Earning It

Soak it in.

3 am in the morning.

That’s what time it is as I sit down to write the first words of this newsletter - a newsletter that I’ve been waiting most of my adult life to author.

I’ve thought about this moment a lot. How I’d utilize the opportunity to wax poetic about this basketball team, one I’ve given more of my soul to than any relationship outside of my wife, on the day they finally did the thing I secretly thought they’d never do. I dreamt of it. Fantasized about it. Figured this would be the closest thing I’d ever get to writing about a tile. It’s the moment I’ve thought about since my first blog post way back when.

That anticipation has built up so much over the years because of how little the Knicks have given their fans in the decades since I first became obsessed. Since I first revered Patrick Ewing as a god. Since I pretended to be Charles Oakley, intentionally missing a shot with my Nerf basketball so I could grab it and call timeout before I landed on the floor. Since I put up the “LJ” signs with my arms after a big three. Since I believed that Latrell Sprewell was the baddest motherfucker alive.

Those were the days that made me a fan, like many of you reading this. Some of you came later - Melo, STAT, Prigioni, Shump, and of course, JR - while many of you came much, much earlier. You out there who remember the glory years - the real glory years, when there was the Knicks, and there was everything else, and if you weren’t a Knicks fan, well, you weren’t worth giving the time of day to, because everyone rooted for the Knicks back then.

It was like that in New York in the late 60’s & early 70’s, and then again in the 90’s. Linsanity had a moment. But for the most part, the syndrome of Knicks-fandom-as-life has been dormant for some time, retaining those it had previously impacted but not getting many new cases in recent years. How could it? It wasn’t only bad basketball, but bad basketball that made you embarrassed to root for the bad basketball team perpetrating the act.

Not exactly a fervent ground for new recruits.

But all the while, the original converts remained - not by choice any more than a fish has a choice to unhook itself after it has been caught.

For those who have been hooked for any meaningful amount of time, this is the newsletter I wanted to write for you. The one to crystalize this momentous accomplishment. And it is momentous, if you take even a second to consider what actually transpired. The Knicks, a team that was roughly on par with the Cavs before New York didn’t get Donovan Mitchell and Cleveland did, just wiped the floor with the Cavaliers in such demoralizing fashion that their own fans were booing them in a win-or-go-home game while the result was still in doubt.

Mr. T broke Rocky, Bane broke Batman, and the New York Knicks broke the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Best of all, they did it less by skill than by force of will. Any 90’s Knick would have been proud. To see Mitchell Robinson turn Jarrett Allen into the version of Wilt Chamberlain that watched Willis Reed come out of that tunnel, a beaten man before the opening tip, was a sight to behold. RJ Barrett, Josh Hart, Obi Toppin…players that were just players before, but have now etched their names in cement as part of Knicks lore.

These are the players I wanted to celebrate for you, and with you, today. They deserve our praise, not only for what they did last night and in this series, but for their perseverance in getting to this point. Barrett and Toppin in particular have overcome doubt and derision in so many forms. For them to come up as big as they did in Game 5 is nothing short of poetic justice. They deserve all of their flowers, as does every Knick in this rotation.

Alas, it is (checks watch) now 4 am, and that newsletter I have so yearned to write seems to now be eluding me. The reason, quite simply, is that I just finished the first ever five-hour postgame livestream in KFS history. We’ve gone past three hours a few times, but never close to four, let alone five...until last night That’s the sort of response that existed to this game - a win that was seemingly decades in the making.

And through those five hours, there was one sentiment that kept coming up - not about the team itself, but about us, its fans:

We deserve this.

Why do we deserve this? Because I don’t need to tell any Knicks fan reading this why we deserve this. The reasons are imprinted on our soul like a prison tattoo. A reminder of where we’ve been and how much we desperately don’t want to go back. At the same time, we wear it like a badge of honor. Other fans merely adopted the dark. We were born in it, molded by it.

But we never, ever gave up. And that, more than anything, is why we deserve this outcome.

My father used to tell me that patience is a virtue, and I never fully internalized that until I got older. I get it fully now. Not only do good things come to those who wait, but the longer the wait, the better it feels.

Today, in seeing the Knicks win their second playoff series in 23 years, the feeling is pretty damn spectacular.

And because everything old is new again, the reward is a matchup with none other than the perpetrator of the original sin - the one who left us wandering in the darkness after he left.

Pat Riley didn’t do a great job building this Heat team, but he constructed them with the possibility of winning on any given night. They are the foe that awaits, because of course they are.

It’s all part of this magical season - one I’ve dreamt of writing about for so, so long.

But it’s 4:30, and I can no longer see my keyboard. So the all-encompassing, series concluding, full wax job on what the Knicks have accomplished will have to wait until later today.

Until then, I leave you with this:

Early last night, in the first quarter, my daughter offered me some unsolicited advice. She said, as I screamed into the evening sky, “Daddy, it’s not that serious. It’s just basketball.”

And I just had to laugh. Some things, child, you just can’t understand until you get older.

Someday, she’ll get it. The same way we all got it. Undeniably, inextricably, and unapologetically, we are Knicks fans through and through.

And this is indeed for all of us.

It’s been a long time coming, but #WeHere, #WeBack, and we are just getting started.

Bring on the Heat.

🏀

That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. Also, a big thanks to our sponsor:

See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter