They Did It

Years and years in the making and now it’s here and words fail.  Let’s start with the facts, because I don’t need to think of them, just to record them.

The New York Knicks are champions of the NBA.

Jalen Brunson, a benchwarmer’s toddler in the locker room during the 1999 Finals run, is the Most Valuable Player of the NBA Finals.

The margin: a perfect mirror of that last Finals, a 4-1 victory over the Spurs, all four wins in games that the Knicks trailed by double digits.

We’re here.  It happened. It actually happened.

It’s real.

Names leap to mind, names of those who fell short — sometimes in tragedy, sometimes in farce.

Ewing, first, the Godfather of the franchise for a generation and more of its fans. In the building last night, still looming so large that even Karl Towns disappeared inside his euphoric bear-hug when it ended.  Photographed later with the L O’B and an ear-to-ear grin.  Not a touch of resentment or regret on his face. Joy. Pride. Release, after much of a lifetime spent carrying the undeserved weight of dashed hopes on his impossibly broad shoulders. Finally, the thing he always wanted to be, the thing that was always denied him. Finally, a part of this.

Oakley, his consigliere, in attendance.  Shamelessly banished for years, here for the end, part of the celebration.  Sprewell, Houston, LJ, Marbury, Melo.  Each with their own story, their own roots.  Each with their own kinship with the city, the fans.  Each with the particular dream — of boyhood promise or narrative redemption — that a title would have brought them, would have brought us.  Each of them in evidence at some point during this run.  It’s for them, and it’s for us.

Plenty more names, names used as a punchline now: recycled screenshots of starting lineups with Kyle O’Quinn in them, pictures outside the Frost Bank center of Chris Copeland jerseys,  memories of Al Harrington rim-hanging technicals, Andrea Bargnani bricks.  Iman Shumpert on the postgame, not the joyful kid of our memory anymore. Jeremy Lin in the studio, smiling through it, pushing down the melancholy of what might have been.

And then the names of more recent vintage. The names of players here not in body but in impact. Julius Randle: inconsistent, infuriating, at times unfocused — and ultimately good enough to get us Towns.

R.J. Barrett, saddled with the mark of the consolation prize from inception.  It never looked easy, he wanted it so badly. Immanuel Quickley, a joyous surprise after a generation of promises squandered. Their talent and dedication, coupled with the organizational ruthlessness that we lacked for so long — that all champions must at some point finally embrace — ultimately gave us OG Anunoby.  They own a part of this.

Do we want to spare a thought today for Alec Burks, who had his moments? For Nerlens Noel, a defensive force who couldn’t catch an entry pass even if a trillion dollar bill was taped to it? For Kemba Walker, a New Yorker  to the core, who loved being a Knick but didn’t have anything left in the tank when he got here?

All three were sent to Detroit in June 2022.  The haul?

Some guys you never heard of.

Some picks that never amounted to anything.

And roughly $30 million in cap space to sign Jalen Brunson.

And so we’re back to the beginning, to the facts on the ground.  To a roster and a front office and a coach who will be legends in the city for the rest of their lives, and beyond. But we don’t get any of it without the journey, without the good and bad decisions, the rare nights of glory and the many nights of pain, the bad contracts and the second-round draft surprises and the coach hires who didn’t work out.  All of it, it’s all part of the story, all threads in the banner. All those names, all those nights. There is connective tissue from all of them to the people standing on a podium in Texas last night, lifting a trophy on behalf of all of them.  On behalf of all of us.

This franchise has rarely loved us back.  It’s OK to admit that.  I booed James Dolan on my TV during a trophy presentation last night, in fulfillment of a lifelong dream. The banner doesn’t have to whitewash the problems along the way, shouldn’t whitewash them. It’s all part of the story.  We kept loving them anyway. You did, and I did, and everyone else reading this did, and we huddled together in spaces real and virtual when every hope seemed doomed, when all faith was delusion, when we had to pull every scrap of glory around us like a blanket against the unfeeling  darkness. We’re here now. An orange sun is shining in a blue sky. We made it, and we made it together, and we can and should remember it all.

Past, present, future.  I left Long Island for college in 2003, moved to Chicago in 2009 with my college girlfriend, my soulmate. Married her in 2015. Had a daughter in 2020 and another in 2023. Bought a house. Built a life.

Last night was our 11th wedding anniversary.  11, like the number emblazoned across the torso of our MVP. 11 years, the traditional gift is steel.  Steel, like his resolve.  Like the resolve of this team, built in his image.

(Also, we splurged on a steel firepit for our backyard. There’s more to life than the Knicks, after all.)

She was with me on the couch when it ended. She sat and watched  with me all these years, on so many couches, watched us take a chance on Jared Jeffries for a SECOND time, committed her life to a man who got way too invested in Quentin Richardson and Langston Galloway, went to bed by herself some nights so that I could sit up and rant to all of you about JR Smith’s shot selection and Mike Woodson’s rotations.  11 years is big, man. We’re all nothing without love.

My dad flew in from New York, he was on the couch with us too.  The person who sent me down this path, who apologized for it more than a few times.  Got on a plane by himself, sensed it was going to happen in 5, told me he had to be with me if it did. Brought the memories of two titles from his adolescence, just saw a third in his 60s, saw it sitting next to his granddaughter.

My oldest daughter, she’ll be six next month.  The present and the future. Wore her Brunson shirsey to day camp, to watch the game, to bed after it ended.  Told me that KAT is her favorite now. Told me once that “the Knicks are like our buddies.” Watched every first half with me as it happened, watched every second half on tape the next day except for last night. Last night, we let her stay up. She asked the kind of questions, all postseason, about the rules and the history and the personalities, that made it clear that she’s really getting it. It’s clicking.  She’s one of us.

What if I hadn’t had to wait this long? What if they hadn’t let me share it with her? Every fanbase gets the title it deserves; this was also the one I needed.

And each of you has your own story. As much as we all shared the journey, we also each had our own, personal and special to ourselves. I hope the culmination of yours has brought you peace and joy.

I hope that this team, that chose as individuals and a collective to become the best version of itself in front of our eyes this season, taught you what it taught me. That we are better together than we are alone. That we can find things in ourselves that we weren’t sure were there before. That when we sacrifice for something greater than ourselves, life pays us back in kind and the victories are all the sweeter for it.

So much more could be said.  About the game itself, about the feeling from the outset that as badly as we were playing, the Spurs were once again failing to deliver the knockout blow.  A deficit shrinking from 13, to 8, to 4.  Too much time left on the clock. Brunson finally good, too good, better than good, a virtuoso meeting his biggest moment with his finest performance. A team that took every opening all season, in the end the only heuristic that mattered. I haven’t even mentioned Bridges, who hit huge shots, who did his job all season and finally won appreciation in the playoffs.  There’s so much to say about KAT, who picked Brunson up a few times this postseason and needed Jalen to return the favor last night.  About OG, who got us here with his game 4 performance and so many others along the road.  About Mitch, who grabbed the biggest rebound of his life and had the presence of mind – not always his strong suit! – to immediately get the ball out of his hands and to a competent free throw shooter. About Josh Hart, the captain’s best friend and basketball soulmate, the mortar in every one of this team’s cracks.  None of this — NONE — happens without Josh Hart.

We’re not dancing, at least not yet, without Jose Alvarado. The same belief might not be there without what Tyler Kolek gave us against these Spurs in the finals of the NBA Cup. Landry Shamet, holy shit Landry Shamet. Dammit, Shamet: I love you.

Most of life is about thinking your way to rational conclusions, plenty of people who know basketball way better than I do did just that, and that will serve them well most of the time. But this was never a team for the mind.  It was a team for the heart, for the soul.  You had to feel your way to the right answers with this group. And for months now, if you’ve wanted to see it, there has been plenty of evidence that as long as the 2026 New York Knicks drew breath, as long as their belief wasn’t well and truly crushed, they were going to find a way.

This sounds like magical thinking.  It probably was. But, sometimes, life gives you magic. And if you’re very, very fortunate, sometimes it even lets you see it coming.

So: we wake up today a new fanbase, on some level new people. What we’ve been for all these years, we’ll never be again — at least not for another five decades. This dream, this fugue state, will fade.  We’ll lose games again, we’ll mismanage the cap and fumble draft picks.  Players will get hurt.  You will yell at your TV again.

But even when you do: you’ll have this. The last month, the last week, last night. Today. Tomorrow.

They’re yours forever.

They’re ours.