But as sudden as the ascent was, the mood going into the new season has by some measures already soured. In a fast-moving league and city, there were new storylines to follow\u2014LeBron James was in town for his first game as a Philadelphia 76er. The average ticket price for opening night, The New York Times reported<\/a> on Tuesday, skyrocketed to $1,894, the highest ever for a regular-season NBA game, a sore spot after an outcry last season over longtime fans being priced out of the playoffs. Most of all, much-maligned Knicks owner James Dolan<\/a> has resumed his media and fan punching-bag status after a passing period of goodwill yielded to contract disputes with key players.<\/p>\n Kalshi branding has swept through the Madison Square Garden experience inside and outside the arena.<\/p>\n Dan Adler<\/p>\n Outside the arena on Tuesday, the crowd thrummed with anticipation. Off to the side, Meekie \u201cMeek\u201d Young, the proprietor of a mobile New York barber shop, had set up a table of hats bearing the Knicks\u2019 name transliterated into Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Chinese. \u201cI am showing everybody the fabric of New York,\u201d she said. Young saw the stakes of maintaining last year\u2019s atmosphere as high: \u201cA lot of people are lonely and this will allow people to find community.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis some AI shit,\u201d one passerby remarked as she passed a Kalshi-branded robot swarmed by content creators. The prediction market has made a significant push into professional sports, and Kalshi mics became a staple of the MSG scene. (\u201cMy mayor is Muslim, my bagel is Jewish, my Christian is Dior, Knicks in four,\u201d was uttered into one.) There was now a Kalshi Concourse in the arena, and outside, a content creator wearing a Kalshi tee led a prayer circle before tip-off on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just pray with positivity and go step by step,\u201d Tubbycfa, who identified himself by his Instagram handle, said afterwards. \u201cWe\u2019re defending champions, everybody can come after us as hard as they can. And guess what? Don\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSike Lee,\u201d as he calls himself, is already resigned to losing this year.<\/p>\n Dan Adler<\/p>\n Complaining about New York is one of the great New York traditions, and a pessimistic view may already be taking shape in the eyes of the most cynical fans: a series of Dolan-connected mishaps and a fan atmosphere increasingly dominated by absurd ticket prices alongside inescapable gambling, crypto, and prediction market branding. Like so many bleeding-edge New York bars and restaurants, this one could always fall away as soon as it was beloved enough to be missed.<\/p>\n Still, as one observer walked past the raucous prayer circle, she noted one aspect of the Knicks experience that could never be taken.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t do this in Philly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHell yeah,\u201d Lee said, predicting a playoff exit before his team could even make it to the finals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4567,44600,101152,222,9,11,1104,10],"class_list":["post-378794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-basketball","tag-james-dolan","tag-knicks-game","tag-madison-square-garden","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378794","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=378794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/IMG_9203.jpg\"\/)
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