Knicks in Five: Reflections From a Basketball Ignoramus

Report: local New Yorker is happy Knicks won

Jun 23, 2026

I didn’t go into the office on the day of the Knicks parade, but I wanted to. This was a desire that surprised both myself and people who knew me; even the coworker I’d met exactly one week prior, at the summer internship I’d barely started, assumed that his intent to brave the crowds on Thursday was not shared. Eventually, logistics and my own aversion to waking up early got the better of me. The MTA suspended subway service below Canal Street at 8 a.m., by which point I had not yet departed for the downtown office. I ended up working from home, the parade broadcast playing in the background, rather than catching glimpses of the real thing from the corner of the building that overlooks Broadway. But the feelings that had originally motivated me to try and push my way through the madness remained.

I am not a basketball fan, because I am not a fan of any sport. I am woefully misinformed about the rules of every game, to the point where any enjoyment I might gain from watching tends to be eclipsed by relentless confusion. I do get swept up in the excitement of the Olympics — every two years finds me suddenly passionate about either triple loops or Yurchenko vaults — but even then my attention pretty much maxes out at one event (winter: skating; summer: gymnastics). So I didn’t expect to feel anything when I came home to a Knicks game on TV.

What I discovered, though, is that basketball forces you to feel something. Or at the very least, these particular games of basketball, when the teams are neck-and-neck right up until the last minute — nay, second. The game moves quickly, the ball is easy to track, and it’s clear why players score points, which makes it exciting when they do. Combine this with the affection I have for my 8-million-person-strong hometown and the underdog story of losing out on a championship for more than half a century, and you get the perfect recipe for joy.

Joy! Who would’ve thought that a current event could provoke joy? No one needs me to tell them that the news has given us very little to celebrate for the last, oh I don’t know, ten years or so. Devastation has become quotidian. At some level, the horror is predictable: I have been horrified by everything the current administration has done; at the same time, I have been surprised by almost none of it — and I know I’m not unique in that.

I think the Knicks’ win is as electrifying as it is in part because it was so distinctly not predictable. I tuned into their journey at the last second, so you can take that with a grain of salt, but I know that it was also in the last possible seconds of each winning game that they clinched this championship. Even watching at home on the couch, devoid of the energy of New York’s many watch parties, I was gripped until the end. It was nothing like my (albeit extremely limited) experiences watching football, when I could usually correctly guess the outcome of our college homecoming game by the time I left after the third or even second quarter. New York is so happy we won because New York so very nearly lost.

And boy is New York happy. I couldn’t keep track of the number of Knicks jerseys I saw when I went out Thursday morning, and this was miles from the parade. Manhattan seems to grow more orange and blue the further down you move, with vendors selling Knicks merch all around the building where I now work. I spotted a rolling clothes tree adorned with the same sparkly NBA Champions shirts the players donned after their win, which brought me its own little spark of joy. Absurd as ticket prices may have been — I don’t know the details on this, having, as already established, no interest in them until they were long sold out — there’s something sweet about everyone getting to wear the same celebratory tee, professional or not. Walking around these past few days, I’ve felt as though that sense of connection they say the win brings about isn’t just rhetoric. Even if it’s as surface-level as clothing, this moment does seem to link us in some way — to other New Yorkers, and to a longer New York history. When James Dolan said during his parade speech that most people in the audience hadn’t really waited 53 years, because they weren’t alive 53 years ago, no one laughed. Not just, I think, because everyone hates James Dolan, but because the dedicated fans really felt that wait. The history of a place is far longer than any individual lifetime, but when you’re connected to that place, you adopt its history. It feels personal, even when you share it with 8 million other people.

I think this adoption of history is what leads some people to be so passionate about making the place they live better. I felt this energy from Zohran Mamdani during his speech, when he likened the Knicks’ extraordinary comeback to the ability of New Yorkers to push through adversity, no matter how long the odds. Watching Mamdani, the thought came to me that New York has entered its Parks and Recreation era — one in which local government, from an outside perspective, looks full of thought, integrity, and even fun. Or, as Mamdani put it, “pure, unfiltered joy.” No wonder so many people applied to work at City Hall.

I know this is not at all a nuanced analysis of either politics or sports. (To call it an analysis, anyway, is a stretch; I’m just thinking out loud about what I’ve felt and why.) I could write, for example, about James Dolan’s buddy-buddy relationship with Trump, but since I didn’t know who James Dolan was until a week ago I’ve made what I think is the responsible decision not to do that. I guess I just want to celebrate the joy of the past few days. Having just graduated from college in an idyllic rural town which I will miss very much, the recent energy has made me glad to be back home in the city. It feels like a moment of hope, and for me, right now, that’s enough.

P. S. I feel the return of my Substack (such as it is – no promises) warrants a name change. Partly this is because my college Drive account is about to be shut down and I do not have enough storage on my personal one to continue using Google Docs as my primary word processor. If you have any name ideas, please share.