{"id":696021,"date":"2026-05-27T00:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/696021\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T00:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T00:38:13","slug":"new-york-knicks-trying-to-scale-a-mountain-not-climbed-in-53-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/696021\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Knicks trying to scale a mountain not climbed in 53 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 Shortly before the New York Knicks<\/a> and Cleveland Cavaliers played Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals, I spoke with Knicks legend Walt \u201cClyde\u201d Frazier<\/a> about New York\u2019s championship prospects.<\/p>\n

Specifically, I wondered how Clyde thought he would feel if this year\u2019s team actually won the franchise\u2019s first NBA title since Frazier\u2019s Knicks won it in 1973. <\/p>\n

On Monday, the Knicks\u2019 130-93 win swept Cleveland out of the playoffs 4-0 and helped them take a step closer toward remaking Knicks history.<\/p>\n

Frazier, who turned 81 last month, has been the contemporary face of those championship Knicks \u2014 a haunting reminder of more than 50 years of subsequent Knicks futility. Frazier said he would be fine with sharing a slice of history, reminding me he has two championship rings with the Knicks, the first coming in 1970, the second in 1973.<\/p>\n

The conversation about ending the drought keeps those championship Knicks teams, and Frazier in particular, relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good for me. It\u2019s a resurrection,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re talking about me more now than then. It\u2019s the same thing now with these guys. When they start winning, they got to bring us up. That\u2019s what we\u2019re comparing. They\u2019re saying [Jalen] Brunson is better than Clyde or he\u2019s better than [Patrick] Ewing, [that] he\u2019s the greatest Knick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frazier\u2019s Knicks became the toast of the town and helped solidify New York\u2019s reputation as the mecca of basketball. This new group of Knicks is the current toasts of the town. They reached the conference finals last season and lost; this year, they have roared to the NBA Finals at a record clip.<\/p>\n

\"Karl-AnthonyKarl-Anthony Towns on the playoff vibe in New York: \u201cThere\u2019s nowhere better in the world when [Madison Square] Garden has hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Times have changed and basketball culture in New York has changed. The playground proving ground has been replaced by air-conditioned gyms and a more corporate and expensive conveyor belt to the big time.<\/p>\n

One thing that has not changed is the adulation that comes with being on a championship push in New York.<\/p>\n

After Monday\u2019s victory, Knicks big man Karl-Anthony Towns, who grew up in Edison, N.J., described what it means to be part of a long-hoped-for Knicks renaissance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was growing up, watching the Knicks, it was just hoping one day you could just put the jersey on,\u201d Towns said. \u201c[I] never knew I\u2019d be in this position at this mic talking about us going to the Finals and the city believing in us. There\u2019s nowhere better in the world when [Madison Square] Garden has hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knicks alums such as Ewing and Frazier can also offer a sobering perspective on the fragility and elusions of success. Three months after leading the Knicks to the 2000 Eastern Conference finals, Ewing was traded to the Seattle SuperSonics. He retired in 2002.<\/p>\n

Four years after leading the Knicks to a second NBA title in 1973, Frazier \u2014 the inimitable Clyde \u2014 was traded to the Cavaliers. He went from living in a penthouse overlooking Manhattan to an apartment on the seventh floor in Cleveland. He called his three seasons in Cleveland the worst and the best times of his life. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was preparing myself for my retirement,\u201d he said. \u201cI was reading self-help books, something I would have never done if I stayed in New York. It turned out to be a blessing, but I was devastated when I got traded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Frazier said it took years to forgive the Knicks \u2014 and Willis Reed, the team\u2019s general manager \u2014 for trading him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me about seven or eight years,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t follow the game after I retired. I was trying to adjust to life. The biggest thing I found was that I had to control my ego. My phone isn\u2019t ringing off the hook no more, and the Knicks had moved on to the next Clyde.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, they had not. More than 50 years later, that 1973 title remains the Knicks\u2019 last.<\/p>\n

Frazier is a valuable, high-profile member of the Knicks\u2019 family, an important bridge between the franchise\u2019s past and its future.<\/p>\n

This season marked the second consecutive season the Knicks reached the Eastern Conference finals. They lost to the Indiana Pacers last year and saw Tom Thibodeau fired as the head coach because of it.<\/p>\n

The Knicks will either play the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder or the San Antonio Spurs, led by 7-foot-4 Victor Wembanyama. Whomever the opponent, New York will be the underdog.<\/p>\n

For the sake of the Knicks\u2019 legacy and the elevation of New York City basketball, I hope the Knicks play San Antonio and the 22-year-old Wembanyama. He is the George Mikan, the Wilt Chamberlain, the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of this generation.<\/p>\n

Aside from the revenge factor (the Knicks lost to San Antonio in the 1999 NBA Finals), in Wembanyama the Knicks would face a generational player projected to be one of the greatest in NBA history. The Spurs, especially Wembanyama, are the perfect challenge and cast of characters to play opposite the Knicks on this Broadway stage.<\/p>\n

This is also a perfect opportunity for the Knicks to underscore the ethos that made New York City the mecca of basketball. The players the city produced \u2014 both the playground legends and the ones who made it to the pros \u2014 were not so much stars but gritty, salt-of-the-earth players who played the game for the game\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n

\"WaltWalt Frazier\u2019s 1973 New York Knicks brought a championship to the city that the current team hopes to replicate next month.<\/p>\n

Dick Raphael\/NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, I asked basketball analyst Kenny Smith what made New York City basketball special. Smith grew up in Lefrak City, was a star at Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens, played at North Carolina and, during his 10-year NBA career, won two NBA titles with Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got great players coming out of Chicago, great players coming out of L.A., but in those cities only the ones who want to be great play [at the next level],\u201d Smith said. \u201cIn New York, the guys who play don\u2019t want to be great, they just want to play in the day. Now, everyone who\u2019s playing AAU, everyone who\u2019s playing streetball, everyone who\u2019s playing travel ball, everyone playing in high school in those cities has delusions of grandeur to be in the NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in New York [back then], they just want to play. They don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to be in the NBA, so you have everyone playing. We had a guy in our neighborhood, Fat Ike. I had Fat Ike on my team because he knew how to set a hell of a pick. He ain\u2019t trying to make the NBA, he ain\u2019t thinking about it. Those guys don\u2019t exist in other cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Frazier first came to New York, Reed, at the time the Knicks\u2019 captain, made a point of bringing the high-priced rookie uptown to Harlem to play in the legendary Rucker Park league as a member of Reed\u2019s team. Frazier was overwhelmed and astounded by the basketball culture he experienced.<\/p>\n

Over time, he came to understand the essence of New York City basketball, what made it special \u2014 the styling, the swagger, the profiling \u2014 and the cool. As Clyde, Frazier would bring that essence to Madison Square Garden and would carry it with him when the Knicks won two NBA titles.<\/p>\n

Fifty years later, Frazier is the only Knicks player who consistently comes around who has played on that Broadway stage, starred in a leading role, and won two championships. Though the torch has been passed to Brunson, the new Knicks listen when Clyde speaks, as he did during Monday\u2019s celebration.<\/p>\n

His message on the precipice of the Finals? There\u2019s one more mountain to climb.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the guy now who\u2019s the carrier,\u201d Frazier said, referring to Brunson. \u201cBut you have to capitalize when you get there, so we\u2019re going to stay on them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Red Holzman told us when we reached this point: \u2018Hey Clyde, we ain\u2019t won nothing yet.’\u201d<\/p>\n

William C. Rhoden is a columnist for Andscape and the author of Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete. He directs the Rhoden Fellows, a training program for aspiring journalists from HBCUs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Shortly before the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers played Game 4 of the Eastern Conference…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-696021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}