{"id":746365,"date":"2026-06-19T09:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/746365\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T09:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T09:11:11","slug":"nba-news-2026-new-york-knicks-owner-james-dolan-swipes-nyc-mayor-zohran-mamdani-victory-parade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/746365\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA news 2026: New York Knicks owner James Dolan swipes NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani, victory parade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Knicks<\/a> celebrated their historic NBA championship<\/a> with a parade through the city<\/a> as blue and orange confetti swirled through the air amid massive cheers of \u201cLet\u2019s go, Knicks!\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans stood shoulder to shoulder \u2014 sometimes on each other\u2019s shoulders \u2014 or climbed traffic lights and garbage trucks to get a glimpse of the players who delivered the first title to fans in 53 years<\/a>. Over a kilometre away, on the Brooklyn Bridge, people gathered just to hear the loudspeakers.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

A general view of the procession during the New York Knicks Championship ticker tape parade.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

It was a moment of unity for the city, who had long been starved of a winning team on the hard wood. But among the high-fives, cheers and hugs there was tension in the air between the team\u2019s owner, James Dolan, and New York<\/a> City\u2019s charismatic mayor, Zohran Mamdani<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, Dolan and Mamdani\u00a0got into a war of words regarding team watch parties, leading to the billionaire owner saying the mayor was not a real Knicks fan. <\/p>\n

So when it was time for Mamdani to deliver his speech, it was clear the elected official took those comments to heart.<\/p>\n

With Dolan seated just a metre away, Mamdani rattled off some of the team\u2019s best memories while mentioning\u00a0obscure and legendary players alike.<\/p>\n

He spoke of Bernard King\u2019s 60-point game on Christmas Day 1984, Willis Reed\u2019s courageous performance in the 1970 NBA<\/a> Finals and Patrick Ewing battling the Indiana Pacers.<\/p>\n

He even mentioned Charles Oakley, who was banned by Dolan from Knicks games in an ugly public spat in 2017.<\/p>\n

Mamdani also mentioned the odds of the team winning game four<\/a>, when analytics models had the Spurs at 99.6 per cent chance of winning the match after taking a 29-point lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in that .4 percent that Jalen Brunson, the same guy that so many said was too small, proves that not only is he good enough, he is the new standard of greatness,\u201d Mamdani said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in that .4 percent that OG Anunoby watches the ball float from the top of the arc and start running toward the basket, fingers reaching toward the heavens. It is in that .4 percent that Karl-Anthony Towns finds the strength to mourn his mother and still grab rebound after rebound, make block after block.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in that .4 percent that Jose Alvarado shows every kid growing up in public housing that a son of Brooklyn and Queens can win for every one of the five boroughs. <\/p>\n

\"Rama<\/p>\n

Rama Duwaji and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is in that .4 percent that [Mitchell Robinson] breaks his finger before game one and says \u2018Go get the tape.\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s in that .4 percent that Josh Hart grabs rebounds that break teams and Mikal Bridges proves he was worth every single draft pick, that Landry Shamet pulls up from downtown, that every one of these 18 players transforms the franchise, that Mike Brown keeps believing.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Dolan had his turn to address the city, he took a shot at the mayor, even though he did not mention him by name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of our team,\u201d\u00a0said Dolan.\u00a0\u201cLook, I don\u2019t need your vote. I don\u2019t need to quote to you about what happened here because if you\u2019re a Knicks fan, you know it already. So thank you for supporting our team. <\/p>\n

\"Jose<\/p>\n

Jose Alvarado greets fans.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna keep on working to bring you even better basketball, although it\u2019s hard to imagine that we get much better than this. But we will, right fellas?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mamdani eventually issued keys to the city to staff and players, including Dolan and his son, both of whom seemed uninterested in a photo opportunity but shook his hand.<\/p>\n

The spat between Mamdani and Dolan began during the election cycle when Mamdani used the Knicks logo for his campaign.<\/p>\n

In response, Dolan and the Knicks\u00a0issued a cease-and-desist letter. <\/p>\n

The Knicks had the same stance when the White House used their Knicks logo in a post shortly after last year\u2019s election to say, \u201cTrump <\/a>Is Your President.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Knicks celebrated their historic NBA championship with a parade through the city as blue and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-746365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}