Spike Lee Was (Finally!) Right About the Knicks

PART OF BEING a Knicks fan is the pain. When your team hasn’t won a championship in 52 years (and counting), you know the hurt. In fact, you know the hurt so well that you’ve become more or less numb to it. The hurt, in a way, becomes something that draws those of us in this small community together. Many Knicks fans of today weren’t even around for that last title, but we all know the pain of rooting for a team that as recently as half a decade ago seemed destined to be a dog shit laughingstock year in and year out.

As the culture editor for Men’s Health and someone who’s been working in the entertainment space for more than 10 years, I’ve had the chance to cross paths with a number of actors, filmmakers, and others who share my sports allegiances. But it’s not fun to talk to someone about the Yankees, a perennial winner (even if they haven’t won a World Series since 2009). It is fun, however, to bond over the dire nature of being a Jets fan with Dylan O’Brien or to ask Benny Safdie whether or not this could finally be the year for the Knicks.

One person who’s never wavered, though, is Spike Lee. In the master director’s world, every year is the year for the Knicks. The man has seen infinitely more games in his life than I ever will, and his signature seats guarantee him a better view than any of us will ever have. And, again, let’s be abundantly clear: the Knicks have been bad. But Spike Lee has never lost faith.

So, when I had the chance to talk to Lee last fall about his latest film, Highest 2 Lowest (a Denzel Washington-led remake of the classic Akira Kurosawa crime thriller High and Low), of course I had to get at least a little bit of Knicks talk going.

“It’s our year,” he said when I showed him my favorite blue Knicks hat. “It’s our year.”

But I know that Spike Lee is the most positive, optimistic, sky-is-never-falling Knicks fan of any. Meanwhile, my perpetually high expectations for the handful of longtime losers I root for (which also include Penn State’s football and basketball programs) have been beaten down over the years, making it harder and harder to fully buy in each season.

So, without even thinking, I told him: “I hope so.”

The spirit of our interview, broadly, was Lee giving me a little bit of shit. If I stumbled over a word or a sentence, he let me know it. If I couldn’t remember a character name for a split second, I was liable to be roasted. And so my soft optimism was not received lightly.

“Ain’t no hope,” he said. “This is our year.”

Through movies like Do the Right Thing and 25th Hour, Lee has long proven to be ahead of his time, predicting societal behaviors through his colorful landscapes and thoughtfully crafted characters. In the next couple of weeks, we’ll see if this time, he was able to forecast something even bigger for our long-tortured and long-beloved New York Knickerbockers.

For the first time since 1999, the Knicks have won the Eastern Conference, defeating the Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76ers, and Cleveland Cavaliers in dominating fashion. Next week, they’ll contend for a championship for the first time in my adult life.

Let’s quickly establish just how big of a deal this is. We are talking about something that has not happened since 1999. The last time the Knicks were in the finals, The Matrix was a new release. The words “Fight Club” had no association with Brad Pitt. Timothée Chalamet, another Knicks superfan who has been often seen during the team’s run through the gauntlet, was three years old. John F. Kennedy Jr. was sitting courtside; He would tragically die in a plane crash a month later.

This whole run has gotten me thinking about all sorts of things. It got me thinking about just how much fun it will be if and when another team I can hardly remember winning—the Jets—have their moment. It got me feeling like I’ve perhaps been taking the success of the Yankees for granted. And it got me thinking, again, about the bond that losing, tortured sports fans have. If I had this moment with Spike Lee—and we see the bonds unfolding courtside between Knicks players, fans, Lee, and his fellow celebrity superfans like Chalamet, Ben Stiller, Tracy Morgan, and Mariska Hargitay—then really anyone can. It feels amazing to see this team I’ve lived and died with for my entire life finally paying something off. But it almost feels even better to know there are so many people right there with me. None of us are taking this for granted.

And, look, not to even put this out there, but if the Knicks don’t win, it would still be our year. There hasn’t been this kind of energy and excitement around this team in nearly three decades. Let’s take what we can get.

But the Knicks community doesn’t want any kind of moral victory. We want it all.

“There’s no beers. There’s no champagne,” Karl-Anthony Towns said on SportsCenter after the Knicks completed their sweep of the Cavs. “We’re ready to get back to work.”

At the end of our conversation back in September, I thanked Lee for the time and his thoughtful conversation. Of course, I couldn’t let him go without one more “Go Knicks.”

“This is our year,” he said once more. “This is our year. Orange and Blue Skies.”