A New York State of Mind
10 Years living in the greatest city in the world and the Knicks moment
IT'S OVER! IT'S OVER! KNICK FANS, THIS IS NOT A DREAM! YOUR LONG, LONG WAIT HAS ENDED! GO AHEAD AND CRY! AFTER 53 YEARS, THE KNICKS ARE FINALLY NBA CHAMPIONS ONCE AGAIN!" [1] - Mike Breen
Almost ten years ago to the day, I moved to New York City. By unofficial terms, I believe I know I have earned the right to call myself a real “New Yorker”. Personally, I will always view myself as a midwest kid, and save coveted true “New Yorker” status for those that were born and bred in one of the five boroughs (you don’t get to claim this if you were born in Westchester or New Jersey).
Coincidentally, it is a really fun time to be living in New York City (spoiler alert: it’s always a really fun time to be living in the greatest city in the world). My personal anniversary, and the Knicks championship moment this past Saturday, made me reflective on my home for the last decade, its basketball team, and what it all means.
Sports provide a backdrop for the best of humanity, a canvas for the beauty around us.
After fifty-three years, the New York Knicks ended the longest active drought between titles in the NBA, the majority of those years not just being championship-less but downright tortuous for fans. The Knicks frequently and often either provided heartbreak or outright embarrassment for over five decades. For the City that is the mecca of the sport of basketball, that is a difficult existence.
The thing is, that futility never caused fandom to waiver. Madison Square Garden, the most famous arena in the world, was still at capacity regardless of the team’s record. You only had to go a block or two until seeing a jersey. There was never a mass exodus of representation to the Nets.
The Knicks, either in spite of or because of futility, became a part of the city’s identity.
The only team in the New York area that doesn’t split fandom (Jets or Giants, Yankees or Mets, Devils/Rangers/Islanders). When the Knicks were/are good, the energy is different. The buzz is palpable, the energy infectious.
They do not practice or play in New Jersey or Long Island like other teams. They play in the center of New York City, the eye of the entertainment capital of the world, the heart of the city.
The Knicks are the city’s team.
Ever since I was a kid – I wanted to live in NYC. ~Henry Hill voice~
It was probably the movies — it seemed a right a passage that you had to earn your stripes in the concrete jungle, in the mecca of the world regardless of vocation. If you wanted to make art, or be a star, you went to Hollywood. If you wanted to be in the energy, if you wanted to participate in the greatest capitalistic engine in the world, or if you just wanted to have a good time – you needed to go to New York City. If you were not sure what you wanted to do — you’d figure it out or fall into it in Manhattan.
I would visit nearly annually, awed by the bright lights and billboards of Times Square. Broadway shows, sporting events, the pace, the sheer volume of people and real estate crammed into the island — everything about New York seemed bigger, brighter, and faster.
If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere. Ol' Blue Eyes really cooked with that one, as the kids would say.
When I finally was able to call this City my home, it couldn’t have felt more real. All that cliche stuff you hear about “energy” “pace”, it’s all real.
The city that never sleeps doesn’t just sound good as a tag line, it’s a real thing.
Whether you are waking up at 5am to be the first one in the office, or stumbling home from a night out at the same time (or if you are really lucky you get to do both in a twenty four hour span) stuff is always happening.
The streets are alive, people, cars, trains are mulling about. Before we all wore headphones 24/7 you could appreciate the soundtrack of people, cars, trains and activity at all hours of the day and night. Some people would find that unbearable, for some of us though, it’s what powers us to keep chasing.
There are prettier places. The weather is better in California. If you’re an outdoorsy person, you probably wouldn’t like it here. But there’s no place where more stuff is happening, or things to do, than in New York. Everyone’s in a rush. People can be rude. It’s go go go. But that’s because people are working hard. They want something. They’re going after it. The city forces that out of you. People go to retire in Florida, they move to LA when they’re already rich.
New York? That’s where you come to make it. It’s where you come to work, live, share, and be apart of the hardest workers and the most fun. It’s where you can find your people if you couldn’t anywhere else. That soul that was created on Ellis Island still lives on.
The city goes through ups and downs. Covid threatened to permanently alter it. But like always, New York finds a way. It’s now better than ever. I think it made everyone love and appreciate it more. You don’t know what you have until its gone kind of energy.
Finally — the basketball team gave the city something to celebrate.
Finally, they were the ones delivering the heartbreak.
They were the ones defying the odds, mounting a historical comeback in the greatest arena in sports.
That’s magic baby. The miraculous, historic, unprecedented Game 4 victory would’ve been remembered forever, but it hits different because it was in the Garden.
I’m not one to write about the journey of this Knicks team. I’m not claiming a seat on the bandwagon; that would feel disrespectful to fans who have earned this with heartbreak scars (you know how I feel about that).
Maybe why it all worked was because this team and its identity represented the city perfectly. There was not a single game in the finals where it seemed like the Knicks were the more talented group of players. But they were the better team. Guys like Mitchell Robinson and Josh Hart knowing their roles and embracing them fully. Rebounds, extra hustle plays, stuff that might not make TikTok edits or highlights but what wins championships. Cliche to say but that’s New York baby. There’s no quicker way to endear yourself to this City then doing the dirty work.
There's probably no better star to represent the City and its’ team than Jalen Brunson. 6’2 guard picked in the second round? Too small doesn't have the metrics, fringe rotational player at best. Even after he had proved himself in Dallas all the media talked about was how the Knicks overpaid and he couldn't be “1A” player.
Forget about the fact that he won a high school state championship and two national championships at Villanova. Well he's not a Wemby. He's not Donovan Mitchell. I don’t think he can be the best player on a championship team. He responded by putting up 40+ in a clinching Finals game and now joins a group of people that includes Magic Johnson and Kareem as the only players to win a championship at the High School, College, and now professional basketball level.
Again, New York loves nothing more than the narrative of being the gritty underdog (in Brunson’s case it does hold true, most of the other time it's myth making but as it goes: when the myth is better than the truth, print the myth).
We live in an age of isolation. Algorithms, Ai, mobile phones all forcing us out of the present and into digital amalgamations of unreality, future and past. There is no longer a monoculture. Everything is hyper niche and specific to your feed and interests. There are rare collective moments that tie us to one another — that create a shared experience that binds us to our humanity. Moments that give us a sense of belonging, place and time bringing us together and making us feel something bigger than ourselves.
Sports can still give us that.
In the aftermath of the Knicks championship, the scenes of euphoria were awe inducing. People flocking into the streets celebrating together.
Yeah they might’ve been filming it, but at least they / we weren’t scrolling and were doing it with other people, with their neighbors and friends. They were hugging and kissing strangers. Dancing, singing, celebrating in the streets. Together. That’s what sports can give us. Collective moments, a shared joy after decades of pain and heartbreak or even if a casual fan, pride in your city.
I thought about my Knicks fan friends who have waited their whole lives for this moment. They grew up with their father’s stories of the last championship in 1973.
When the Garden was Eden.
They watch highlights of Ewing, LJ and ‘99.
They were in high school for “Linsanity”.
They deserve this.
They never waivered.
The shared suffering was the point. It seemed as if they would go their whole life without this moment, something to tie themselves to generations past and future.
Being a Knicks fan (before Saturday) was often how I probably felt about living in New York City. Sometimes its huge pain in the ass, way too expensive, people could be assholes. But then I always find myself coming back. Missing it, feeling like the luckiest person in the world I get to live here. The beauty of the hustle and bustle, the noise of the busy subway stations and street vendors. All different types of people coming together to make the most beautiful melting pot of culture and energy you can ever experience. You’ll never be bored here. There’s magic all around.
There’s something everyone here shares, a collective ideal of striving, of chasing something that resembles your own version of the American Dream. New York is the city where dreams are forged through effort, capital, and that aforementioned energy.
The Knicks championship felt like a moment for the city - my city - of pure joy and celebration. Of people coming together to have that moment, to celebrate their home and each other. It was a reminder that no matter what else is going on, whatever things we are arguing about, or whatever the algorithms are pushing us to engage with – there are things we can experience and feel that are bigger than ourselves.
There are moments that make you see the good in humanity again, what real love looks like. Love between people, a city and its basketball team.
Ten years in and I’m getting overly romantic about sports and my own anniversary. I refuse(d) to hop on the proverbial bandwagon but I unabashedly admit it was impossible not to root for the Knicks because it felt like rooting for the city, my city now. I wanted to experience that moment, I wanted to be reminded why I loved this city since I was a kid.
Sometimes being sports obsessed can feel stupid, a waste of time and energy and needless suffering.
You dwell and focus on the lives and performance of athletes you will never know, whose actions and influences you cannot impact.
At their best, sports can give us moments like last weekend a collective celebration of a team and city releasing fifty three years of trauma and pain. A reason to come together, to share something, anything that is real with other people.
I love New York.
“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” - John Updike