53 Years in the Making

By now, most of America knows that the New York Knicks are NBA champions. However, this did not come easily. The Knicks fought through years of hardship and drought that many thought they would never overcome. To fully grasp how monumental this championship win truly is, we need to be taken back to the last time this historic franchise reached the ultimate basketball summit. It’s May 10, 1973; the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam just two months prior, the nation was emerging into a new era, and families gathered around their tiny, wood-paneled televisions to watch the New York Knicks play the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals. The Knicks won that series in five games.

Since that game five victory, the Knicks have had some incredible talent. In 1985, for instance, they even lucked out with the first overall pick in the first-ever NBA draft lottery. They used that pick on one of the greatest prospects of all time, Patrick Ewing. Patrick Ewing was the most highly touted big man prospect since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He won the national championship, he was an extremely NBA-ready player who was a defensive savant, and was one of the most physical athletes that college basketball had ever seen. All of this hype amounted to a total of zero Defensive Player of the Year awards, zero Most Valuable Player Awards, and most importantly, zero championships for the Knicks. Although Ewing did not bring any major awards to the Knicks, he still brought them some stellar seasons and raised the Knicks’ fandom to elite levels.

Ewing, along with guys like Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason, gave the Knicks seven seasons where they won over 50 games, and in 1994, the Knicks finally made it back to the finals after over 20 years of falling short. In this finals series, the Knicks went up against a historic Houston Rockets team that would go on to win the championship the year after this series. The Knicks played incredibly, but unfortunately, they lost a close game seven and were sent home after coming closer than they had in two decades. This was devastating to the players and fans of the Knicks organization, but not all hope was lost. During the 1998 NBA season, there was a massive lockout. This meant that each team only ended up playing a total of 50 games that season, which the Knicks won only 27 of and barely reached the playoffs as the 8th seed. Miraculously, the Knicks pulled off an outstanding upset over the Miami Heat, becoming only the second team in existence to pull off an upset of this magnitude. After that series, the Knicks went on to sweep the Atlanta Hawks in the second round of the playoffs and win the first game of the conference finals against the Indiana Pacers. Game two of the conference finals is where tragedy struck. In the third quarter of a close game two, Patrick Ewing went down with a torn Achilles and was ruled out for the rest of the playoffs. All hope that the Cinderella run had brought to the team had vanished instantly. Everyone counted the eighth seed out, but the absence of their star player did not change a single player’s attitude. The Knicks went on to beat the Indiana Pacers in six games, and they finally got their chance to go back to the NBA Finals. They faced the San Antonio Spurs, led by two big men. One was a solidified NBA legend, and the other was one of the best young players in the league. David Robinson and Tim Duncan were nearly unstoppable. The Knicks fought valiantly, but without Patrick Ewing, they could not do anything to stop Robinson and Duncan. The New York Knicks lost the finals for the second time in five years in only five games. They went back to the playoffs the following two seasons, but with diminishing returns. After those minor playoff runs, they then went on a stretch of almost ten years where not once did they reach over forty wins in a season.

After those excruciatingly disappointing seasons, they finally were back on track. One of the NBA’s most elite players wanted to join the Knicks. On February 22, 2011, Carmelo Anthony was traded from the Denver Nuggets to the New York Knicks per his request. Instantly, Carmelo showed the fans his greatness. In his debut for the Knicks, Carmelo Anthony dropped 27 points in a win over the Milwaukee Bucks. During the 2011, 2012, and 2013 NBA seasons, Carmelo led the Knicks to three great regular season performances and some deep playoff runs, but after the 2013 playoffs, where the Knicks went down in six against the Pacers, they went on another long playoff drought. From then on, all the way until 2020, the Knicks missed the playoffs every season.

After that, the 2020 season is when the New York Knicks team that we know today started to be formed. The most major change in the Knicks’ roster happened in July of 2022. After the Dallas Mavericks let Jalen Brunson become a free agent, he signed with the Knicks with a four year 104 million dollar deal. In just his first year on the Knicks, Jalen Brunson added ten wins from the year prior and helped them win the first round of the playoffs. They were still far from their ultimate goal, but this was the first of many moves that got them much closer. Then in 2023, the Knicks traded RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and a second-round pick to the Toronto Raptors for OG Anunoby, which at the time seemed rather unimportant, but may prove to be the most important acquisition out of them all. The next major move made was to acquire Mikal Bridges from the Brooklyn Nets. On July 6, 2024, a trade was finalized between the New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets to send Mikal Bridges, Keita Bates-Diop, and a second-round pick for four unprotected first-round picks, a few role players, and some extra draft capital. This was a blockbuster trade that reunited Mikal Bridges with his Villanova teammates, Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo, while also being the first deal between the Knicks and Nets since 1983. This trade also happened just months before the Knicks executed their biggest and most impactful trade of this era. On October 2, 2024, the Knicks were a part of a three-team deal that had them giving up two key players, Donte DiVincenzo and Julius Randle, but ultimately gaining the most impactful piece to their finals run from the Timberwolves, Karl-Anthony Towns. Towns was the final player needed to solidify their roster; however, there is still one major missing piece to the championship Knicks roster, the coach. In June of 2025, the Knicks made a drastic move by firing Tom Thibodeau, one of the greatest coaches of all time, who led the Knicks through tons of playoff appearances and had proven himself time and time again. This move shook the NBA world, but the Knicks had a plan. Just one month later, they hired former Coach of the Year, Mike Brown. This is arguably the biggest and most important move that the Knicks made in this time frame. They fired their Hall of Fame coach when he had just brought them to the conference finals the year prior, but it worked, and it is no coincidence that just the first season with Mike Brown as head coach is the same season the Knicks make history.

With all of the trades and signings, the 2025–26 season is underway. The Knicks did well, winning 53 games and finishing third in the East, but it’s what happened after the postseason that really cemented this season in the history books. While most fans were writing off the top dogs in the Eastern Conference, the Knicks were in a battle with CJ McCollum and the Atlanta Hawks. The Knicks let the series get to six games before finally winning. This close series already had fans doubting the abilities of the Knicks. They then went on to have one of the greatest playoff runs of all time. The Knicks won 13 straight playoff games, which is the second-longest streak ever, only behind the 2017 Warriors, who were truly a superteam. The Knicks swept the 76ers in the semifinals, they swept the Cavaliers in the conference finals, and then they faced their hardest matchup. They faced a franchise that had brought them heartbreak before, and they seemed just as unstoppable as before. The Knicks faced the San Antonio Spurs, led by the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year, the best prospect since LeBron James, the seven-foot-five alien, Victor Wembanyama. Wemby and the Spurs had already taken down an exceptional Timberwolves team and the reigning champion Thunder. The odds even favored the Spurs despite the incomparable playoff run the Knicks were on. It all came down to this. Fifty years of heartbreak. Game on, Brunson leads the Knicks to a decent win. They then win an extremely close game two. It looks like the series might already be over. The Knicks are up two to zero, and they are headed back to Madison Square Garden for games three and four. No team has ever won the finals after losing the first two games at home, especially not a team that would have to go play in Madison Square Garden. Game three was packed and electric. Knicks fans had already brought out the brooms, but Victor Wembanyama was not going down without a fight. The Spurs won game three when nobody thought they could, and this series was a lot more reasonable now. Game four is by far the most pivotal game of the series, and the Spurs get up 29 points, a number no team had ever come back from in finals history. Spurs fans are already thinking ahead. They think they are gonna blow out the Knicks and have a tied series going back to San Antonio, but the Knicks had other plans. In a gritty second half, the Knicks slowly fight their way back into the game, and with just five seconds left on the clock, the Knicks down one, Jalen Brunson throws up a three over Wemby. The shot missed, but that man from Toronto, the man counted out, OG Anunoby goes up for the rebound and with one second left hits a putback layup to win New York game four of the NBA finals. The Knicks went on to win game five, and 53 years of waiting were finally over.