They carried the weight of an entire city.
A city that had dared to dream before, only to be let down.
UFC FREEDOM 250 | MONDAY 15 JUNE 10AM AEST | UFC Freedom 250 delivers a landmark night of fights from the White House, with Topuria vs Gaethje leading a stacked card celebrating America’s 250th anniversary | Order Now with Main Event on Kayo Sports.
Like they were when the Knicks last met the Spurs in the NBA Finals, going on an improbable run as a No.8 seed only to fall short against David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
Like they were when Patrick Ewing was traded the following year and head coach Jeff Van Gundy resigned a few months later, marking the end of an era of Knicks basketball that promised so much but ultimately — yet again — did not end with a ring.
And so they waited.
Until, again, they were given a reason to believe. A trade for former All-Star Antonio McDyess, which was supposed to see the Knicks return to contention.
Instead, the move — which cost the Knicks their starting centre, point guard, and lottery pick — went down as one of the worst in franchise history.
McDyess didn’t play a single game in the 2002-03 season due to his knee injury and was later traded away the following season after making just 18 appearances, averaging 8.4 points.
The same old Knicks.
Carmelo Anthony brought the fans to their feet, as did Jeremy Lin. But they weren’t left standing for very long.
The celebration was fleeting. The agony seemed endless.
MORE NBA FINALS NEWS
FINALS MVP: King of New York crowned after 45-point performance
‘REMARKABLE’: The mysterious man behind Knicks’ title-winning roster
A lingering sense of disillusionment that seemed just as inescapable as the spotlight that forever stayed on the franchise itself.
That was the New York Knicks. That was what it meant to be the biggest market in basketball.
And so, when they traded not only a homegrown talent but the face of the franchise, Kristaps Porzingis, in 2019, it seemed like another case of the same old Knicks.
Instead, it was the start of a revival: the first step on a path towards a breakthrough NBA title, with the Knicks defeating the Spurs on Sunday to close out this year’s Finals series 4-1 and lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time since 1973.
It capped off what Richard Jefferson called “one of the most remarkable runs in NBA history” for a Knicks team that outscored its opponents by 272 points on the way to the Finals, and in the end fell just one game short of matching Golden State’s 15-game win streak in 2017.
You know, that Warriors team. The one with Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson that finished the regular season 67–15 and went on a 16-1 playoff run.
This Knicks team just went 15-1, and according to The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie, it may be the best playoff offence since those KD Warriors.
“It’s because they have so many different ways they can kill you,” Vecenie added.
Again, that wasn’t always the case. McDyess is just one of the names. Anthony too. There was also Andrea Bargnani. Eddy Curry. Charles Smith.
The big fish that the Knicks of old went after to try to find the shortest path possible to the championship that had eluded them for so long.
Durant and Kyrie Irving were supposed to be the next names on that list after the Knicks shipped off Porzingis. And they did end up in New York, except with the other team.
It left the Knicks brass “stunned and depressed”, according to a report from The Athletic at the time.
Instead, a few years later they ended up with Jalen Brunson.
But he was too small. Overpaid on the four-year, $104 million contract the Knicks signed him to, which, with the benefit of hindsight, now looks like a bargain.
An even bigger bargain, however, was the four-year, $156.5 million extension Brunson signed in 2024, leaving $113 million on the table to be the marquee man at Madison Square Garden.
“Build him a statue,” Josh Hart tweeted at the time.
At this point, they can’t build Brunson a statue big enough to show just how much he means to the city of New York.
According to ESPN, Brunson saw what Derek Jeter, Patrick Mahomes, and Tom Brady had done before him: the way they made financial sacrifices, the “blueprint” they provided for building a sustainable roster.
Brunson sacrificed millions for a moment like this.
“He comes and he probably takes a pay cut that I wouldn’t have taken,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said post-game.
“Every time they would’ve thrown that number in front of me, I would have said no, and I feel like I’m a good guy. He set the bar before he even stepped on the floor. Every time it came to renegotiate a deal with him.
“That set the standard. Now when you take his play into account, it’s off the charts … Brunson is him, man, when it comes to New York basketball — he is freaking him.”
“I’m in AWE!” Brunson’s NBA Title moment | 01:13
The former Dallas guard said he was “not a saviour in any way, shape or form” when he signed with New York in 2022.
Try telling that to Knicks fans now.
Karl-Anthony Towns. OG Anunoby. Brunson’s old Villanova teammates, including Mikal Bridges, whom the Knicks gave up five first-round picks to acquire.
They’re all only there because he was willing to put the team first.
Now he has the Bill Russell Trophy for Finals MVP to show for it. His teammates have an NBA ring.
“He will be the king of New York for the rest of his life,” as veteran caller Mike Breen put it.
Brunson was just one of several underdogs on this Knicks roster — players who, for whatever reason, were cast aside. Written off.
Traded, like Josh Hart was — three different times — until he found his “home” in New York.
“And they embraced me for the person that I am, the player that I am,” Hart added.
Towns was traded too, despite never requesting a trade in nine years, according to The Athletic’s Timberwolves beat writer Jon Krawczynski. José Alvarado was undrafted.
In many ways, a roster that is a reflection of the city itself.
“This city is built on toughness, grit, blue-collar people,” Hart said.
“I feel like I’m the same person. They can look in the mirror and see myself, just because that’s how I look at myself, and I just happen to hoop.”
The people of New York needed every bit of that toughness and grit to get through the last 53 years.
Sure, there were some moments to remember. But there were plenty to forget. Franchise-worst 17-65 records in the 2014-15 and 2018-19 seasons. Even before then, there were nine straight losing seasons from 2002 to 2010.
Zach Lowe called that version of the Knicks a “sideshow outside of the real NBA” on his podcast.
“As irrelevant as a basketball team, as a franchise, could get,” he added.
Veteran NBA journalist Howard Beck, who has lived in New York for 22 years, had several words to describe the past two decades or so of Knicks basketball.
“Beleaguered, bedraggled, dysfunctional, inept,” he said on Lowe’s podcast.
“Dysfunction above all else.
“I just need people outside of New York to understand … this is earned. It goes deeper and uglier and just messier than all that … this is earned through a quarter century essentially of suffering and not just bad teams, not just losing teams, but at one point in time, Larry Brown is the coach, Stephon Marbury is the point guard and Isiah Thomas is the team president — and all three of them are in fights with each other.”
But now?
“Everybody’s in sync,” Beck added.
“Everybody knows their role. There are very few moments where you see anything glaring, something that looks a little bit selfish, a little bit self-indulgent, or just a dumb play. They’re just playing very smart, efficient, consistent basketball. It’s a joy to watch.”
And joy isn’t a word that has usually been associated with the New York Knicks.
Ben Stiller, who has been courtside for all the games at MSG, told the New York Post that his whole life he has “lived with this idea” that the Knicks were a “joke”.
“It almost became something you accept,” he added.
Knicks claims 2026 NBA Championship | 04:56
It is part of the reason why when owner James Dolan invited Donald Trump to the first game of the series at MSG, and then said on radio a few hours before Game 3 that the Knicks were “going to win the Finals”, Knicks fans feared the worst.
That rare joy Beck referenced was gone. The same old Knicks — even if it had nothing to do with the team itself — were back at it again.
And when the Spurs jumped out to a 29-point lead in Game 4, suddenly the series looked to be back in the balance again.
The outstretched fingertips of Anunoby had other ideas.
“The right hand of God,” Towns said, “and you can’t spell God without OG”.
Anunoby had long been a rumoured trade candidate, but Toronto’s asking price for him — widely considered to be multiple first-round picks — was too much.
So in the end, the Raptors settled for New York’s package of RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and a second-round pick in December 2023.
There was no strong consensus at the time as to who won the trade. How about now?
How about after Anunoby’s two-way masterclass in Game 4? A masterclass that will be remembered for that block and tip-in but was so much more than that.
“Every single little thing in this game, in this comeback, in this first half and second half, had OG Anunoby’s fingerprints on it,” The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie said on his podcast.
“And on top of it, he’s the one who blocks the De’Aaron Fox shot on the other end when Fox should have dribbled the ball out.
“I think that is one of the best two-way performances we have seen in the Finals. I’m struggling to think of one that is not LeBron division.
“He did literally every single thing tonight. It was not just the tip-in. It was not just the threes. He attacked the rim fairly regularly. He was one of the guys who would actually decide to go at Wembanyama again. Defensively, he flew around all over the place.
“I think it was genuinely one of the great two-way performances we have seen in an NBA Finals game.”
But ultimately, when long-suffering Knicks fans think back to this moment — the one some have waited over 50 years for — more than anyone else they will remember Jalen Brunson.
The Finals MVP who was told by Stephen A. Smith that he was “not the answer” and then had to hear six-time WNBA All-Star Becky Hammon declare, “If your best player is small, you’re not winning.”
It was nothing new for Brunson, who fell to the early second round in the NBA draft because other teams were asking those same questions of the 6-foot-2 guard.
So, what did scouts miss or underestimate about him as a player when they passed on him in 2018?
And now that he has a ring and is a Finals MVP, what would Brunson say to Hammon and all those people who doubted him because of his size from the very start of his career?
“I didn’t respond to them then,” Brunson said, “and I’m damn sure not going to respond to them now.”