Fans at last Thursday’s Knicks parade. Photo via NYC Mayor’s Office.
A Greenpointer reflects on a historic period of unbridled joy in the Big Apple.
GEOFFREY COBB
Author, “Greenpoint Brooklyn’s Forgotten Past”
gcobb91839@Aol.com
I am a published author and something of a journalist, a person who is supposed to be able to capture through words moments, emotions and thoughts. But I must confess that words fail me in fully capturing the moments of euphoria that we have all experienced during the NBA championship finals, where our team, the New York Knicks, won the title for the first time in fifty-three years.
Before I talk about the championship, I need to talk about why New Yorkers, especially poorer New Yorkers, love the game. People in the poor neighborhoods often do not have fields big enough to play baseball or American football. They also do not have the money for the expensive equipment needed for these sports, but basketball is different. Poor kids only a need a ball and a metal rim. It is a game that is perfectly suited to a large, crowded city like New York. It’s the sport of the hood.
Basketball highlights pure athletic ability. It is about running, Jumping and shooting. In a lot of situations, it is not eleven on eleven; it is five on five, and very often just one on one. You cannot really hide on a basketball court. If you score, everyone sees it. If someone scores on you, your shame is public. In New York city’s parks and playgrounds, basketball is street theater. Its raw, alive and intoxicating.
In a society that still struggles with racism, the greatest stars in the sport are often black, or people of color. For black young men with few role models, basketball players are heroes, black men and women who have overcome long odds and become American icons. Basketball players are tall, strong, proud, charismatic and amazingly athletic. It is a sport where black people highlight their skill and emerge triumphant, and triumphs are sadly too few and far between for poorer African Americans. That is why it resonates with so many New Yorkers.
Before the start of the season, few people believed that the Knicks could win the championship. They said that the team’s star, Jason Brunson, was too short and not talented enough to win, but he proved them wrong. He personifies maximum effort and overcoming adversity. So many times, logic told us that the Knicks were too far behind and could not win, but Brunson believed, and his team amazed us by finding a way to win, inspiring millions of New Yorkers to believe, even for a few hours, that we too could also realize our own seemingly impossible dreams.
One of the players on the team Jose Alvarado is beloved because so many people relate to his life story. A Puerto Rican New Yorker who grew up in public housing and learned his game in the playgrounds of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Alvarado, like Brunson, was supposed to be too small and not talented enough to make it as a professional, but he proved the doubters wrong and became an integral part of the team. He is a man living a dream, their dream, and the dream millions of New York kids cherish.
The Knicks games in the NBA finals created an atmosphere of joy that is hard to put into words. The Knicks unified a very diverse and divided city. They made a famously impersonal city show its raw emotions and unite, even for a few days, around a shared dream. Our Mayor said it best when he stated that the Knicks transformed the biggest city in our country into a small town where everyone seemed to know each other.
The team’s victory parade attracted well over a million people, the largest parade ever in the city’s history. The streets of Lower Manhattan, normally the domain of Wall Street traders and brokers, were transformed into a scene of joyous chaos as the masses swarmed the streets to see their heroes go by on the top of busses, which took them to City Hall, where the mayor presented the players with keys to the city.
