NBA champion Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns, Jose Alvarado inspire pride in Long Island's Dominican, Puerto Rican communities

Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic are not known as meccas for producing basketball stars. Baseball has more been their game.

But two key cogs in the Knicks championship team are Latinos — Jose Alvarado, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Karl-Anthony Towns, whose mother was an immigrant from the Dominican Republic.

The emergence of the two Latino stars on the Knicks is fueling a burst of pride in their communities on Long Island as they celebrate the team's first NBA championship in 53 years.

"It's just a tremendous sense of pride in the Hispanic community in general," said Marc Soto, a co-director of the annual Puerto Rican Hispanic Parade in Bay Shore and Brentwood.

Joe Saenz, a bilingual Social Studies teacher at Central Islip High School, said he is using Alvarado as a role model for his students: a guy who went to the heights of his profession through hard work and grit even though he is barely six feet tall.

"It's great to see that a fellow Puerto Rican is doing so excellent," Saenz said. "You don't get too many Puerto Ricans playing NBA basketball."

"He's a bulldog on defense," Saenz added. "My students are all talking about him."

Alvarado, 28, is a "Nuyorican," a person of Puerto Rican descent who grew up in New York City. He was born in Brooklyn and spent his high school years in Middle Village, Queens.

Alvarado joined the Knicks and came back to his hometown only on Feb. 5, when he was traded by the New Orleans Pelicans. He has played for Puerto Rico’s national team, including at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

"He just brings that whole Puerto Rican energy" to the game, said Marcos Maldonado, 45, a Puerto Rican who lives in Bay Shore.

"Our pride is that we never like to be taken advantage of, we always come through" — something Alvarado showed in the playoffs, Maldonado said.

In one memorable moment in Game 4, the relatively diminutive Alvarado tangled with 7-foot-4 San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama. At one point he grabbed the big man’s leg, forcing him to tumble to the ground. Alvarado was called for a foul and the moment went viral. Knick fans complained about aggressive fouls committed by Wembanyama throughout the series.

At the Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan on Sunday, revelers held large signs with photographs of Alvarado hours after the Knicks had clinched the championship on San Antonio’s home court.

Soto, 61, of Merrick, said he wants to invite Alvarado and Towns, 30, to the Brentwood parade next June — if they aren’t tied up with another playoff run.

Long Island is home to about 92,000 Puerto Ricans and 71,000 Dominicans, according to a 2024 U.S. Census count.

After the Knicks’ dramatic last-second win in Game Four, Towns joked with reporters as he praised Alvarado’s performance. "It’s tough for me to be a Dominican talking about a Puerto Rican like this," he said, alluding to a longtime friendly rivalry between the two groups.

Latin America has not produced many basketball stars in part because the game was invented in the United States in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, with New York City becoming a mecca, said Emily Keller, a professor of sports management at St. John’s University.

It takes time for a sport to spread to other countries, though that is now happening rapidly as basketball — and the NBA — becomes increasingly popular in Latin America as well as Europe and Asia, she said.

Towns grew up in Piscataway, New Jersey, and also played baseball as a kid. But since he was 6-foot-9 by 8th grade, he decided to focus on basketball in high school, he has said.

KAT, as the Knicks star is known, holds citizenship from both the U.S. and the Dominican Republic.

After emigrating, his mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, married Karl Towns Sr., a former college basketball player and a longtime coach. Cruz-Towns died in 2020 at age 58 from complications related to COVID-19.

The Knicks’ center has spoken often about his mother and her homeland. He first competed for the Dominican national team when he was a teenager, and — in homage to his mother — has provided funding for a youth basketball facility near the island nation’s second largest city, Santiago.

He has said he may even compete for the "D.R." in the 2028 Olympics.

Towns told ESPN that he felt his mother’s presence in the finals and she was inspiring him. "I do it for my mother’s country. I do it for everybody in Dominican Republic," he said. "I do it for everyone in the city that welcomed my mother when she immigrated over."

Jason Tavarez, 45, of Deer Park, who is Dominican, was in the D.R. on vacation during the Knicks’ NBA Finals victory, and said people there were closely following the series — and Towns.

"Everybody knows what’s going on with the Knicks," he said

"I think it’s awesome" the Knicks have a Dominican star, Tavarez said. "I think similar to the Puerto Ricans, I don't think there’s been a huge Dominican presence in the NBA."

"Right now he's playing the best basketball of his life," Tavarez added. "I think what is really awesome about it is that New York has a big Dominican community" including on Long Island. "I think it’s going to expand the Dominican fan base."