SPANISH HARLEM – Nothing could ever explain the feeling I had when the New York Knicks won the NBA Championship. I was stunned yet extremely happy, lost for words and when they finally came out all I could say “oh my god, I can’t believe it”. Though they led the series 3-1, there was still that past feeling of doubt. It was something that stuck with you as a fan after all the years of losing and awful team construction.
When we finally had a team that was consistently good, going to the playoffs every year but somebody would say “yea, but they are the Knicks, they will never win” and this coming from people you knew were Knicks fans as well. All that changed on June 13th, 2026, and that day will forever be etched in stone for many of us. That will be day that we never forget because it was the day that was never supposed to happen.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but thank you Jim Dolan… for hiring Leon Rose, which leads to a slew of acquisitions, trades and moves that made this team what they were. He probably deserves more praise than Dolan, but it all started with the owner finding the right guy to lead this organization. Even if you hated Dolan (which I still can while also thanking him), he always wanted to make the Knicks a winner.
Thank you to Tom Thibodeau, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mike Brown and everybody that contributed to this special moment. They will all be immortalized for forever in this city. “Once a Knick, always a Knicks” will ring louder than ever before. This is a team that united the city unlike anything I have ever seen and that this is something I will never forget.
That’s it for now, please come back tomorrow for more great revelations from Jackson Sternberg. – who will likely retell the above, after not reading my column.
