Brunson has ascended to legendary status while remaining focused and clutch. I watch him and there’s something reminiscent of Jordan or Kobe with their killer mentality, except (all due respect to the aforementioned G.O.A.Ts) Brunson doesn’t come off as a psychopath. He seems to really enjoy and even relish in being The Guy in The City, and not only that, but he’s got his college buddies and even his father on the same team. If this team wins, unless you’re a San Antonio fan, then this is exactly everything you want from sports. And if you happen to be a Spurs fan who ends up disappointed when this season is all wrapped up, the good news is that your team is almost certainly going to dominate the league for a long time to come, so if the Knicks can figure out how to shut down Wemby and turn New York City into the biggest party on earth, at least everybody can have a reason to look forward to the future.