How Long It's Been: The Knicks Won an NBA Championship (UPDATE)

NOTE: This is an update of a piece I wrote on the 40th Anniversary, in 2013.

June 13, 2026: The New York Knickerbockers beat the San Antonio Spurs, 94-90 at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas, winning Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and taking the NBA Championship.

This was a moment of great celebration for the New York Tri-State Area. It was the Knicks' 1st World Championship in 53 years:

May 10, 1973: The New York Knickerbockers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 102-93, at the Forum in Inglewood, California, winning Game 5 of the NBA Finals, and taking the NBA Championship.

For the Knicks, this capped their greatest period ever: 1970 to 1973, 4 seasons, 3 trips to the Finals (all against the Lakers), 2 titles.

Their only 2 titles -- until this past Saturday night.

Hail the champions:

* William "Red" Holzman, head coach
* Eddie Donovan, general manager
* 6 Tom Riker, center
* 7 Dean "the Dream" Meminger, guard
* 10 Walt "Clyde" Frazier, guard
* 12 Dick Barnett, guard
* 15 Earl "the Pearl" Monroe, guard
* 17 Henry Bibby, guard
* 18 Phil Jackson, forward
* 19 Willis Reed, center, Captain
* 22 Dave "Double D" DeBusschere, forward
* 23 Luther Rackley, center
* 24 Bill Bradley, forward
* 32 Jerry Lucas, forward
* 40 John Gianelli, center
* 43 Harthorne Wingo, forward

Frazier, Barnett, Reed, DeBusschere and Bradley also played for the Knicks on their 1969-70 title. Jackson was in the organization at that time, but missed the entire season due to injury.

Members of the 1970 Knicks who were not also 1973 Knicks were center Nate Bowman (Number 17), forwards Don May (5), Dave Stallworth (9), Bill Hosket (20) and Jazzy Cazzie Russell (33); and guards Mike Riordan (6) and John Warren (16).

Frazier, Barnett, Reed, DeBusschere and Bradley would have their uniform numbers retired by the Knicks. Holzman would be honored with a banner with the number 613 on it, for the number of games he won as Knicks coach. Frazier, Jackson, Reed, DeBusschere, Bradley, Lucas and Holzman would be elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Frazier, Reed, DeBusschere and Lucas would be elected to the NBA's 50th Anniversary 50 Greatest Players -- though it should be noted that Lucas was elected for what he did with the Cincinnati Royals; he was a stabilizing veteran presence for the '73 Knicks. They were also selected for the 75th Anniversary 75 Greatest Players.

Bibby was the father of later NBA All-Star Mike Bibby. Bradley was elected to 3 terms in the U.S. Senate, representing New Jersey, and ran for President in 2000.

And, yes, kids, that Phil Jackson, the one who would coach the Chicago Bulls to 6 titles and the Lakers to 5. He was a decent player, not a great one. As was Pat Riley, who played for the Lakers against the Knicks in those Finals, and would later coach the Lakers to 4 titles, the Knicks into a Finals, and the Miami Heat to a title.

After one more year, Reed, DeBusschere and Lucas all retired, and the Knicks began to fall apart. Pearl, obtained from the Baltimore Bullets (forerunner of the Washington Wizards) after the Bullets beat the Knicks in the '71 Eastern Conference Finals, was the last to remain, in 1980.

The Knicks would have a mini-revival in the early 1980s with Bernard King, be stellar through most of the 1990s, reaching the Finals in 1994 and 1999, but be stymied, first by Larry Bird's Boston Celtics, then by Isiah Thomas' Detroit Pistons, then by Michael Jordan's Jackson-coached Bulls. Finally, the Knicks would collapse, because owner Charles Dolan and his son, team operator James Dolan, trusted Isiah to be general manager, and even coach.

Now, the Knicks are back, having won their 1st World Championship since 1973, 53 years. How long has it been?

*

The teams now named the Utah Jazz, the Dallas Mavericks, the Charlotte Hornets, the Miami Heat, the New Orleans Pelicans, the Orlando Magic, the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Toronto Raptors, the Memphis Grizzlies and the New Orleans Pelicans did not yet exist. The teams now named the Brooklyn Nets, the Indiana Pacers, the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs did, in the American Basketball Association.

The Bullets were about to leave Baltimore for Washington, and were a long way from becoming the Wizards. There was an NFL team in Baltimore, but it was the Colts, not the Ravens. There was one in Houston, but it was the Oilers, not the Texans. 

The home of the Knicks and the NHL's Rangers was still being called "the New Madison Square Garden Center." It is now the only arena used by an NBA team then that are still used now -- although the Baltimore Civic Center (now the CFG Bank Arena), the Cobo Arena in Detroit (now the Huntington Bank Arena), the Milwaukee Arena (a.k.a. The MECCA, now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena), the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium, the Hofheinz Pavilion in Houston (now the Fertitta Center), the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, The Forum in Inglewood outside Los Angeles, the Oakland Coliseum Arena and the Portland Memorial Coliseum still stand, and are still being used.

The Islanders had just completed their 1st season, and the building they shared with the New York Nets of the ABA, the Nassau Coliseum, was a year and a half old. The Yankees, recently purchased by George Steinbrenner, and the Giants were terrible, and were still playing in Yankee Stadium, but only for a few more months, as the renovation would start in October. The Mets and the Jets were playing at Shea Stadium, and while the Jets were falling apart as Joe Namath's knees did, the Mets would have a lousy 1st 5 months -- and then a torrid September that would lead to a Pennant and very nearly a 2nd World Championship in 5 years.

The Devils' franchise had been created, but at this point it only existed on paper, as the Kansas City Scouts, to begin play in the fall of 1974. And there was the World Hockey Association's New York Raiders, playing at The Garden, but they were a mess and moved to South Jersey, fooling no one into thinking they were a Philadelphia team.

The biggest thing that would happen in New York Tri-State Area sports in 1973 was the Belmont Stakes, as Secretariat moved "like a tremendous machine" in winning by 31 lengths to clinch the Triple Crown.

1973 was the last season for NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain. Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, like Reed, DeBusschere and Lucas, would hang on for one more year. Lew Alcindor had just recently changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Julius "Doctor J" Erving would soon move from the ABA's Virginia Squires to the Nets. Bill Walton was still at UCLA, winning the recent National Championship, the 7th straight for coach John Wooden, in the middle of an 88-game winning streak.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were in junior high school. Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley were in grade school. Shaquille O'Neal was a rather large baby. Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and LeBron James weren't born yet.

The same day the Knicks won the title, the Montreal Canadiens won their 18th Stanley Cup, beating the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 6 of the Finals. It was their 6th Cup in the last 9 seasons. The New England Whalers, then based in Boston, had just won the 1st WHA title, the AVCO Cup, beating ex-Blackhawk star Bobby Hull and his Winnipeg Jets. The Indiana Pacers were about to win their 3rd ABA title in the last 5 years, beating the Louisville-based Kentucky Colonels.

The defending World Champions in the other sports were the Oakland Athletics, with future Yankee legends Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter beating the Cincinnati Reds of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan; and the Miami Dolphins, who had won Super Bowl VII over the Washington Redskins to complete the only perfect NFL season in the playoff era (1932 to the present).

The Heavyweight Champion of the World was the undefeated George Foreman, who had just demolished Joe Frazier to take the title. Muhammad Ali had recently been dealt a loss and a broken jaw by Ken Norton, so it looked like Ali and Frazier were finished, and Foreman would be Champion for a while. Looks were deceiving.

The designated hitter had just debuted, Willie Mays' career was coming to a strange close, Hank Aaron had begun his approach to Babe Ruth's all-time record of 714 home runs, and Nolan Ryan had just pitched his 1st no-hitter and his 1st 19-strikeout game, on his way to a single-season record of 383 strikeouts.

Current Knicks coach Mike Brown was 3 years old. Giants coach John Harbaugh was 10. Rangers coach Mike Sullivan was 5. Islanders coach Peter DeBoer was about to turn 5. Jet coach Aaron Glenn was 10 months old. Yankee manager Aaron Boone was 2 months old. Nets coach Jordi Fernández, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza and Devils coach Sheldon Keefe weren't born yet.

The Olympic Games have since been held in America 4 times, Canada 3 times, twice each in Russia, Korea, Japan, China, France and Italy; and once each in Austria, Bosnia, Spain, Norway, Australia, Greece, Britain and Brazil. The World Cup has since been held in America, Mexico and Germany twice; and once each in Canada, Argentina, Spain, Mexico, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and Qatar.

There were 26 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. Title IX had recently become law, and abortion had just been nationally legalized. The feminist and gay rights movements were underway.

The President of the United States was Richard Nixon, but the Senate was about to convene a special committee to investigate what was then being called "the Watergate matter." Nixon was now the only living President, as Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson had both died within the last 5 months. Their widows, and  those of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, were still alive.

Spiro Agnew as Vice President, but, in probably the most amazing thing about Watergate, Nixon's Vice President would have to resign his office, and it would have absolutely nothing to do with Watergate.

Gerald Ford was House Minority Leader. Jimmy Carter was Governor of Georgia. Ronald Reagan was Governor of California. George H.W. Bush was out of elective office, but had recently been appointed Chairman of the Republican National Committee, replacing a young Senator named Bob Dole. Bush's son had just been discharged from the Texas Air National Guard -- whether he had shown up for duty in the preceding year remains a mystery. Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham had just moved in together, renting a house in New Haven, Connecticut, where they were both students at Yale Law School.

Barack Obama was in junior high school in the city where he was born, Honolulu, Hawaii. Joe Biden was in his 1st year as a U.S. Senator. And Donald Trump and his father were about to be sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for racist renting practices. Melania Knauvss was 3 years old.

The Governor of New York was Nelson Rockefeller, although he would soon resign to run something called the Commission on Critical Choices for Americans. (It couldn't have been that critical, because until I first wrote this piece, in 2013, I'd never heard of it.) Lieutenant Governor Malcolm Wilson would assume the job.

The Mayor of New York was John Lindsay, whose 2nd term was limping to a pathetic close. Abe Beame, who had been City Comptroller when Lindsay beat him for the Mayoralty in 1965, held the job again and was running again, and would defeat John Marchi, a State Senator from Staten Island whose upset victory in the 1969 Republican Primary forced Lindsay to run for re-election as an independent -- and win. But Beame's Mayoralty would be even more troubled than Lindsay's, and pave the way for that of Ed Koch.

Another weird race was across the Hudson River in New Jersey. Governor William T. Cahill had proposed the State's 1st income tax. Not signed into law, merely proposed it. Charlie Sandman, a very conservative loudmouth who represented the southernmost portion of the State in Congress, ran against Cahill in the Republican Primary, and won. But he got slaughtered in the general election by Essex County Prosecutor Brendan Byrne, when it was revealed that a local mob boss was caught on tape saying Byrne was the one politician in the area who couldn't be bought. Byrne won 66 percent of the vote.

Then, the next year, he got the State income tax passed, and dropped to an approval rating of 17 percent. People began calling him "One-Term Byrne." Unlike Jim Florio nearly 20 years later, he shook off the stupid tax protests, and got re-elected in 1977 with 56 percent of the vote.

The Prime Minister of Canada was Pierre Trudeau. The monarch of Great Britain was Queen Elizabeth II -- that has now changed -- and the Prime Minister was Edward Heath, who, like Senator Edward Kennedy and the Queen's great-grandfather, King Edward VII, was nicknamed "Ted."

No Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in 1972, so its holder was still the 1971 recipient, Chancellor Willy Brandt of West Germany. The Pope was Paul VI. Pope Leo XIV, then Robert Francis Prevost, was 17 years old, and was about to graduate from St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Michigan. It closed in 1977. There have since been 10 Presidents of the United States (11 if you count Trump twice -- I wouldn't even count him once), 13 Prime Ministers of Britain, and 6 Popes.

England's Football League was won by Liverpool in a close race over London's Arsenal. The FA Cup was won by second-division North-East club Sunderland in a shock over Yorkshire's mighty Leeds United. The European Cup, for the 3rd season in a row, was won by Johan Cruyff's powerful but beautiful Amsterdam club Ajax. Soon, Cruyff would move on to Spain's FC Barcelona, and build that club's system, and thus build significantly on the legend it already had.

The New York Cosmos -- not yet with Pele and Franz Beckenbauer -- were playing at Hofstra University's football stadium, now named James M. Shuart Stadium, across from the Jets' training complex and the Nassau Coliseum, and were dethroned as North American Soccer League Champions by the Philadelphia Atoms. Hardly anybody in North America cared.

Major novels of 1973 included Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, Demon Seed by Dean Koontz (which would be made into a 1977 film in which Julie Christie plays a woman who gets impregnated by a computer), Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, and Postern of Fate, the last novel written by Agatha Christie.

Robert Ludlum published The Matlock Caper, but it wasn't about a lawyer in Atlanta who looked like Andy Griffith -- or one in New York who looks like Kathy Bates. In non-fiction, Hunter S. Thompson published Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, Peter Maas Serpico (the film verison with Al Pacino as the real-life New York cop would premiere in December), and Flora Rheta Schreiber Sybil.

J.R.R. Tolkien would live another 4 months. George R.R. Martin was teaching at Clarke University in Iowa. Stephen King was teaching at a high school in Maine, and his 1st novel, Carrie, had been accepted for publication the next year. J.K. Rowling was 7 years old.

No one had yet heard of George Smiley, the Punisher, Lestat de Lioncourt, Rocky Balboa, T.S. Garp, Arthur Dent, Jason Bourne, Hannibal Lecter, Celie Harris, Kinsey Millhone, Jack Ryan, Forrest Gump, John McClane, Alex Cross, Bridget Jones, Robert Langdon, Bella Swan, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Lisbeth Salander, Katniss Everdeen, Walter White, John Wick or Maggie Bell.

Major movies released in the spring of 1973 included the film version of Godspell, an updated version of Raymond Chandler's story The Long Goodbye with Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe and ex-Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton as the killer, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid with James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles and Bob Dylan with a cameo, the Anthony Hopkins & Claire Bloom version of Henrik Ibsen's play A Doll's House, the blaxploitation/feminist films Cleopatra Jones and Coffy, and, released the day before the Knicks won the title, Paper Moon, with real-life father and daugther Ryan and Tatum O'Neal as Depression-era con artists. (Ryan died in 2023. I wonder if he ever paid Tatum the $200.)

Gene Roddenberry had just seen his project Genesis II flop on CBS. George Lucas was about to release American Graffiti. Steven Spielberg was working on his 1st feature film, The Sugarland Express. The cartoon Super Friends was about to premiere, meaning that George Reeves would be succeeded as Superman (sort of) by Danny Dark, and Adam West as Batman by Olan Soule. Shannon Farnon became the voice of Wonder Woman. Roger Moore was about to debut as James Bond in Live and Let Die. Jon Pertwee was playing The Doctor.

Bonanza finally went off the air, while Gunsmoke hung on a little longer. Johnny Carson had recently moved The Tonight Show from New York to Los Angeles. M*A*S*H wrapped up its 1st season, All in the Family its 3rd. CBS had recently revived The Price Is Right, and was about to revive Match Game, which had aired on NBC from 1962 to 1969. Paul McCartney's 1st solo TV special had recently aired on ABC, to coincide with his Wings album Red Rose Speedway.

Paul's fellow ex-Beatle George Harrison released Living in the Material World. Bob Dylan was about to release "Knockin' On Heaven's Door." Elvis Presley had released the soundtrack to his recent TV special Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite. Frank Sinatra was about to start recording his comeback album, Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. The Jackson 5 had released Skywriter.

Led Zeppelin were on tour in the U.S., including the Garden concert that would be filmed for The Song Remains the Same. David Bowie released Aladdin Sane, Bob Marley Catch a Fire, the Eagles Desperado, Paul Simon There Goes Rhymin' Simon, the Carpenters Now & Then, Earth Wind & Fire Head to the Sky, Chicago Chicago VI, Aretha Franklin Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky), Carole King Fantasy, and John Denver Farewell Andromeda. The Number 1 song in America was "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" by Tony Orlando & Dawn.

Robert Kardashian had just co-founded Radio & Records magazine, stepping aside from his legal practice. Bruce Jenner was training to better his 1972 Olympic performance in the decathlon -- 10th place. Kris Houghton was in high school. None of them had ever heard of each other.

Inflation was about to have its 1st big increase of the post-World War II era: What $1.00 bought then, $7.63 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp cost 8 cents, and a Subway ride in New York 35 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was 37 cents (but was about to soar thanks to the OPEC price hike), a cup of coffee 51 cents, a McDonald's meal (Big Mac, fries, shake) $1.47, a movie ticket $1.72, a new car $2,900, and a new house $35,100. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed that day at 939.34.

The portable telephone had just been introduced by Motorola. Cordless home phones and the desktop computer were still a ways off. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Tim Berners-Lee were turning 18. Social media was the stuff of science fiction.

Skylab was launched, and became the biggest lemon in the history of space travel -- so far. Automatic teller machines were still a relatively new thing, and many people had never seen one. The very first home video game system, the Magnavox Odyssey, had been introduced the preceding September. There were heart transplants, liver transplants and lung transplants, and artificial kidneys, but no artificial hearts. There were birth control pills, but no Viagra.

In the Spring of 1973, the World Trade Center opened in New York, becoming the tallest building(s) in the world -- only to be topped just a month later by the Sears Tower in New York. The American Indian Movement ended their 10-week standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. LexisNexis and Federal Express (FedEx) began operations. A military coup ended democracy in Greece. Mark Felt retired from the FBI -- and, at this point, only he, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, and Post editor Ben Bradlee knew he was Woodward's Watergate source, nicknamed "Deep Throat."

Noel Coward, and Pablo Picasso, and Jeannette Rankin died. She was the 1st woman elected to Congress, the Montana Representative who voted against America's entry into World War I, and then became the only member of either house of Congress to vote against America's entry into World War II. She lost her seat because of both votes, but was only able to come back the first time. Also dying in the Spring of 1973 were Robert Armstrong and Merian C. Cooper, the male lead and the director of King Kong.

Sasha Alexander, and Heidi Klum, and Neil Patrick Harris were born. So were sports stars Derek Lowe, Tedy Bruschi, Roberto Carlos and Haile Gebreselassie.

May 10, 1973. The New York Knicks were World Champions. It took them 53 years, 1 month and 3 days to do it again.

And now, they have overcome.

The Knicks Bring New York a Championship

Congratulations to the New York Knickerbockers, World Champions of basketball.

The Knicks won Game 5 of the NBA Finals, beating the San Antonio Spurs, 94-90 at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Texas. Yes, New York City messed with Texas.

The only game in the Finals that they lost was Game 3, when Donald Trump showed up at Madison Square Garden. As they say in New York, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

The Knicks have, historically, been a snakebit franchise. Along with the Boston Celtics, they are 1 of only 2 original NBA franchises from 1946 still in their original city. They reached the NBA Finals in 1951, 1952 and 1953, but lost them all. They moved from the old Garden, at 49th-50th Streets and 8th-9th Avenues, to the new Garden, at 31st-33rd Streets and 7th-8th Avenues, in 1968. There, they built a new Champion, winning the title in 1970, losing the Finals in 1972, and winning them again in 1973.

But then the dynasty of coach Red Holzman, captain Willis Reed and Walt Frazier got old. The Knicks had a good run in 1984 with Bernard King, but fell short. They had a (sometimes literally) hard-fighting team team in the 1990s, reaching the Finals in 1994 and 1999, but losing. And for most of the 21st Century, they've been mediocre at best.

But team president Leon Rose and general manager Gerrson Rosas have built a new Champion, coached by Mike Brown. Their 53-year drought was almost as long as the 54 years that the supposedly cursed New York Rangers, with whom they share the Garden, had from 1940 to 1994. But they went 53-29 in the regular season, and beat the Atlanta Hawks, then the Philadelphia 76ers in 4 straight, and then the Cleveland Cavaliers in 4 straight to reach the NBA Finals.

In all 5 games of the Finals, they came from behind to take the lead, including Game 3 that they ended up losing, anyway. They won Game 1 in San Antonio, 105-95. They won Game 2, 105-104. They lost Game 3 at home, 115-111. But in Game 4, the trailed by 29 points, and then launched the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history, before OG Anunoby's tip-in gave them a 107-106 victory. Tonight, Jalen Brunson, the captain, scored 45 points, a team Finals record, and they won, 94-90. The clock ran out at 11:28 PM on June 13, 2026. Brunson was named the Finals MVP.

Hail the Champions:

* Number 00, Jordan Clarkson, 34 years old, a 6-foot-5 guard from Tampa, and the University of Missouri.

* Number 2, Miles McBride, 25, a 6-2 guard from Cincinnati and West Virginia University.

* Number 3, Josh Hart, 31, a 6-5 forward from the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Maryland, and Villanova University.

* Number 4, Pacôme Dadiet, 30, a 6-9 forward born to Ivorian parents in Aubagne, southern France. He did not attend college, either in France or in America.

* Number 5, Jose Alvarado, 28, a 6-feet-even guard from Queens and Georgia Tech.

* Number 8, Ogugua "OG" Anunoby, 28, a 6-foot-7 forward, born to Nigerian parents in London, grew up in Jefferson City, Missouri, and went to Indiana University.

* Number 11, Jalen Brunson, 29, a 6-2 guard from the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and then the Chicago suburb of Lincolnshire, Illinois, and went to Villanova University.

* Number 13, Tyler Kolek, 25, a 6-2 guard from Cumberland, Rhode Island, and Marquette University.

* Number 20, Jeremy Sochan, 23, a 6-8 forward, born in Guymon, Oklahoma to an African-American father and a Polish mother, grew up in Milton Keynes, England, and played at Baylor University.

* Number 23, Mitchell Robinson, 28, a 7-foot-even center from Chalmette, Louisiana. He did not play in college.

* Number 25, Mikal Bridges, 29, a 6-6 guard from the Philadelphia suburb of Malvern, Pennsylvania and Villanova.

* Number 32, Karl-Anthony Towns, 30, a 7-foot-even center from Piscataway, New Jersey, playing at St. Joseph's High School of nearby Metuchen, and the University of Kentucky.

* Number 44, Landry Shamet, 29, a 6-5 guard from Kansas City, and Wichita State University.

* Number 51, Mohamed Diawara, 21, a 6-9 forward, born to Malian parents in Paris, and grew up there. Like his countryman Dadiet, he did not attend college.

* Number 55, Ariel Hukporti, 24, a 7-feet-even center, born to Togolese parents in Stralsund, in northeastern Germany. He also did not attend college.

The starting 5 are guards Brunson and Bridges, forwards Hart and Anunoby, and center Towns.

I've often said that a Knicks title would mean more to New York than a title for any other team. Not just because New York loves its basketball so much, but because the Knicks have a greater share of the local fandom over the Nets than the Yankees over the Mets, the Giants over the Jets, and the Rangers over the Islanders and the Devils.

And Knick fans have lived through a lot of disappointment, and even some utter crap, the specifics of which don't matter now. Although owner James Dolan did get on the microphone at the presentation of the Larry O'Brien Trophy and apologize to Knick fans for having taken so long.

The Knicks are the World Champions. Fully earned, fully deserved, and worthy of the great story that they have told.

December 15, 1925: New York's 1st NHL Team & The Death of Battling Siki

"Bullet" Joe Simpson

December 15, 1925, 100 years ago: For the 1st time, a National Hockey League game is played in New York City. But the home team is not the New York Rangers. A few hours before the new, later "Old," Madison Square Garden held its 1st boxing card, it hosted a matinee of a brand-new hockey team, the New York Americans. In their 5th game, they lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1.

The NHL began to expand into America the season before, with the Boston Bruins. This expansion continued in 1925-26, with the Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates, who would also end up failing; then, in 1926-27, with the New York Rangers, the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Black Hawks.

The Americans' 1st game was on December 2, against the Pirates, at the Duquesne Gardens in Pittsburgh, and they won, 2-1, with Charlie Langlois scoring the winner, 3:10 into overtime.

The Americans were owned by Bill Dwyer, a bootlegger who was making money during Prohibition, and the hockey team became the toy he spent his money on. If that seems odd, let the record show that another major league sports team debuted in New York City that season: The football version of the New York Giants, and they were founded and owned by Tim Mara, who was a bookmaker at a time when that was legal in New York City.

Bill Dwyer

George "Tex" Rickard, builder and owner of the new version of Madison Square Garden -- eventually to be known as "The Old Garden" -- made so much money on the Americans' rent and concessions that he wanted his own team. The media called them "Tex's Rangers," and they immediately became more successful than the Americans. The Rangers became known as the "classy" team, while the Amerks were the "blue-collar" or "working man's" team.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, Dwyer's hockey ownership was doomed. The League took over ownership of the franchise in 1936, and let its head coach, one of their former players, run it: Norman "Red" Dutton. It didn't change the image of either team: The Rangers were seen as the team of classy people, the Americans the team of the working class, struggling through the Great Depression.

The Americans made the Playoffs for the 1st time in 1929, but lost -- to the Rangers. They didn't make it again until 1936, beating Chicago before losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Semifinals, coming within 5 wins of the Stanley Cup. In 1938, the Americans beat the Rangers in the Quarterfinals, with Lorne Carr scoring in overtime to win the deciding Game 3, before losing to Chicago in the Semifinals, again coming within 5 games of the Cup. They made the Playoffs again in 1939, losing to Toronto; and in 1940, losing to Detroit.

As New York teams would later tend to do, the Americans became a haven for great players looking for one last payday, including Boston Bruins legend Eddie Shore. But they had some Hockey Hall-of-Famers that they could call their own: Center Billy Burch; left wing David "Sweeney" Schriner; defensemen Bullet Joe Simpson and the aforementioned Red Dutton;, and, at 5-foot-3 the shortest player in NHL history, and thus nicknamed "Shrimp," but the winner of the Hart Memorial Trophy as league Most Valuable Player in 1929, and the Vezina Trophy as best goaltender in 1931, Roy Worters.

Roy "Shrimp" Worters

By the 1939-40 season, Canadian players were going off to fight for the British Empire in World War II. The Americans missed the Playoffs in 1941. In 1941-42, still bogged down by lingering debt from the Dwyer era, Dutton had to sell off his best players for cash.

Red Dutton

At his wit's end, Dutton changed the team's name to the Brooklyn Americans. He intended to move the team to Brooklyn, but there was no arena in that borough suitable enough even for temporary use. As result, they continued to play their home games at The Garden, while practicing in Brooklyn. They barely survived the season, finishing dead last for the second year in a row with a record of 16–29–3.

St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 1942, was no lucky day for the New York Americans. New York City's original National Hockey League team loses to the Boston Bruins, 8-3 at the Boston Garden. Since the Amerks did not qualify for the Playoffs, this was their last game of the season. Two days earlier, they had played their last home game, at the old Madison Square Garden, and won, beating the Maple Leafs, 6-3. Murph Chamberlain scored a hat trick.

The Amerks suspended operations for The War's duration. In 1945, a group emerged willing to build a new arena in Brooklyn, and Dutton was ready to resume operations. But in 1946, the year Bill Dwyer died, the NHL reneged on previous promises to reinstate the Amerks, and canceled the franchise.

Legend has it that Dutton blamed the Rangers for canceling the Americans' franchise, and placed a curse on them, saying they would never win the Stanley Cup again for as long as he lived. They had won it in 1928, 1933 and 1940. Dutton died in 1987, and the Rangers had not won the Cup again. But the New York Islanders, founded as an expansion team in 1972, had won 4 straight Cups, from 1980 to 1983.

The Rangers finally won the Cup again in 1994. The New Jersey Devils, founded when the Colorado Rockies moved to the Meadowlands in 1982, won the Cup in 1995, 2000 and 2003. Since the Americans were cut off in 1942, the won-loss records of the New York Tri-State Area's teams in the Stanley Cup Finals -- keeping in mind that it was only the Rangers from 1942 to 1972 -- are 1-4 for the Rangers, 4-1 for the Islanders, and 3-2 for the Devils.

The Americans' records and trademarks are still owned by the NHL. The Islanders have never worn "throwback uniforms" in their style. I don't know if they've ever even asked for permission to wear them.

*

As I said, December 15, 1925 was the night that the 1st fight card was held at "The Old Garden," which became known as "The Mecca of Basketball," and "The Mecca of Boxing." Paul Berlenbach, the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, won a decision over Jack Delaney. This Garden would be replaced in 1968.

Battling Siki would never get to fight at this Garden. The same night, he was found shot and killed on 42nd Street, where the Port Authority Bus Terminal would later be built. He was 28, and may have been shot by a policeman for drunk and disorderly conduct.

He was born as Louis Mbarick Fall on September 16, 1897 in Saint-Louis, in Senegal, the West African land that had been a French colony since 1677, during the reign of King Louis XIV. He began boxing at the age of 14. When World War I broke out in 1914, he joined the French Army, serving in the 8th Colonial Infantry Regiment. He was decorated for bravery in battle with the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille Militaire.

After the war, he moved to Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and resumed his boxing career, under the name Battling Siki. He was romantically involved with a Dutch woman, Lijntje van Appelteer, who became his common-law wife, and, in 1921, the mother of his son, Louis Fall Jr.

From 1919 to 1922, he was 43 out of 46 fights, with 1 loss and 2 draws. He earned a fight against the Light Heavyweight Champion of the World, a white Frenchman named Georges Carpentier, a war hero who had famously lost a bout for the Heavyweight Championship to Jack Dempsey in 1921.

The fight was set for September 24, 1922, at the Stade Buffalo in Paris. The venue, normally a cycling track or "velodrome," was named for Buffalo Bill Cody, who had brought his Wild West Show to the site many years before. Ernest Hemingway, not yet world-famous but already known to the Paris literati, was in attendance.

Siki claimed that he had agreed to take a dive, but when Carpentier knocked him down, he was outraged: Although he had agreed to throw the fight, he did not intend to get beat up doing so. In the 6th round, Siki hit Carpentier with a powerful right uppercut that appeared to put him down and out for the count.

The referee, however, claimed Siki had tripped Carpentier, and awarded the bout to the unconscious champion on a foul. Fearing a riot from the aroused crowd, the three ringside judges overruled the referee, and Siki was declared the champion.

Like many boxers before and after, Siki let his newfound fame go to his head. He would walk down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, wearing a tuxedo and top hat, and walking a pet lion. His carousing in postwar Paris knew no bounds, and his appetites for champagne and white women seemed endless. Had he acted like that in America, as had the 1st black Heavyweight Champion, Jack Johnson, his end might have come sooner.

He refused offers to come to America and fight boxers such as Dempsey and Harry Greb. He stayed in Europe, and lost his 1st title defense, to Mike McTigue, in Dublin, Ireland on March 17, 1923. He had been the champ for less than 6 months.

Later that year, he came to America, fighting at the soon-to-be-replaced Madison Square Garden at 26th Street and Madison Avenue, and also in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Memphis, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Rochester, Columbus, Syracuse and Baltimore. His partying had badly caught up with him: In 25 fights in America, he went 9-15-1.

He also married Lillian Werner, a white artist from Memphis who was 7 years older. His friends were under the impression that he was still married to Lijntje. With America under Prohibition, he would go into speakeasies, refuse to pay his tab, and fight his way out.

On December 15, 1925, a policeman saw him drunkenly staggering down 42nd Street. He told the cop he was on his way home, and walked off. That was the cop's story. Later that night, Siki was found dead, shot twice in the back at close range. No one was ever arrested for the crime.

He was buried in Flushing Cemetery in Queens. In 1993, his remains were repatriated to Senegal, which gained its independence from France in 1960.

November 28, 1925: The "Old" Garden & the Grand Ole Opry

November 28, 1925, 100 years ago: Madison Square Garden, the 3rd building with the name, opens between 49th and 50th Streets, between 8th and 9th Avenues, in Midtown Manhattan, at the northern end of the Theater District. The front entrance is on 8th Avenue, topped by a marquee that will soon be world-famous.

The 1st Garden was built at the northeast corner of 26th Street and Madison Avenue, catty-corner from Madison Square Park, in 1879. It had no roof. It was replaced in 1890 with a Moorish-style building, designed by the renowned architect Stanford White, that not only had a roof, but a tower with a roof garden where shows were hosted, and an apartment for White atop that.

Atop that was a statue of Diana, the Roman goddess of the hunt. This statue, sculpted of gilt copper by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, was nude, and the hoity-toity critics of the day hated it. One of the nastiest reviews came from a Philadelphia newspaper. Ironically, when the 2nd Garden was demolished, the Diana statue was taken to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (you know, the one whose steps Rocky Balboa ran up), and is still there. A copy now stands in New York's equivalent, the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For both versions, the bowstring has been lost.

Otherwise, they are intact.

White would take showgirls up to his rooftop apartment, for a pre-movies version of a "casting couch." One was Evelyn Nesbit, whom he then made a star. She left him for a man named Harry Thaw. On June 25, 1906, jealous over Evelyn still having feelings for "Stanny," Thaw went to the roof garden during a show, and shot White. Evelyn's star faded: Late in life, she said, "Stanny White died. My fate was worse: I lived."

The New York Life insurance company owned the mortgage on the 2nd Garden, and decided to tear it down to build their new headquarters. George "Tex" Rickard, the top boxing promoter of the era, decided to build his own arena, where he wouldn't have to worry about anybody else's whims. He was lucky that New York Life was willing to sell him the rights to the name "Madison Square Garden": It was already a valuable brand name, which is a big reason why the "new Garden" has never sold naming rights.

When his Garden proved successful, he decided to build 6 copies, all over America. It didn't work out that way: He built the Boston Madison Square Garden in 1928 -- soon, it became simply "The Boston Garden" -- but died early the next year. He had gone to Miami to escape the cold New York weather, and to make a deal on a prizefight featuring up-and-coming heavyweight Jack Sharkey (who would hold the title from mid-1932 to mid-1933), but came down with appendicitis. This was before antibiotics, and he was dead at age 59.

The 1st event at The Garden was a six-day bicycle race. It sounds ridiculous today, but this kind of competition was huge in the "Roaring Twenties," especially in Europe, where it's still popular 100 years later. Teams of 2 men take turns riding for 6 days straight, from 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM, and the winner is the team that completes the most laps.

The 1st prizefight was held on December 8, for the Light Heavyweight Championship of the World. Paul Berlenbach defended the title by winning a unanimous decision over Jack Delaney. The following July, Delaney took the title from Berlenbach in a rematch at Ebbets Field.

The Garden became known as "The Mecca of Boxing." Heavyweight Joe Louis, light heavyweight Archie Moore, middleweight Sugar Ray Robinson, lightweight Henry Armstrong, and more became internationally-known superstars from their fights at The Garden.

It would also be known as "The Mecca of Basketball," with collegiate doubleheaders starting in 1934. It became a secondary home court for the City's college teams: New York University (NYU), City College of New York (CCNY), Long Island University (LIU), Columbia, Fordham and St. John's.

It also hosted the annual National Invitational Tournament (NIT), starting in 1938. And it hosted what would now be called the NCAA Final Four in 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1950, the last of these won by CCNY, which also won the NIT that year, the only time this "double" was ever achieved. 

The point-shaving scandal the next year crippled college basketball in New York City, and not only led to St. John's, not accused in the scandal, being the only major program that has survived on that level, but the NCAA ruling that teams could no longer compete in both their tournament and the NIT. The Final Four did not return to the New York Tri-State Area until 1996, when it was held at the Meadowlands.

That scandal coincided with the 1st trip to the NBA Finals for the New York Knicks, who debuted at The Garden in 1946. The scandal may have saved the Knicks, and thus may also have saved the NBA: Hoop fans needed something to turn to.

Rickard, who didn't always do things on the up-and-up, offered use of The Garden to Big Bill Dwyer, a bootlegger, who founded a hockey team, the New York Americans. The 1st NHL team in New York debuted on December 15, 1925, losing to the Montreal Canadiens 3-1.

The "Amerks" did so well at the box office that Rickard, noting that New York had 3 Major League Baseball teams, decided that it could support 2 hockey teams. So he founded his own team, and when the media found out, they nicknamed the new team "Tex's Rangers." He decided to go with it, and the New York Rangers debuted at The Garden on November 16, 1926, beating the Montreal Maroons 1-0.

With Rickard's promotional skills, the Rangers proved even more successful than the Americans. World War II knocked the Amerks out, as the manpower drain caused by the American and Canadian military drafts forced them to suspend operations after the 1941-42 season, and they never returned.

But the Rangers, the Knicks, college basketball games, prizefights, circuses, musical performances, ice skating shows, rodeos, and an event that predated even the 1st Garden, the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, continued at The Garden through the 1930s, the '40s, and the '50s. Madison Square Garden was right up there with the Empire State Building and Grand Central Terminal as the most famous building in the City.

But poor sight lines, and the need for more space and more dates, proved the arena's undoing. In 1960, the Pennsylvania Railroad, desperate for money, sold the air rights above Pennsylvania Station, between 31st and 33rd Streets and 7th and 8th Avenues, to the Madison Square Garden Corporation. The plan was to build a new station on the site, and a new arena on top of that.

On the afternoon of February 11, 1968, the Rangers played their last game at "the Old Garden," a 3-3 tie with the Detroit Red Wings, which was followed by a final skate with several NHL legends, including the Wings' still-active Gordie Howe. That night, "the New Garden" opened with "The Night of the Century," a salute to the USO, the United Service Organizations, which since 1941 has worked with the armed forces to provide supplies and entertainment. The co-hosts were old film partners and golfing buddies Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

The last event at the Old Garden was 2 days later, February 13, the Westminster Dog Show. Demolition soon began. The site became a parking lot while various parties haggled over what to build on the site. Finally, in 1989, the 778-foot office and residential tower Worldwide Plaza opened there. The Subway station at 50th Street includes a mural dedicated to the Old Garden.

Worldwide Plaza

*

On the same day, The Grand Ole Opry is first broadcast, on radio station WSM, 650 on the AM dial, in Nashville, Tennessee. The station itself was brand-new, having gone on the air the preceding October 5, its call letters standing for the slogan of its original owner, the National Life & Accident Insurance Company: "We Shield Millions."

The Opry stage at the Ryman

George Hay, an Indiana native, had been a reporter for what was then the largest-circulating newspaper in Tennessee, the Memphis-based The Commercial Appeal. When that paper founded a radio station in 1923 (many early radio stations were founded by newspapers), WMC, he was its first evening announcer. In 1924, he left for Chicago station WLS, and hosted a program titled National Barn Dance.

In 1925, he took the concept to Nashville and WSM. The original Opry, officially titled WSM Barn Dance, was a one-hour program, simulating a barn dance but broadcasting from a radio studio. The show's 1st performer was Uncle Jimmy Thompson, a fiddler, already 77 years old. In other words, he had been born in 1848, only 52 years after Tennessee had become a State. (He lived until 1931.)

Most of the early performers on the show wouldn't be recognizable names today, but among them was Bill Monroe, the fiddler considered the inventor of bluegrass music, who was still performing up until his death in 1996, and whose song "Blue Moon of Kentucky" would be on the B-side of "That's All Right," the 1st single release of Elvis Presley.

(Elvis only appeared on the Opry once, on October 2, 1954. The audience reacted politely, but Jim Denny, by then the show's manager, told him that his style did not suit the program. Also before becoming nationally known, Elvis made several appearances, and was received considerably better, on a well-known radio show out of Shreveport: The Louisiana Hayride.)

An early regular act was the Fruit Jar Drinkers, whom Hay wanted to close every show, because he liked their "red hot fiddle playing." They were led by a banjo player, Uncle Dave Macon, a.k.a. the Dixie Dewdrop. Music historian Charles Wolfe wrote, "If people call yodelling Jimmie Rodgers 'the father of country music,' then Uncle Dave must certainly be 'the grandfather of country music.'"

If you've ever wondered why, in his song "Blue Suede Shoes" (covered by Elvis), among the things he would forgive before he would accept you stepping on said footwear, Carl Perkins listed, "drink my liquor from an ole fruit jar," this was clearly a tribute to the Fruit Jar Drinkers.

In 1926, WSM joined the 1st American radio network, the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC. On December 10, 1927, after playing Music Appreciation Hour, a classical music show which, that night, had been playing selections from grand opera, WSM Barn Dance came on. And Hay introduced DeFord Bailey by saying, "For the past hour, we have been listening to music largely from grand opera. But, from now on, we will present 'The Grand Ole Opry.'" The name stuck, and has been used ever since.

The show became more popular, and made the City of Nashville synonymous with country music, and vice versa. People wanted to watch as they broadcast. The larger studio they built turned out not to be big enough. In 1934, they moved to the Hillsboro Theatre, so they could have a paying audience. They outgrew that, too. They moved to the Dixie Tabernacle in East Nashville in 1936. Then came the War Memorial Auditorium.

Finally, in 1943, they moved back downtown, to the 2,362-seat Ryman Auditorium, and it became known as "The Mother Church of Country Music."

It remained home to the show until 1974, when, due to cramped quarters, it was moved out to the new Grand Ole Opry House at the Opryland USA theme park. In 1997, the park closed, and the Opry Mills Mall was built on the site. All the while, the Opry House remained open.

The Ryman remained open, and was renovated with modern amenities in 1994. In 2010, the flooding of the Cumberland River damaged the Opry House, and the show temporarily moved back to the Ryman while repairs were made.

George Hay died in 1968, at the age of 72. The Opry lives on, sometimes alternating between the Ryman and the Opry House.

*

November 28, 1925 was a Saturday. The Army-Navy Game was played that day, at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan. Army won, 10-3.

Eddie Giacomin, 1939-2025

Fans of hockey's New York Rangers are a nasty bunch. They'll say you suck even if you're not on the team they're playing tonight. They'll even turn on each other.

On November 2, 1975, they cheered on the opposing goalie. It was Eddie Giacomin.

Edward Giacomin (no middle name) was born on June 6, 1939 in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Like his older brother Rollie, he was a goaltender. A professional team was interested in Rollie, but he couldn't get out of his other job to take the tryout, so he suggested Eddie.

With only 6 teams in the NHL at the time, and most of the goalies then --  Jacques Plante in Montreal, Johnny Bower in Toronto, Terry Sawchuk in Detroit, Glenn Hall in Chicago, Eddie Johnston in Boston and Lorne "Gump" Worsley in New York -- playing pretty much every game, big-league jobs were hard to come by. Bower was emblematic of this: Despite starring in the minor leagues with the Cleveland Barons and, as Giacomin later would, with the Providence Reds, he didn't become an NHL starter until he was 34 years old, except for 1953-54 with the Rangers. Prior to becoming the Leafs' starter in 1959, he had played just 77 NHL games, all but 70 in that 1 season.

The Rangers acquired Giacomin from Providence, and he made his NHL debut on October 24, 1965, a 4-3 loss to the Montreal Canadiens at the old Madison Square Garden. He led all NHL goalies in games and minutes played in the seasons of 1966-67, 1967-68 (the year the Rangers, and the NBA's Knicks moved from the old Garden to the new one), 1968-69 and 1969-70. In 1970-71, he made his 5th straight All-Star Game, and won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL's top goaltender.

During that year's Stanley Cup Quarterfinals, Bobby Hull of the Chicago Black Hawks was unable to stop after Giacomin saved one of his shots, and his skate blade sliced right through Giacomin's glove. Giacomin left the ice, got the hand stitched up, got back in the game, and played the rest of the way. Ranger fans loved him for such determination, and would chant, "Ed-die! Ed-die! Ed-die!" when he made a save.

With Giacomin in goal, Brad Park and Rod Seiling on defense, and the "Goal-A-Game Line" or "GAG Line" of left wing Vic Hadfield, center Jean Ratelle and right wing Rod Gilbert, the Rangers reached the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 1971, losing to the Canadiens; the Finals in 1972, losing to the Boston Bruins; and the Semifinals in 1973, losing to the Black Hawks. (That season, he played in his 6th and last All-Star Game.) That was as close as the team would get to the Stanley Cup between their 7-game Finals loss in 1950 and finally winning the Cup in 1994.

By the start of the 1975-76 season, the Rangers' 50th Anniversary season, age and injuries were catching up with them. Giacomin was 36, and while plenty of goalies have played at a high level past that age, he'd also been hurt, and wasn't as effective. Ranger management went into rebuilding mode.

The Rangers went into rebuilding mode, acquiring Dunc Wilson and John Davidson, and promoting Doug Soetaert from their minor-league system. This left Giacomin and his 35-year-old backup, Gilles Villemure, as odd men out. Before the season began, they traded Villemure to the Black Hawks. And then, on October 29, they put Giacomin on waivers. On October 31, he was claimed by the Red Wings. Davidson was promoted to starting goalie.

According to legend, the Rangers' next game was against those very Red Wings. It's not true: On November 1, they played the Canadiens in Montreal, and lost, 4-0. But the next game, their 1st home game after the waiver claim, on November 2, was at The Garden against the Wings, and Davidson and Giacomin were the opposing starting goalies.

Wearing not the white jersey that NHL teams usually wore for home games at the time, but the red of Detroit, Ranger fans gave him a long standing ovation and chanted his name. It was a message to Ranger management: "You shouldn't have done that, and we are angry." They booed their own team when they took shots or scored on Giacomin, and chanted his name throughout the match. The Wings won, 6-4, and Ranger fans cheered at the end.

Just 9 days after The Giacomin Game, they would trade Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi to the Bruins for Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais. The Rangers would miss the Playoffs in 1976 and '77, before bouncing back in '78 and reaching the Finals in '79.

Giacomin played 3 seasons in Detroit, before falling victim to another youth movement. He retired on January 17, 1978, with a career record of 289-208-97, a 2.82 goals against average, and 54 shutouts. Sensing a public-relations coup, the New York Islanders hired him as a broadcaster, and he was one of their announcers for their epic Stanley Cup Semifinal series against the Rangers in 1979. He became an assistant coach with the Isles before going back to Detroit and serving in the same role with the Wings, establishing his permanent home in suburban Birmingham, Michigan.

He was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987. With new management coming in, the Rangers made peace with Eddie, hired him as a coach, and retired his Number 1 in 1989. In 2009, in their book 100 Ranger Greats, authors Adam Raider, Russ Cohen and John Halligan ranked him the 6th-greatest player in team history, behind Brian Leetch, Rod Gilbert, Mike Richter, Mark Messier and Jean Ratelle.

Eddie Giacomin died yesterday, September 14, 2025, at the age of 86, at his home in Birmingham, Michigan.

May 12, 1985: The Fixed NBA Draft Lottery for Patrick Ewing

Left to right: David Stern, Patrick Ewing, Dave DeBusschere

May 12, 1985, 40 years ago: The NBA holds its 1st-ever Draft Lottery, at the Felt Forum, a sub-arena of Madison Square Garden in New York. It was designed to stop teams having a bad season from "going into the tank" or "tanking": Losing games on purpose so that they could finish with the league's worst record, thus guaranteeing them the 1st pick in the NBA Draft.

David Stern, in his 1st full season as Commissioner, drew envelopes containing the logos of the 7 teams, out of the 23 then in the NBA, that didn't make the Playoffs. The theory was that each non-Playoff team had an equal chance to obtain the first pick. The rest of the first-round picks were determined in reverse order of their won–loss record.

It was no secret that the player most likely to be taken with the 1st overall pick would be Patrick Ewing, a center who had led Georgetown University to the previous year's National Championship, and the NCAA Tournament Final in 3 of his 4 years. Some observers were calling the lottery the Ewing Bowl, as if it were a football contest.

The general managers of the 7 teams patiently waited for Stern to draw the envelopes. The 1st one drawn, and thus the team that got the 7th pick, was the Golden State Warriors. The Warriors and the Indiana Pacers had tied for the worst record in the NBA, 22-60. Under the old system, those two teams would face a coin flip: The winner would get the 1st pick, the loser the 2nd pick. The Warriors were thus the 1st team who looked like a loser in the lottery.

The 6th pick went to the Sacramento Kings, the 5th to the Atlanta Hawks, the 4th to the Seattle SuperSonics, and the 3rd to the Los Angeles Clippers. It came down to the Pacers, represented by GM Robert Salyers; and the New York Knicks, represented by their GM, one of their all-time greatest players, Dave DeBusschere.

When Stern opened the next envelope, and pulled out the card, it contained the Pacers' logo. That meant they would pick 2nd, and the Knicks 1st. DeBusschere pumped his fist, and the New Yorkers inside the Felt Forum roared with delight. They knew exactly who DeBusschere, who had been a defensive and rebounding specialist as a player, would pick when the actual draft was held on June 18: The similarly-controlling Ewing.

When DeBusschere got up to shake hands with Stern, he reached into the pocket of his sportscoat, and pulled out a Knicks jersey with Number 33 on it. It wasn't in honor of his teammate on the 1970 NBA Champion Knicks, University of Michigan Hall-of-Famer Cazzie Russell. DeBusschere turned the jersey around, and revealed the name on the back: "EWING."

Ever since, people outside the New York Tri-State Area -- and some inside it, who had no problem with the idea -- have suggested that the fix was in: Stern wanted the best collegiate player of his generation to play for the New York team, because the New York team winning titles would be good for the league, TV-wise, therefore money-wise.

The question became not if Ewing would lead the Knicks to a World Championship, but how many. Of course, that same question would be asked for Eric Lindros and the Philadelphia Flyers in 1992. And if you had suggested at the times of their acquisitions that, in each case, the number would turn out to be zero, you would have been laughed out of the room.

But no one foresaw that the Boston Celtics would still dominate the Eastern Conference through 1987; that the Detroit Pistons would then do so through 1990; and that the Chicago Bulls, led by Michael Jordan, would then do so through 1998. With Ewing, the Knicks would reach the NBA Finals in 1994. Without him -- he was injured earlier in the Playoffs -- they reached the Finals in 1999.

It got to the point where, like Joe Namath of the 1969 New York Jets and Mark Messier of the 1994 New York Rangers, Ewing began predicting that the Knicks would win the Championship. He did become the franchise's all-time leading scorer. But the franchise still hasn't won a title since 1973, with DeBusschere, Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley, Earl Monroe and Jerry Lucas, Hall-of-Famers all.

So if there was a fix, it didn't work. Even so, Jordan and the Bulls did everything for the league that Stern had hoped that Ewing and the Knicks would do.

The Pacers chose Wayman Tisdale, who turned out to be a good player, but not a great one. The Clippers chose Benoit Benjamin, also a good one. The Sonics chose Xavier McDaniel, a very good player. The Hawks chose Jon Koncak, and the Kings Joe Kleine, who both turned out to be decent players.

The 7th pick that the Warriors got stuck with? They chose Chris Mullin, who, like Ewing and Jordan, would make the Hall of Fame and play on the 1992 Olympic "Dream Team." He would later play for the Pacers, and they got more out of him than they got out of Tisdale. So while the Warriors got robbed, they got more out of their pick than anybody but the Knicks got out of theirs.

There were other interesting picks. The Dallas Mavericks got Detlef Schrempf, a German star who did well for them, and later for the Pacers; Uwe Blab, also German, but not as good as Schrempf, and neither was as good for them as later German player Dirk Nowitzki; and Bill Wennington, who did little for them, but became a reserve for the Bulls' dynasty.

The Cleveland Cavaliers drafted Charles Oakley. He didn't do much for them, but he was later traded to the Knicks, and teamed with Ewing to produce the 2nd-best team in the East in the 1990s. They also drafted John "Hot Rod" Williams, who did well for them.

The Utah Jazz drafted Karl Malone, who would pair with John Stockton to form one of the greatest NBA duos. The Pistons drafted Joe Dumars, who became the defensive leader of the "Motor City Bad Boys," and later served as the general manager who built their next great team. The Pistons have reached the NBA Finals 5 times: 3 with Dumars as a player, winning 2; and 2 with Dumars as GM, winning 1.

The Los Angeles Lakers took A.C. Green, who helped them win 3 titles and set the NBA's consecutive games played record. The Portland Trail Blazers drafted Terry Porter, who helped them reach 2 NBA Finals. The Washington Bullets drafted 7-foot-6 shot-blocking specialist Manute Bol.

So the team that did the best in this draft was Detroit -- and they weren't in the Lottery. So much for the old slogan of the New York State Lottery: "You gotta be in it to win it."

Under the current rules, only the top four picks are decided by the lottery, and are chosen from the 14 teams (out of 30) that do not make the playoffs. The team with the worst record, or the team that holds the draft rights of the team with the worst record, has the best chance to obtain a higher draft pick. After the top four positions are selected (from the lottery slotting system), the remainder of the first-round draft order is in inverse order of the win–loss record for the remaining teams, or the teams who originally held the rights if they were traded. The lottery does not determine the draft order in the subsequent rounds of the draft.

Since the 2019 draft, the NBA changed the lottery odds (the bottom three teams will all have an equal 14 percent chance of winning the top pick), and increased the number of teams selected in the lottery from three to four.

Dick Barnett, 1936-2025

The New York Knicks are in what looks like a serious Playoff run. They've had a few. But only 2 have resulted in an NBA Championship: 1970 and 1973.

There is now one fewer surviving member of those teams.

Richard Barnett (no middle name) was born on October 2, 1936 in Gary, Indiana, outside Chicago. A guard on the Tennessee State University basketball team at the same time that Wilma Rudolph was leading their "Tigerbelles" women's track team, he was then known as "Dick the Skull." He won a championship with the Cleveland Pipers in the short-lived American Basketball League in 1962. They were the 1st sports team owned by George Steinbrenner, then just 31 years old.

When the ABL folded a few months later, he joined the Los Angeles Lakers, and helped them reach the NBA Finals in 1963 and 1965. His fallaway jump shot led Laker announcer Chick Hearn to nickname him "Fall Back Baby Barnett." The nickname followed him to the Knicks, where he became an All-Star in 1968, and an NBA Champion in 1970 and 1973.

He retired after the 1973 title, got a Ph.D. in education from Fordham University in The Bronx, and taught sports management at St. John's University in Queens until retiring in 2007. Due to his doctorate, he was nearly always referred to as "Dr. Dick."

The Knicks retired his Number 12 on March 12, 1990. He is a member of the College Basketball and Tennessee Sports Halls of Fame, along with his Tennessee State coach, John McLendon. He was finally elected to the main Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts last year.

He still attended Knicks home games until age caught up with him, and he was moved to a senior assisted-living facility in Largo, Florida, on the St. Petersburg side of Tampa Bay. He died yesterday, April 27, 2025, at the age of 88.

 

April 23, 1950: The Pete Babando Goal

April 23, 1950, 75 years ago: Only twice in the history of the Stanley Cup Finals has a Game 7 gone to overtime. They happened within 4 years of each other, and both were won by the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wings had won the Cup in 1936, 1937 and 1943. In 1946, a rookie named Gordie Howe arrived. The Wings reached the Finals again in 1948 and 1949, but lost both to the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 1950, they got back, and faced the New York Rangers.

There were 3 holdovers from 1943: Center and Captain Sid Abel, defenseman Jack Stewart, and right wing Joe Carveth. Abel centered a line with Howe on right wing and Ted Lindsay on left wing, which became known as "The Production Line," in honor of Detroit's automotive industry. Leonard "Red" Kelly and Marcel Pronovost were young defensemen. And in goal was Harry Lumley. All of these, except for Carveth, would make the Hockey Hall of Fame.

However, the Wings would have to go through the Finals without Howe: During the Semifinals against the Leafs, he attempted to check Ted "Teeder" Kennedy, but missed, and crashed into the boards, breaking bones in his face and putting his life in danger. He recovered, and became perhaps the greatest player the game had ever known, but would not be available for the Finals.

The Rangers had last made the Finals in 1940, which was also their most recent Cup win. They had no holdovers, but they had future Hall-of-Famers in centers Edgar Laprade and Buddy O'Connor, defenseman Allan Stanley, and goaltender Chuck Rayner.

(Two other Ranger players would be elected to the Hall, but in the "Builders" category: Bud Poile, for a long career as an NHL executive, including as the 1st general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers; and Fred Shero, who coached many of the players Poile acquired to the 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cups, and then coached the Rangers to the Finals in 1979.)

But the Rangers had a problem: No home-ice advantage. The biggest annual moneymaker for the Madison Square Garden corporation wasn't the Rangers, or the NBA's New York Knicks. It was the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, which, in those days, came in April -- when the NBA and Stanley Cup Finals were both held.

At the time, arenas could not be configured to host a circus and a hockey game on the same day. And since the Circus made more money for The Garden than Playoff hockey (which is no longer the case), the Rangers were forced to play their "home games" elsewhere. They ended up playing Games 2 and 3 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, while all the other games of the Finals were played at the Wings' Olympia Stadium.

The Wings won Game 1, 4-1. The Rangers won Game 2, 3-1. The Wings won Game 3, 4-0. The Finals nearly became the Don Raleigh Show: Raleigh scored 8:34 into overtime, to win Game 4 for the Rangers, 4-3; and 1:38 into overtime, to win Game 5, 2-1.

Don Raleigh 

But it was not to be. The Wings won Game 6, 5-4. The next night, April 23, the Rangers took a 2-0 lead midway through Game 7, the 2nd goal being scored by Tony Leswick. But Pete Babando got the Wings on the board, and Abel tied the game just 21 seconds later. The teams exchanged goals later in the period, and there were no goals in the 3rd period. So, for the 1st time since the Stanley Cup Finals went to a best-4-out-of-7 format in 1939, its Game 7 went to overtime, 3-3.

The 1st overtime also saw no goals, making this the 1st Stanley Cup Final Game 7 to go to a 2nd overtime. Through the 2021 season, it remains the only one. At the 8:30 mark of the 2nd overtime, Babando backhanded a shot past Rayner, and it was over: Red Wings 4, Rangers 3. Detroit had won the Stanley Cup, and Babando had become the 1st player to win the Cup on a Game 7 goal in overtime.

Babando, approaching his 25th birthday, was born in Braeburn, Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, making him one of the few American-born players in the NHL at the time. But, like the vast majority of the players, he was trained to play in Canada, as he grew up in Timmins, Ontario.

And how did the Wings' organization thank him for his 2 Game 7 goals, including the clincher? They traded him to the Chicago Black Hawks before the next season. (Since James E. Norris owned the Wings and the Chicago Stadium, and his son, James D. Norris, owned the Hawks, they made a lot of deals, especially to get a player one or the other didn't like away from him. And the NHL allowed this arrangement at the time.) After 3 seasons with the Hawks, he was traded to, of all teams, the Rangers. He continued to play professional hockey until 1967, and lived until 2020.

The Wings began a sort-of-dynasty in which they won 4 Cups in 6 seasons. But the Rangers didn't reach the Finals again until 1972. Blowing a 2-goal lead in 1950's Game 7 was the 1st of a long series of Ranger chokes from 1940 onward, until they finally won the Cup again in 1994. Which turned out to be not an ending but an interruption, as they have choked many times since.

Don Raleigh was born in Kenora, Ontario, famous for being the home of the 1907 Stanley Cup Champions, the Kenora Thistles; but lived most of his life in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He played for the Rangers from 1944 to 1956, made 2 All-Star Games, and was named to the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame. He lived until 2012.

The next 3 years, the Knicks would also be hurt by The Garden's circus priority. They had to play Games 3, 4 and 6 of the 1951 NBA Finals at the 69th Regiment Armory, instead of the Garden. They lost Game 7 on the road, losing in overtime to the Rochester Royals. The same thing happened in 1952, when they lost Game 7 to the Minneapolis Lakers. It didn't get that far in 1953: They lost Games 3, 4 and 5 at the Armory, with the Lakers clinching in Game 5.

In 1954, Game 7 scorer Tony Leswick would be with the Wings, and become the 2nd, and so far last, man to score an overtime goal in the Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Finals. Others to score an overtime Cup-clincher:

* In Game 6: Bryan Hextall, 1940 Rangers; Henri Richard, 1966 Montreal Canadiens; Bobby Nystrom, 1980 New York Islanders; Brett Hull, 1999 Dallas Stars; Jason Arnott, 2000 New Jersey Devils; Patrick Kane, 2010 Blackhawks.

* In Game 5: Bill Barilko, 1951 Maple Leafs; Elmer Lach, 1953 Canadiens; Alec Martinez, 2014 Los Angeles Kings.

* In Game 4: Bill Cook, 1933 Rangers (before it was a best-of-7); Harold "Mush" March, 1934 Black Hawks (ditto); Hector "Toe" Blake, 1944 Canadiens; Bobby Orr, 1970 Bruins; Jacques Lemaire, 1977 Canadiens; Uwe Krupp, 1996 Colorado Avalanche.