Messier did it. So did Reggie (Jackson. Not Miller). And Keith Hernandez. They all did it. They came to New York, either by free agency or trade. And their lives were changed because they won here.
Jalen. KAT. Josh. Mikal. OG. Get ready to know the feeling.
Sure, those greats that I mentioned at the top all had won elsewhere. Keith Hernandez was a batting champion and won the World Series in St. Louis. Reggie was part of three World Series titles in Oakland. Mark Messier won five Stanley Cups in Edmonton (he had some help from a guy named Gretzky and a boatload of other Hall of Famers). Each of them embraced the challenge of New York. Their winning in New York eventually stamped their legacies: Messier as “The Messiah” and Reggie as “Mr. October.”
Long before free agency, when players were tied to the team that drafted or initially signed them, New York was an important destination for athletes for one good reason: money. In the 1950s and 1960s, New York was the home of the new medium of television. It was the home of the growth of mass media. And it was the home of Madison Avenue. The top players benefited. Were there players in other cities who were as good as Frank Gifford, Mickey Mantle and Joe Namath? Arguably. Did those players in Pittsburgh and Baltimore and St. Louis get as much national media attention and TV commercials? Not even close.
Free agency eventually flattened New York’s advantage over smaller markets, except in baseball, where the big money teams can still run roughshod over the medium and small market teams. But in the other sports, you didn’t need to come to New York anymore to make millions. Who needs New York if you can make $25 million a year and more playing (and winning) in Kansas City? And you no longer had to be in New York to get the commercials. Hello, Shohei. Hello, Caitlin.
Which brings me to Jalen Brunson and the championship Knicks.
One of the saddest aspects of the 20 years of mediocre and worse Knicks basketball (not you, Linsanity) was that the Knicks and Madison Square Garden were no longer a desired destination for players. Yes, Amare Stoudemire signed here and Carmelo engineered a trade. They both provided some excitement and there were times when the Garden sounded like the Garden.
But by and large, who wanted to deal with the losing and the negativity and the dysfunction? LeBron? Please.
It wasn’t that long ago.
The signing of Jalen Brunson in 2022, easily one of the most influential free agent signings in sports history, helped to change all of that. KAT and OG and Josh and Mikal all came in trades. Most of us couldn’t see it at the time, but Knicks President Leon Rose was building a team piece by piece, much as the franchise did in the 1960s, leading to the NBA titles in 1970 and 1973. They not only changed the Knicks’ fortunes on the court. They seemed to change the culture: one for all, tough defense, never giving up and a minimum of woofing in an opponent’s face. It’s one of the reasons why those of us who still tear up at the mere mention of Bradley and DeBusschere, Willis and Clyde, Dr. Barnett and Cazzie have fallen hard for the 2026 Knicks; they play as a team. Individual accolades? Nice. A championship as a team? That’s forever. At some point, the individual players on this Knicks team realized that they are part of something bigger. In New York, aren’t we all?
I don’t know how New York’s love affair with the Knicks is playing out in the rest of the country. There is always the knee jerk “I hate New York” resentment lurking (even as they come here to visit, which we appreciate). And I’m pretty sure that people all over the country are sick and tired of the network’s exaltation of the Garden’s celebrity culture and the cost of tickets (a lot of New Yorkers are repelled by this too). But you’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel something at the sight of the tears shed by the diehards, the blood and sweat of the players and the newbies’ joy in discovering New York’s game. The City Game.
It’s too soon to quantify the effect of what happened with the Knicks over the past two months (beyond a very nice economic boost). Maybe the next Jalen Brunson was sitting at home, watching the games and thinking “I want to play there.” Maybe the effect will extend beyond the court, to the next Beyoncé, the next Yo-Yo Ma, the next Chris Rock, the athletes and artists, the writers and reporters, the schemers and the dreamers. Maybe they were all watching the city fall in love with the Knicks, the scenes of unbridled joy in the neighborhoods and through the Canyon of Heroes, and thought, “That’s where I want to be. New York.”
Yes, it’s a basketball team and everybody (especially the politicians) loves a winner. But that team has elicited a city full of smiles and hugs and a renewed love affair with The City Game. And they’ve brought us back to the Garden.