A sometimes-raucous crowd estimated at more than 1 million people lined the streets of Manhattan on Thursday for an event 53 years in the making: a championship parade honoring the New York Knicks.
Past franchise legends such as Patrick Ewing rode in convertibles through the Canyon of Heroes and waved to the adoring crowd, an appetizer before fans saw captain and NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson emerge with the team, hopping off his ride to walk the parade route with his wife and daughter, cradling the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.
Most of the Knicks walked part of the route to City Hall, which was adorned with banners bearing the players’ names and numbers. They greeted fans before being presented with the key to the city by Mayor Zohran Mamdani and serenaded by Alicia Keys, who performed “Empire State of Mind.” Karl-Anthony Towns grabbed a mic to sing the other anthem of the city, “New York, New York.”
The Knicks’ celebrity fans, including Spike Lee, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller, Mariska Hargitay and Timothee Chalamet, also were there, some taking part in the official festivities. Martha Stewart took a photo with Brunson.
Mamdani brought New Yorkers together amid pride over the team’s first NBA title since 1973.
“For 53 long years we have watched, and we have waited. We have watched from nosebleeds and through gritted teeth on televisions in the windows of electronic stores, and from projectors balanced on fire escapes,” the mayor said.
“We have watched alone in our apartments with our heads in our hands, shoulder to shoulder at bars where the signal flickers, alongside friends and family who we wish more than anything could be here today, sharing this moment.”
And he relayed the point that the Knicks were New York tough when they came back from a 29-point deficit in Game 5 of the NBA Finals to defeat the San Antonio Spurs and close the series on their opponent’s home court. In the third quarter of the deciding game, analytics gave the Spurs a 99.6% chance of winning.
“What is New York if not 99.6% of the world stacked against you? And who are New Yorkers if not people who hear those odds and smile, who look at a point-four chance of success, and ask, ‘Why are you giving me a head start? This is our city, this is our team.’ For 53 years we watched, for 53 years we waited. Now we’ve won.”
Leon Rose, the team president for the past six years, congratulated coach Mike Brown for finally bringing the Larry O’Brien trophy to New York.
“Mike Brown and our entire coaching staff, you came in this season with enormous expectations and completely exceeded them, and you did it with so much class that resonated with New Yorkers,” he said.
Brown did not take the credit all by himself.
“I’m so proud of our guys from the top to the bottom. There was a lot of hard work that we put in, starting with the offseason, going into the season. A lot of stuff that you guys don’t see behind the scenes. Guys busting their behinds, not just our players, our medical staff, you know, keeping those guys healthy for sure.”
On the way to the championship, the Knicks had to address the doubters.
That included Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon, formerly a Spurs assistant coach, who said in a 2023 interview that when “your best player is small,” it did not bode well for a title. With the 6-foot-2 leader in Brunson closing in on a title, Hammon didn’t walk back her statement when given the chance.
Brunson, with his championship series MVP trophy nearby, savored the moment.
“There’s a lot of people who have a lot of negative stuff to say,” Brunson said. “There’s a lot of people who have their own opinions. But when you prove them wrong, you don’t have to say s–t to them. They don’t deserve it.”
