It started — as many things did — at a fish ‘n’ chip shop in Oamaru in the 1990s.
Jumbo’s, maybe. Or perhaps it was the Bamboo or Aspros.
There were no mobile phones to keep our dwindling human brains occupied back then so the only real option while waiting for our greasies was to pop 20c into whichever arcade game had been installed in the shop.
Picture a teenaged nerd, possibly still in his Waitaki Boys’ High School grey shorts, discovering this new title called NBA Jam. Two-on-two, high-octane basketball. Outrageous dunks, flaming hoops and a tinny sounding commentator uttering a ‘‘Boomshakalaka’’ phrase that would enter the video game lexicon.
For whatever reason, the boy with the glasses chooses the team with the NYK abbreviation, controls two characters called Ewing and Oakley, and finds himself committed to supporting the New York Knicks for the rest of his life.
Oh, joy.
For while that kid would watch his beloved Liverpool (eventually) charge to Premier League glory, and his Penrith Panthers completely dominate the NRL, and his Boston Red Sox win the World Series three times (once while he was in the United States), and his St Louis/Los Angeles Rams win two Super Bowls, and his Waitaki Boys’, Valley and North Otago rugby teams winning for fun, he quickly discovered he had dudded out when it came to hoops.
The Knicks have pretty much stunk for 30 years.
Yes, they made the NBA finals in 1999 — losing to the San Antonio Spurs, whom they face again in the finals starting today — and they had a couple of other seasons that promised much before fizzling out, and a truly surreal period called ‘‘Linsanity’’, built on the fairytale and brief rise of a player called Jeremy Lin, made the heart sing.
But they were exceptions to the rule.
The Knicks have generally been far better known for losing (17-65 one year!), for completely wasting draft picks, for paying too much money to unproven projects or washed-up stars, and for being laughably far off the pace set by teams like the Spurs, the Miami Heat, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Boston Celtics, the Golden State Warriors, the OKC Thunder ... yeah, pretty much everyone else.
Their owner has made terrible decisions, various out-of-depth coaches have come and gone, and many, many, MANY players have worn a Knicks singlet without making a single positive impression. Renaldo Balkman, Jerome James, Travis Knight, Cleanthony Early ... shudder.
The truth is I have often not considered myself a real Knicks fan so much as someone with a healthy interest in basketball who somehow found himself lumped with a dreadful team.
They have built a properly good basketball team, a balanced unit led by point god Jalen Brunson that can attack, defend, and most importantly win.
Eleven straight wins in the playoffs, including sweeps of the Philadelphia 76ers and the Cleveland Cavaliers, have sent the Knicks sailing into the finals, where they will seek to claim their first NBA championship since before I was born, 1973.
They start — in most people’s eyes — as clear underdogs as the Spurs have a cracking young core and a French freak called Victor Wembanyama who is essentially unplayable and could end up in the Jordan-LeBron tier.
Most Knicks fans are not believers. They have been let down too often.
But one who has never stopped believing, through all the grim years, is an old mate of mine from Waitaki Boys’.
Gareth Mitchell is also a real Knicks fan. As in, he watches every game, knows the team inside-out and has basketball knowledge levels far beyond anything I possess.
So, when I flicked him a note this week asking for some quick thoughts on the NBA finals, he was happy to oblige.
‘‘Victor Wembanyama is a generational freak, no doubt — seven-foot-four, fingers that touch the rim standing flat-footed and a basketball IQ off the charts.
‘‘But here’s what the kid hasn’t experienced yet: a team walking into his house, getting in his face, making him fight for every possession, and enjoying every second of it. We got a bench full of fouls just waiting.
‘‘The Knicks don’t care about your highlight reel. They will hit you, elbow you and smile doing it. Wemby’s house — our rules.
‘‘But here’s what non-Knick fans will never in their life appreciate.
‘‘We earned this.
‘‘We sat through Andrea Bargnani — the Italian No1 pick (flop) Toronto were so desperate to offload they practically gift-wrapped him for us, taking up roster space, cap room and our will to live. We watched Alexy Shved (ALEXY SHVED) dribble off his own shin. We cheered Lou Amundson like he was Willis Reed (we didn’t, really; most of us cried into our beer). We refreshed the trade page at 2am hoping for a miracle that never came.
‘‘Thirty years of misery.
‘‘Thirty years of watching other cities raise banners while the Mecca sat empty of glory. The last championship got hung at MSG in 1973. Most of us fans weren’t born yet.
‘‘Now they’re back. The finals. The Garden buzzing the way basketball gods intended. It’s 53 years of suffering finally being repaid.
‘‘The Mecca deserves its king. Now we just need him to bring the chip home. JB, we are talking to you.’’
