Can you imagine what a New York Knicks championship parade might be like?
For the last 51 years and four days — not that anyone’s counting how long it’s been since May 10, 1973, when the Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to win the franchise’s second title — this has been an absurdly unanswerable question.
In the interim, every other New York-area team except the Jets has won at least one title, while everyone but the Rangers has hoisted a championship trophy at least twice. You don’t ever want to be compared to the Jets or Rangers around here.
The first half of the drought at least featured annual agonizing near-misses. The Knicks were knocked out of the playoffs in the conference semifinals or later nine straight times from 1992 to 2000, a span whose heartbreaks can be summed up with a variety of phrases Knicks fans mutter while being fitted for straitjackets: Charles Smith can’t hit a layup. John Starks, 2-for-18 in Game 7. Reggie Miller, eight points in nine seconds. The brawls with Pat Riley’s Miami Heat.
As torturous as those experiences were, they’ve taken on a warm nostalgic glow during a nightmarish first two decades of the 21st century. The Knicks haven’t made the Eastern Conference finals since the spring of 2000. Only one other NBA team — the Washington Bullets/Wizards — has endured a longer conference finals drought. You don’t ever want to be compared to the Wizards or Bullets, either.
From the 2000-01 season through 2019-20, the Knicks had the worst winning percentage in the NBA. And they weren’t just bad — they were unlikable in a way that called into question the unshakable faith they somehow still engendered from area basketball fans.
They used lottery picks on Mike Sweetney, Jordan Hill (picked between Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan in 2009), Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox. They cycled through 14 coaches, including Hall of Famers Lenny Wilkens and Larry Brown. Isiah Thomas flopped as both a coach and general manager while also getting sued for sexual harassment by former executive Anucha Browne Sanders, who won an $11.6 million settlement.
Eleven-time NBA title-winning head coach Phil Jackson, who played on the Knicks’ two championship teams, oversaw 166 losses in three seasons as team president. Superstars such as LeBron James and Kevin Durant barely acknowledged the Knicks during their free agency tours.
The hiring of former agent Leon Rose as team president in March 2020 did not seem to portend better fortunes. Yet Rose has signed or acquired an entire starting lineup that embodies New York’s no-nonsense, blue-collar attitude — no one more so than point guard Jalen Brunson, who has become the best free agent signing in Big Apple sports history since the Knicks prioritized him over Donovan Mitchell in the summer of 2022.
These Knicks are not the most talented team in the league, but they are the hardest-working and most cohesive under head coach Tom Thibodeau, the grumpy basketball savant who has done his best work getting the Knicks within one win of knocking out the Celtics. The Knicks, who were 0-4 in the regular season against Boston, have overcome double-digit deficits in each of their three wins in this series.
Knicks fans of any age know better than to look too far ahead going into tonight’s Game 5 against the Celtics, whose championship pedigree will make them tough to finish off — even without Jayson Tatum. The Indiana Pacers, another traditional tormentor, loom in the Eastern Conference finals. The Western Conference favorite Oklahoma City Thunder look like a potential dynasty in the making. There’s a very good chance this season ends with yet another lamentable near-miss.
And yet, for the first time this century, an answer is finally coming into focus for the most unanswerable question: Can you imagine what a Knicks championship parade might be like? It would make New Year’s Eve in Times Square look like a preschooler’s birthday party.
