The chances of winning a blue and orange trash can were lower than the chances of winning the NBA Championship.<\/p>\n
But on Friday, five lucky New Yorkers took home the same sort of 30-pound, blue and orange trash cans New York City put on its street corners to celebrate the Knicks\u2019 historic, first-in-a-half-century championship run. They won the cans in a raffle where more than 125,000 people submitted entries through an online form from June 26 through July 3, the Department of Sanitation said.<\/p>\n
Five winners out of 125,000 entries amounts to .004% odds. Playbooks at the beginning of their season predicted<\/a> the Knicks\u2019 odds of going all the way at about 10%.<\/p>\n Kevin Manzanares, 24, an analyst at Bank of America, saw the contest on Instagram and told his four siblings to sign up. His sister, Gabriela Manzanares, won the trash can, but couldn\u2019t pick it up, so Kevin did the honors in an event at Manhattan District 4\u2019s garage on 57th Street.<\/p>\n He lives on the Upper East Side and grew up in the South Bronx, and plans to keep his eye on the rare collectible bin.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I’m gonna have to visit her more often than I have been before, and then I gotta see the basket,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The baskets are about 28 inches tall with a 21.5-inch diameter at the top, according to the sanitation department. The sides of the bins bear the city’s usual warning of a $100 fine for household trash \u2014 but the department can probably let it slip in this case.<\/p>\n Daniel LeVert, 27, who came to New York four years ago, could not believe that he actually won.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a split second where I was like, \u2018Is this a scam?\u2019 And then I was like, \u2018Oh my God. I’m like ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ It’s like my golden ticket to, like, to the trash can,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n LeVert took the trash can with him on the subway, riding the Q and J trains back to his home in Bed-Stuy, but covered his new prize with trash bags to hide it from others.<\/p>\n Mia Manantan, 39, said she came to New York City from Los Angeles right around the Knicks’ run in 1999. She\u2019s a big fan of Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston and Larry Johnson.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was really cool to see that energy recreated in 2026 years later, as I’m an adult now. You don’t really notice these things when you’re a kid,\u201d she said. \u201cI guess your fandom is shaped by the people around you. And seeing here all these folks were there for ’99, there for 2026, they’re still the same, same age as me, maybe older, maybe younger.\u201d<\/p>\n City officials say the five winners came by their cans the right way. But during the Knicks\u2019 championship parade on June 18, Angie Baez, an executive director at JPMorgan, dumped one of the iconic streetside trashcans on the street and dragged it away. Videos<\/a> of the incident and Baez with the bin in the subway went viral. She was reportedly fired and city officials say she was fined, but the bin was returned.<\/p>\n Smaller, 15-inch versions of the trash cans are also available to buy<\/a> from the sanitation department in a collaboration with clothing brand OnlyNY, for $168. They\u2019ll ship in November.<\/p>\n