Lessons from Fandom, as the New York Knicks Face the San Antonio Spurs
Key takeaways
- What will happen, after all, if the Knicks keep up their historically great run of playoff performances—they’ve swept two opponents in a row—and win the championship for the first time since 1973?
- Just reaching the Finals has befuddled most of my friends.
- When I try to describe my love of sports, especially basketball, to people who don’t share it, I tend to emphasize its similarities to the higher arts.
Photograph by Aristide Economopoulos / Redux Save this story Save this story Save this story Save this story I can’t stop watching a certain video of Leon Rose. The New York Knicks’ president, a stout, taciturn man, surly about the mouth, who spurns engagement with the media but whose competence no contemporary Knicks follower can gainsay, stands in a crowd, surrounded by cheering fans. He’s in Cleveland, and the Knicks have just finished their Game Four rout of the Cavaliers—Eastern Conference Finals sweep accomplished, nothing but the N.B.A. Finals, at long last, ahead. Rose throws his arm around a young man, his son. The son’s looking around, stunned, shooting little nods and friendly faces to other fans. Rose, though, reddening in the triangle between his eyes and nose, begins to sob.
Who can blame Rose for his tears? Each drop was well earned. He’s climbed the mountain of his profession—to him goes the credit for the wheeling and dealing that brought Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart to the team, ushering in the Knicks’ modern-era tout court, in the space of only six years—and along the way guided New York to the threshold of a catharsis beyond imagination. What will happen, after all, if the Knicks keep up their historically great run of playoff performances—they’ve swept two opponents in a row—and win the championship for the first time since 1973? More grown men shedding tears, that’s for sure. Chaos on Seventh Avenue, where the rowdiest and roughest fans go to commune and roar and party and climb the awnings of various subway entrances outside Madison Square Garden. Wanton pyrotechnics on the street. (After the win against the Cavs, I heard fireworks nearby in Bed-Stuy, where I live.) Glass and steel, fire and smoke: sports nirvana with the mise en scène of a sudden revolution borne out on the sidewalks. Nobody’s ready to contemplate it in full.
Just reaching the Finals has befuddled most of my friends. We’ve been texting and calling one another, scant emotion in our voices, numbly narrating the truth: four more wins. Success after so much failure—gut-wrenching letdowns after episodes of Odyssean temptation to fleeting belief; too many to count—is almost an ordeal. What do you do with so much feeling? I’ve taken to acting like I’m the one out there playing the games, lashing my excitement to the mast of a self-imposed restraint, stoic as a sailor, repeating the mental mantra that the job isn’t done and there’s no reason to go crazy just yet. Watching my team hoist the Eastern Conference Finals trophy, I popped open a beer, my first and last of the night, and, after a big glug, buried my head in my hands. My stomach was on fire. Oh, God, what now?