It Will Have Been Enough

Back during one of the many lean periods in recent Knick history, I was a benchwarmer here at Knickerblogger. I wasted my evenings watching terrible basketball and writing about the likes of Jeremy Tyler, Andrea Bargnani, Beno Udrih, Langston Galloway. A young Iman Shumpert was the only bright spot we had. I may or may not have compared him to Michael Finley at one point. Who can say? (The archives are deleted, right? You made sure to empty the recycling bin?)

Most Knicks fans I know didn’t ever really dream of a championship, per se. Too improbable with Dolan and the rest of it. For a team that was a laughingstock for the vast majority of two-plus decades, we just wanted a competitive team, one that could maybe win a playoff series, with fun and rootable players who wouldn’t embarrass us and who would remind us vaguely of the 90s Knicks teams that now—if we’re being honest—have a more outsized imprint on Knicks lore than is probably healthy at this point. The idea: Be tough, play with heart, and ultimately lose to that generation’s Michael Jordan but not for lack of trying.

That the Knicks ultimately won a title not with, say, LeBron and KD deciding to team up one year because New York was the right business play for their investment portfolios and personal brands, but with the rare sort of underdog team without the massive star—2004 Pistons? 2011 Mavs?—makes it even more special. Some undersized college friends who won the National Championship right around the time no one cared about it anymore? Teaming up with a weirdo from England? Sprinkle them together with some former second-round draft picks and a kid from Christ the King? That’s your winner, in the age of Jokic and SGA and Wemby? Really?

I’ll stop soon. No one wants to hear how New York City was the real underdog all along, which is very much not true. But Brunson really is the avatar for at least how this fan base *likes* to think about itself (probably incorrectly), or at least the type of leader about whom we dreamt and romanticized. Undersized, not very fast, doubted at every turn, impossibly clutch, extremely wholesome, selfless on the court (consistently the only star amidst a sea of role players in the top 10 in charges taken per year) and off (have you heard that the dude gave up $113 million? Personally, I would have given up $0.). Folk hero stuff, truly.

Last night, a stranger at the restaurant I was watching at came up crying and gave me a hug, telling me about how her dad, a Knicks diehard, died two years ago having never seen a title. I’m guessing we’ve all heard similar stories. The world is cruel and indifferent and in some real senses collapsing around us. Basketball shouldn’t mean this much. But for better or worse, it does. This morning, I’m terribly hungover and sleep deprived and looking at my 1-year-old daughter, my good luck charm, smiling with her pigtails in blue and orange bands. I hope desperately she sees many Knicks championships in her life. But for me personally, this will have been enough.