For 25 years, the New York Knicks have given just enough hope to keep me from walking away. Now they are four wins from an NBA title, and I know why I stayed.
I became a Knicks fan in 2002. In 2012, I was suicidal. That year, the Knicks got their first playoff win in over a decade. My father and I watched it on a small kitchen TV in a Mexican restaurant in south Dallas, sitting on packing crates. Carmelo Anthony scored 41 points to beat the defending champion Miami Heat. It meant nothing in the series, but it meant everything to me.
That win came wrapped in the bittersweet logic that would define the next decade: something real and worth feeling, shadowed by the knowledge that it would never be quite enough. The Knicks had perfected the art of giving you just enough to keep you from walking away.
Now it is spring 2026. The Knicks have swept the Philadelphia 76ers and the Cleveland Cavaliers. They have 11 straight playoff wins, the most lopsided 11-game stretch in NBA history. They face the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA finals, their first since 1999.
Between the semi-finals and the conference finals, my father’s best friend, Al Jerry, died. Al and my dad watched the Knicks win titles in 1970 and 1973. They won’t watch the next one together. But my dad is still here. And so am I.
