This Is Why We Watch Sports

If you have access to the internet, you might’ve seen that for the first time in 53 years the New York Knicks are NBA Champions!

Last night’s game 5 didn’t have quite the emotional rollercoaster that game 4 delivered, but regardless, the Knicks overcame yet another double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter to beat the Spurs and hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy. 

For Knicks fans, it’s a nearly unbelievable accomplishment. Aside from rare flashes of greatness (a la the Linsanity run in 2012), the team had been the laughingstock of the league for most of the 21^st century.

Just 10 years ago, Carmelo Anthony attempted to dunk the ball during a stoppage in play only to get rejected by the rim and fall to the ground.

To me, that play sums up the Knicks team I’ve been used to for nearly my entire life. 

Yet somehow, the tide began to turn. The Knicks signed Julius Randle going into the 2019-20 season. The next year, the team had its first winning season since 2013.

Then, going into the 22-23 season, the Knicks took a risk on the 6’2” guard who would be the missing piece: Jalen Brunson. Charles Barkley would go on to call this the greatest free agent signing in NBA history.

More changes came to the organization including sending Randle to the Timberwolves in exchange for Karl-Anthony Towns aka the Big Bodega aka the Big Purr. 

Slowly but surely, the Knicks evolved from laughingstock to league contender. And that’s why we watch sports.

We watch sports for the incredible moments. The ones that make the cover of newspapers. The tip in from OG Anunoby to end game 4’s incredible comeback.

If you’re a sports fan, you might have one for your own team. The Patriots overcoming a 28-3 deficit. The Cavaliers clawing back from being down 3-1 against the Warriors. Kobe scoring 81 points. The Cubs breaking a 108-year curse.

Sports are full of moments that seem impossible…until they happen. We experience triumph and tragedy (each of the above examples have a loser on the other side after all). These moments are the promises of life fulfilled: if you work hard, you might just reach the mountaintop, but nothing is guaranteed.

Yet those moments don’t happen in an instant. They happen over long periods and often in the shadows. It took the Knicks years of putting together a roster, and that’s not even factoring in the time each player spent on and off the court, honing their craft.

It took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success. – Lionel Messi

Sports are also full of lessons.

In game 4 of this year’s finals, the Knicks were down a whopping 29 points during the third quarter and 15 going into the fourth. At one point, the Knicks had a 0.4% chance to win the game, according to ESPN analytics.

I’m not sharing this to be an annoying fan (well I’m not only sharing this to be an annoying fan) but rather to emphasize the odds that were stacked against this team. I certainly believed the game was lost and the series would be tied 2-2. If I were on the bench during that game, I would’ve very likely given up.

But the Knicks didn’t, and that’s beautiful.

Sports are a reminder that no matter how bad things look, you can always decide to stay in the fight and begin to claw you’re way back step by step, point by point.

Jalen Brunson eloquently put this idea to words in a post-game interview with the Inside the NBA crew:

You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you’ve got to go out there and do something about it. – Jalen Brunson after game 4

We all face moments of doubts.

Maybe we’re not getting blown out on national television, but there are moments equally haunting that we face in our personal lives. We will face terrible scenarios in our lives no matter how hard we try to avoid them, but we also control how we respond to them.

We can give in, or we can keep trying. We might lose, but that’s not the point. The whole point is the attempt.

Keep fighting. Never give up. Go Knicks.

And now for an outro.