New York Knicks owner James Dolan says his team will become the first NBA champions to visit Donald Trump at the White House.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just did receive an invitation from the White House, which we accepted,\u201d Dolan said during an appearance <\/a>on WFAN New York on Wednesday. \u201cWe still have to figure out the details \u2026 but yes, of course. Look, I invited the president to come down for [last week\u2019s Game 3 of the NBA finals]. He is a friend. I\u2019ve known him for 30 years and I\u2019m very proud to bring the team to the White House.\u201d<\/p>\n The visit may not go down well with large sections of the Knicks fanbase. The president was greeted with boos and jeers<\/a> when he appeared on the jumbotron at Madison Square Garden at the start of Game 3. The reception was unsurprising: NBA fans skew liberal<\/a> and the Knicks play in a city that firmly backed Kamala Harris<\/a> in the 2024 presidential election.<\/p>\n It is also questionable how many of the Knicks players will attend. Forward Josh Hart celebrated Joe Biden\u2019s victory in the 2020 presidential election by calling Trump<\/a> a \u201cdumbass\u201d on social media. Other players may be more supportive: center Mitchell Robinson is a registered Republican and called Trump\u2019s visit to MSG<\/a> \u201ccool, I guess\u201d.<\/p>\n Last season\u2019s NBA champions, the Oklahoma City Thunder, did not visit the White House due to a \u201ctiming issue\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Title-winning teams in major US sports<\/a> have traditionally received invitations from the president to visit the White House after their victories. Such visits have become politically fraught during Trump\u2019s two terms in power.<\/p>\n The last NBA<\/a> champions to visit the White House were the Boston Celtics in 2024, during Biden\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n The Golden State Warriors chose not to visit Trump\u2019s White House after their 2017 title \u2013 he later said he had withdrawn their invitation<\/a> \u2013 and they were not invited after their 2018 championship<\/a>. The Warriors had visited while Barack Obama was in office, and made the trip under Biden\u2019s administration after their 2022 title<\/a>.<\/p>\n The 2019 champion Toronto Raptors did not visit while Trump was in office, with players ruling out a trip<\/a> before an invitation had been offered, and the 2020 Los Angeles Lakers skipped their visit<\/a> to Biden\u2019s White House because of pandemic health and safety protocols.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Knicks owner James Dolan says his team will become the first NBA champions to visit Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-711118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}