What’s It Like Being a Knicks Fan Right Now? Weird.

It’s past 11 on a Saturday night and on TV I’m watching millionaires in shorts get a trophy.

And I’m crying.

The New York Knicks just won the NBA championship. This is not a dream. This actually happened. I’m with my nine-year-old twin boys so I’m not bawling like I might’ve been if I were alone (basketball shouldn’t make you weep, right?!) but I can’t help it.

Right after the game ended, a camera spotted a Knicks fan in the crowd holding up a banner saying “I’ve Waited My Whole Life for This”. That’s how I feel. Surely that’s how millions of other fans feel as well.

As I sit and watch all the post-game stuff, (it later occurred to me that I hadn’t stayed up that late since I was feeding newborns), I’m flooded with feelings: joy, awe, exhaustion, relief.

I’m thinking about how long it took to get here. All of the years when it looked like they might do it but fell short. I’m thinking of Ewing and Starks and Harper and Houston and Oakley and Mason, guys who deserved a title but didn’t get one.

I’m thinking about the excruciating losses, the taunts of Miller, the daggers of Jordan, the betrayal of Riley, the doused promise of Marbury and Melo.

I’m thinking about my dad who wasn’t able to see this championship but did get to see their first two.

But, there’s one thing I think more than anything, and it only grows in the days that follow:

This is freakin’ weird.

The Knicks winning a championship? Sure, they’ve been maybe a top-five or so contender for a few years, but actually winning?! That just doesn’t happen. After they flamed out of the playoffs last year and seemed on the precipice of making yet another terrible knee-jerk reaction, I wrote an article entitled The Knicks Will Send Me to an Early Grave. In it, I talked about my tumultuous relationship with the team and how I was pretty sure I wouldn’t live long enough to see them win. And a year later, they do it.

Weird, right?

Everything about the season was weird. Well, not everything. The regular season actually followed a very familiar course with the Knicks. They won 53 games and, by most accounts, underachieved, only earning a three-seed for the playoffs. Then they went down 2-1 to the Hawks in the opening round. Another early exit seemed imminent, yet another wait-til-next-year year. That’s not weird – that’s the Knicks.

And then…13 straight. The Knicks don’t do that. This is a team that didn’t win more than five games in a row during the regular season. Lost nine of 11 at one point, in fact. Want to guess how many times the Knicks have won 13 games or more in a row in their 80-year history? This was the second time. The first time was in the 69-70 season in which they won 18 straight and eventually their first championship. Weird.

And blowing teams out? The Knicks won by an average of six points per game in the regular season. In the playoffs? Sixteen.

And all the celebrities? That’s not the Knicks. Sure, they’ve had Spike Lee and a loyal group of well-known people show up at games for years, but row after row packed with some of the most famous people on the planet (whether they’re real fans or not)? That’s the 80s Showtime Lakers (or maybe just the Lakers when they’re good) or perhaps the 90s Bulls.

Something else that’s weird? For most of this century, the Knicks have been awful. With seemingly no plan or direction, the team cycled through a string of coaches and made asinine trades and free agent signings. It was only in the last few years that things turned around, with owner James Dolan finally seeming to realize that he knows nothing about running a basketball team and deciding to hand the reins over to smart people.

So, now the question becomes: Was it all worth it? Was it worth the 20-plus years of frustration and disappointment with the occasional flashes of hope? Does this championship make up for a couple of mostly miserable decades?

The resounding answer is…maybe?

Right now, Knicks fans are dancing on the number-nine cloud. A few days after Game 5 I took a plane trip, and when we hit a little turbulence, I’d be lying if I didn’t think It’s okay if we crash, I got to see the Knicks win a championship. At a recent doctor’s appointment, a question on some paperwork asked if I had been feeling depressed lately, and not to make light of this at all, but I thought How could I be depressed? The Knicks won a championship.

But then again, maybe if the team hadn’t been so poorly managed for years, we wouldn’t have had to wait so long. And despite the completely out-of-character way the season ended, things quickly went back to normal, with Dolan almost immediately talking about cutting costs with the team. Dolan, by the way, is worth about $2 billion.

If there’s one thing you can learn from sports, it’s that success can be fleeting and nothing is ever guaranteed. In 1986, I was a very happy eight-year-old watching the Mets win the World Series. It’s 40 years later, and they haven’t won it again. This is why, as I wrangled my boys to bed on that Saturday night, I told them to soak it all in, to truly appreciate it. I certainly am, even if weeks later, it still feels freakin’ weird