I’ve been a Knicks fan since I was in 8th grade. We lived 5 blocks south of Madison Square Garden in Penn South—an affordable housing development set up by JFK in the early 1960s. I’d see my dad lying in bed watching the super sucky Knicks of the mid-1980s and yelling at the TV. I loved my dad, and wanted to be part of something he loved, so I sat down next to him. I asked a lot of dumb questions to which he would try and answer but mostly yell at the TV, because the Knicks sucked and I knew nothing about basketball.
In 1985, the Knicks won the first-ever NBA draft lottery and selected Patrick Ewing, the heralded next greatest player in the NBA. I remember going to junior high school dances during playoff runs and drinking wine coolers on the Upper East Side of Central Park, celebrating our flashes of glory in the first or second round of the playoffs. It was the first sign of my upcoming alcoholism and drug addiction.
If you’re a Knicks fan, disappointment isn’t an emotion. It’s a lifestyle.
The next great hopes of my life became Pat Riley and weed. I fell in love with the ’90s Knicks and being a stoner simultaneously. If I’d had religion at the time, it would’ve been some kind of stoner/Knicks interfaith.
I was in my sophomore year at Ithaca College and had started selling weed and mushrooms. The Knicks were still at the center of our spring, when my friends and I came into a pound of super high-quality weed from a classmate that had been arrested—”the silver haze.” It was the second round of the playoffs, and I was finishing up my last paper. My friend Zev and I were in charge of distributing the ounces to our scrubby crew. We drove to Collin’s apartment. Zev’s recently purchased 1990 used Toyota wagon had the wrong plates on it, and we got pulled over. The cops searched us and found the weed. We were arrested and suspended from school. We saw the Knicks lose a heartbreak Finals against the Houston Rockets that year.
The next fall we transferred to SUNY Purchase, where Pat Riley and the Knicks held their practices. My drug addiction had progressed, as addiction was apt to do. We were now selling hundreds of doses of LSD, doing coke and pills and whatever else fell into our greedy hands or up our noses. It was in Purchase that I first tried heroin. I managed to graduate early from SUNY and went to live in the neighborhood I had grown up in—in the low-income buildings where my parents and grandparents had lived. (My mom had put me on the list when I was 11.)
It would be a few years before the Knicks made it back to the Finals—and when they did, I was completely addicted to heroin. After they were drummed in 5 games by the San Antonio Spurs, the Knicks and I began our co-occurring free fall into deep obscurity. We all went to hell. They with Eddie Curry and Antonio McDyess and Isiah Thomas and Derek Fisher, and me with Xanax and methadone and crystal meth and heroin.
I drifted from reality and stopped paying attention to my beloved New York Knicks, who were tailspinning for as long as I was.
In 2015, after a series of deeply unfortunate events, I found myself sober for the first time, living on the Lower East Side and working at the world-famous Katz’s Deli. The Knicks had somewhat recently acquired Carmelo Anthony, and there was some tiny glimmer of hope on the horizon.
My sobriety solidified, and I worked a 12-step program. I was starting to learn at Katz’s that hard work actually paid off—which was a genuinely new idea for me.
The Knicks showed some flashes during my early recovery—but they weren’t ready to turn the corner yet. I guess they hadn’t really bottomed out. Now sober, I watched them suck out of deep, old-school loyalty; my Knicks obsession was back, even if the Knicks weren’t. Their bottom would come in 2019 with David Fizdale and Scott Perry, a coach and executive with unlimited money and dreams, without a plan—like a rich drug-addict kid with his dad’s credit cards destined for deep failure.
In 2020, the Knicks hired Leon Rose, and true surrender was put into place. Rose brought in Jalen Brunson—an undersized point guard who had won the national championship for Villanova twice. Then he brought in Brunson’s teammates: Josh Hart, Dante DiVincenzo, Mikal Bridges. The Nova Knicks. The power of friendship. They went on a run no one had ever seen—13 straight wins, a juggernaut, and at their core a humble point guard who showed that hard work and loyalty were his truest beliefs.
I’ve been sober for over a decade now. Long enough to know that recovery isn’t some magic transformation. Nobody hands you a trophy, and most days are pretty basic. You wake up, you try to do the next right thing, you don’t use or drink, and then you say thank you and hope to do it again tomorrow. You try to keep showing up.
The last time the Knicks were in the Finals was 1999. I was 25 years old. I was also a heroin addict. I barely remember the series. I remember getting high. I remember being sick. I remember getting drugs.
I don’t remember much basketball.
Now I’m 52 years old.
I watched Game 5 with my father, my wife Linda, my daughters Norah and Susan, and enough ice cream to make myself physically ill. The Knicks won. I ate Ben & Jerry’s Tonight Dough and Cookie Vermontster, and Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean with Magic Shell.
The Knicks won the championship, and I woke up at 5:30 in the morning with a stomachache and pure joy.
Jalen Brunson might be the most recovery guy in sports.
He’s not the biggest star. He’s not the most athletic. He’s not flashy.
But every interview sounds like an AA lead.
All he talks about is hard work. Preparation. Humility. Trusting his teammates. Doing the next right thing, one possession at a time.
Game 5 of the Finals, he scored 45 points and won Finals MVP. Afterward, he cried.
I wanted to cry, but I didn’t. I laughed, I screamed, and I texted a million people.
Because the Knicks finally won.
Because we did it.
You don’t leave before the miracle happens. It’s an old AA saying: “Don’t leave before the miracle happens.”
A lot of fans left Game 4 when the Knicks were down 29. They missed the Knicks’ comeback.
Recovery people always say, “Keep coming back,” too. It sounds simple. Almost stupid. Incredibly annoying. But also incredibly true. If you keep going, you can get there. If you give up, you cannot. It’s the ultimate life lesson.
Jalen Brunson and the New York Knickerbockers are the 2026 NBA Champions.
It’s more than just a sports story.
It’s a recovery story.