{"id":254381,"date":"2026-06-03T22:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T22:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254381\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T22:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T22:25:10","slug":"knicks-legend-earl-the-pearl-monroe-rallies-long-island-fans-and-says-ny-needs-a-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254381\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks legend Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe rallies Long Island fans and says NY ‘needs’ a championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York Knicks<\/a> legend Earl \u201cThe Pearl\u201d Monroe visited Long Island on Wednesday ahead of Game 1 of the NBA Finals to rally suburban fans behind the hometown team.<\/p>\n

Monroe, a Hall of Famer and member of the Knicks team to win a championship in 1973, appeared at the Nassau County municipal building in Mineola, talking politics and reminiscing with County Executive Bruce Blakeman<\/a>, who is also the GOP-nominee in this year\u2019s governor\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a nice day to see so many fans,\u201d Monroe, 81, told the crowd.<\/p>\n

NBA Hall of Famer and Knicks all-time great Earl \u201cThe Pearl\u201d Monroe appeared in Nassau County Wednesday afternoon for a rallying call to the region in support of New York\u2019s beloved basketball team. John Roca for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter having won the championship back in \u201973, we haven\u2019t had a real chance to come out and see people as excited as everyone has been about this particular team,\u201d said Monroe, who traveled from his home in Harlem to attend the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have all these champions \u2014 the Mets, the Yankees, the hockey teams and so forth \u2014 but New York is not New York unless the Knicks are doing it,\u201d he said to cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n

Once his speech concluded, Monroe shared his prediction on the series exclusively with The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have a prediction, per se, but I like Knicks in six because it rhymes,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo win a championship would mean so much to so many people \u2014 they deserve it and the city needs to have it as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earl \u201cThe Pearl\u201d Monroe won a championship with the Knicks in 1973. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

After the rally, Monroe talked politics while reminiscing with Blakeman, who is also the GOP-nominee in this year\u2019s governor\u2019s race. John Roca for NY Post<\/p>\n

Monroe moves around picks set by Willis Reed and Walt Frazier on Nov. 22, 1972. William N. Jacobellis\/New York Post Archives<\/p>\n

After the rallying call to fans, The Pearl headed back into Blakeman\u2019s chambers, where the pair reminisced over the good old days and spoke about Harlem\u2019s Gang of Four<\/a> \u2014 the legendary political coalition of David Dinkins, Charlie Rangel, Basil Paterson and Percy Sutton that reshaped New York politics in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Dinkins went on to become the city\u2019s first black mayor, Rangel went onto Congress and chaired the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Paterson became a state senator and secretary of state, and Sutton the longtime Manhattan borough president and political kingmaker of Harlem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a student of history,\u201d Blakeman said, adding that they were a \u201cpowergroup.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Knicks legend Earl \u201cThe Pearl\u201d Monroe visited Long Island on Wednesday ahead of Game 1 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1626,8290,776,57,774,9,24,55,54,1104,56],"class_list":["post-254381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-bruce-blakeman","tag-earl-monroe","tag-long-island","tag-metro","tag-nassau-county","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-ny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}