What does it feel like to wait so long for an NBA Championship?
A Vivrant Field Report on New York Knicks and Street Basketball
What does it feel like to finally win an NBA Championship after a 53 year wait?
That’s what I wanted to find out with my second A Vivrant Field Report.
When the buzzer sounded on game 5 in San Antonio, the celebrations went on for days and the scenes you saw outside Madison Square Garden, at watch parties across the city and the eventual parade were on a level only really the Knicks could pull off. In fact, the fan base and city is still celebrating.
For such an iconic and storied team, generations of New York Knicks fans have had to wait a long time for their third NBA title. They’ve heard the stories of the 70s winners, of Walt ‘Clyde’ Frazier and Phil Jackson from the elders. They’ve sat through the hope of Patrick Ewing, the promise of Carmelo Anthony and moments of madness that was Linsanity. Now, thanks to Jalen Brunson and some help from England’s very own OG Anunoby they’ve finally got a Championship to celebrate and call their own.
I filmed this video in New York weeks after they won the title and it gave me the chance to speak to fans about what it means and how important the game of basketball is to the city as people take to the courts everyday. I got to see a different type of energy I’d not seen in New York before, an afterglow of a fanbase finally getting to celebrate a moment they thought might never come. ‘Knicks in Five’ has become the official greeting between fans and any time I mentioned the win, people’s eyes just lit up whether they were a New York Knickerbocker born and bred, or a transplant who fell under the blue and orange spell. Even with a World Cup on, nothing was getting in the way of cherishing this.
Winning an NBA Championship or any sports title has a certain romanticism to its chase and yearning, then the eventual realisation of its truth. That can maybe feel hard to believe or find when it comes to a sports team who are one of the most famous names in sport with such a massive global fan base, but even as a non-Knicks fan, it’s hard to not feel happy for a fan base that had waited to long. They say a week is a lifetime in sports, so what does a 53 year wait really feel like. I hope this brief snapshot into the New York City mood captures what that feeling is like.