Tom Rock: Knicks' NBA title finally gives metro region that winning feeling again

Fifty-three seasons is a heck of a long time to wait for a championship. Can you imagine what 116 would have felt like?

Thanks to the Knicks, we don’t have to worry about that. We only got to 115.

That’s the number of combined seasons the New York area waded through with its eight teams in the traditional four major men’s sports leagues during the 5,242 days between the Giants beating the Patriots in the Super Bowl in February 2012 and the Knicks topping the Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday.

We came close a few times. The Yankees and Mets each reached the World Series. The Rangers made the Stanley Cup Final in 2014. The Jets played four offensive snaps with a fully healthy Aaron Rodgers at quarterback.

And we did get a couple of sprinkles of happiness during that drought from NYCFC winning the MLS title in 2021 and the Liberty capturing the WNBA crown in 2024. Not to diminish those, but neither came close to fully quenching the city’s thirst for trophies and lust for legacies.

Finally, though, someone did.

The Knicks did.

It’s one of the reasons why the vast majority of the metropolitan area has celebrated their achievement so emotionally and so ardently. It’s why even as the streets of Manhattan were being overrun with joy, there were folks out here on Long Island doing what we do best: Going to the mall.

The ceremonies had barely ended in San Antonio on Saturday night when lines started forming overnight outside the Dick’s Sporting Goods in Lake Grove so fans could buy their championship merch in the morning before it inevitably sold out.

Another reason for the nearly universal jubilation is that unlike just about all of the other teams we’re counting in this exercise, the Knicks have no rival fan base. There may be a few Nets fans here and there, and the ones who do exist undoubtedly are curdling at all of the attention given to the city’s newest hoop gods, but those numbers are so lopsided, it is barely worth noting.

The Jets and Giants divide us. Everyone has a side to take when it comes to the Mets and Yankees. The strife between the Islanders and Rangers can be vicious. The Knicks? They own the region.

The real truth behind the elation of this moment, however, is really more simple and straightforward.

When any of our teams win — even if it is one for which you yourself may not be expressly rooting — it serves to remind the rest of the country of something they tend to overlook or forget but which all of us, no matter whether we have spent our lives here or moved in last week, inherently know is New York’s rightful place at the center of the universe.

There is nothing like winning in New York, the saying goes, but for too long, it seemed as if we forgot exactly how to do that, how to act and feel like a champ. Turns out those instincts were in us all along, lying dormant, just waiting for a team to jolt them back to life.

So an entire generation of sports fans who have grown up here without ever seeing firsthand the Canyon of Heroes covered in its famous paper blizzards now will get that chance on Thursday. So will the rest of us who may have witnessed it a few times in the past.

The Knicks? Turns out they never received such treatment. When they won their two previous titles in the 1970s, such parades were not automatically bestowed upon trophy-winning teams. This one should make up for that.

Then we’ll move on and start to wonder who’ll be next. The Yankees seem to be the most likely candidate, and there certainly is a chance for the Knicks to repeat next season, but there are others who could follow this path.

The Giants and Islanders seem to have good young players who might become future legends. And if the Knicks can win their first title in 53 years, who’s to say the Jets can’t win their first in 58?

OK, that’s probably a stretch for a team that hasn’t even made the playoffs for 15 years. But if they build their roster properly and get the right quarterback and get a little lucky, they could be hoisting hardware within the next five.

These Knicks have allowed all of New York’s teams and fans to dream big.

Now they need to make sure we don’t have to dream for quite as long. Certainly not another 115 combined seasons.

It’s already been nearly one full day since New York won a championship in any sport. Let’s go. The clock is ticking.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.