The New York Knicks, my hometown basketball team, just won the NBA Finals for the first time in 53 years, led by three players from Villanova, my college alma mater. Dubbed the “Nova Knicks,” it felt surreal, like this team was specifically designed for me. As an adult, I don’t get as emotionally invested in sports as I used to, but I’ve never had this much fun rooting for a professional sports team. The only thing that compares is the two times Villanova won the NCAA championship (2016 and 2018), led by three of the same players: Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart. Watching the Nova Knicks felt like being an early fan of a local indie rock band, who years later, break out into worldwide mainstream success. But unlike indie hipsters, I don’t resent the newcomers. I welcome any and all onto the Nova Knicks bandwagon. To explain why this team meant so much to me, let’s go back to the beginning.

Growing up as a sports fan in New York in the 1990s, some of my earliest memories were watching the Yankees and the Knicks. Those were my favorite teams of my favorite sports, though the baseball moments were more positive than the basketball. The Yankees won four World Series between 1996 and 2000 (then another in 2009), but the closest the Knicks came during my lifetime were two Finals appearances in 1994 and 1999. I vividly remember being 8 years old, watching the Knicks play the Rockets in the 1994 Finals, when the television broadcast of the game was interrupted to show a white Ford Bronco driving across a Los Angeles freeway. I didn’t know or care about O.J. Simpson—I just wanted to watch my Knicks!

I loved those 90s Knicks teams (starring Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Anthony Mason, and Charles Oakley), but their seasons ultimately ended in heartbreak and disappointment, never managing to climb to the top of the NBA mountain. The primary reason for that was Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all time, who was at his peak in the 1990s, winning six titles in eight years. The rest of the league had no chance against Jordan’s Bulls. While I was a die-hard Knicks fan, Michael Jordan was my favorite player, so I took some joy in seeing him win two three-peats, but wished the Knicks could have won once, especially in 1994, the year Jordan “retired” to play baseball. Patrick Ewing, the Knicks’ 7-foot center, was an all-time great who deserved to win a championship. But in his two Finals appearances, he happened to run into three other all-time great 7-foot centers: Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994, then David Robinson & Tim Duncan in 1999¹.

In the early 2000s, I stopped following the NBA as closely as I used to, becoming more interested in alternative sports like skateboarding and snowboarding (the peak of the X-Games) and golf (the peak of Tiger Woods). But it was also because the early 2000s were some of the darkest days for the Knicks. They had a losing record every year from 2001 to 2010, despite having one of the league’s highest payrolls. The incompetent front office made numerous bad moves, sacrificing the future for over-priced and over-rated players, often going after big-name “stars” like Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Zach Randolph, and Eddy Curry, regardless of team chemistry, culture, and fit.

My interest in basketball was reignited when I went to college at Villanova in 2004. I’ve followed sports my whole life but never cared more about a team than I did for Nova basketball while I was in college. It wasn’t the reason I chose to go to school there, but it served as a tiebreaker. I just thought it would be fun to go to a college with a top-tier Big East basketball team—and it was more fun than I could have imagined.

I came to Villanova just as the basketball program returned to national prominence under coach Jay Wright.² I fell in love with Wright’s famous 4-guard lineup of Kyle Lowry (my class of ‘08 mate), Mike Nardi, Allan Ray, and Randy Foye. They had great success, making the NCAA tournament all four years I was there, going as far as the Elite 8 (when they fell to the Florida juggernaut led by Al Horford and Joakim Noah). I went to every home game and started writing my first blog about the Nova basketball team.³ After graduation, I could never have that same connection as I did while sharing a campus with the players, but I still cared about the team deeply and watched their games on TV.

As Villanova basketball players like Lowry and Foye went on to the pros, I became more invested in the NBA and my favorite team. The Knicks were still amidst their dark years of dysfunction, perennially at the bottom the standings. But in the NBA, the draft provides hope for bad teams. With some lottery luck, a team can find its next superstar, like LeBron James for Cleveland in 2003 (or Ewing for the Knicks in 1985).

Kyle Lowry was my favorite Villanova player. We were the same age, and I sat in a History class with him. I was a bit disappointed he left college early after two years, but I was happy for him to get paid and show what he could do in the NBA. He was projected to be a late first-round pick, right around when the Knicks were drafting at #24 (because they foolishly traded away what would have been the 2nd overall pick). I was excited to see Lowry still available when the Knicks were on the clock, desperately hoping they’d pick him—but alas, they passed on Lowry (and Rajon Rondo) for Renaldo Balkman. I continued rooting for Kyle Lowry (and all Nova players in the NBA) and was happy to see him eventually win a title for the Toronto Raptors in 2019, proving to the entire world how good I always knew he was—though I wished he could have done it for the Knicks.

A common theme for the Knicks during the 2000s and 2010s was the draft picks that could have been. They were one pick away from Stephen Curry in 2009—then passed on DeMar DeRozan and Jrue Holiday too. In other years, they didn’t even get to draft in the lottery because they had traded their picks away years before. They did have some luck finding good players late in the draft, such as Trevor Ariza, Channing Frye, Wilson Chandler, Nate Robinson, and David Lee, plus one good lottery pick in Danilo Gallinari. But all of them would be traded away before reaching their primes.⁴

The Knicks hired the offensive mastermind coach Mike D’Antoni in 2008 and cleared salary cap space in hopes of landing prized free agent LeBron James in 2010. There was legitimate hope LeBron would come to New York to save the franchise, but he instead chose to team up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, perhaps because of all the Knicks’ front office dysfunction over the previous decade. The Heat went on to win, not one, not two, not three—oh wait, it was only two championships. But still, Knicks fans would have been happy with just one.

The Knicks got the consolation free agent prize of Amar’e Stoudemire, who was pretty good while his knees held up. Then they cashed in their promising young players and future draft picks for the next great hope, NCAA champion⁵, NBA all-star, and Olympic Gold-medalist, Carmelo Anthony. Melo was by far the best player the Knicks had since Patrick Ewing. The team enjoyed success during his tenure (2011-2017), returning to the playoffs three times, but never making it past the second round.

It was a mixed bag with Melo. He was undoubtedly talented, a world-class offensive player who could score inside and out. But he wasn’t as great defensively, and he tended to play a bit too selfishly. Part of the reason Melo’s Knicks teams were limited was because they had to give up so many assets to get him. If only they had waited a few months to sign him in free agency… But Melo demanded a trade so he could sign a max extension. I can’t blame him for wanting to make as much money as possible, but the trade may have prevented the Knicks front office from being able to put together a true title-contending team while he was in New York.

The most exuberant Knicks moment in the first two decades of the 21st century was the brief period of “Linsanity” in 2012. Jeremy Lin was an undrafted point guard out of Harvard who was bouncing around the waiver wire, close to being cut from the league entirely, when the Knicks picked him up and were forced to play him due to multiple injuries. Then Lin somehow turned into one of the best basketball players in the world for a few weeks, hitting game-winning buzzer-beaters and outscoring Kobe Bryant. But Linsanity was short-lived, as the Knicks failed to re-sign him the following season, at least partially because Carmelo Anthony resented how Lin had stolen the MSG spotlight.

Meanwhile, Villanova continued to have success around a completely new team built by Jay Wright, led by Scottie Reynolds. Reynolds would not make it to the NBA, but he did take Nova to the Final Four in 2009—where they ran into a North Carolina juggernaut with six future NBA players on the roster. Villanova had some struggles rebuilding after that, missing the tournament in 2012. Jay Wright had assembled a team with talented recruits, but chemistry was lacking. The players were more focused on their stats and draft prospects than on playing “Villanova Basketball.” Wright seemed to address that issue in his recruiting strategy throughout the 20-teens, focusing more on team-oriented players rather than the top-tier talent. He focused on second-tier recruits who would buy into the program for four years (such as Ryan Arcidiacono and Josh Hart), rather than one-and-done players who cared more about impressing scouts to improve their NBA draft status. This led to the greatest stretch of success in the program’s history, winning two national championships (2016 and 2018) then returning again to the Final Four in Jay Wright’s final year as head coach (2022).

Seeing Nova win it all in 2016⁶ felt like a dream come true. I was set for life. Then they did it again two years later!⁷ At the time, I wrote about the unique experience of seeing your college team win a national championship: “Your college team is unlike any other kind of fandom in sports. To cheer for the players who you go to class with, eat the same food with in the dining halls, and see out of uniform as they walk past you through the quad. The players are more than just images on a TV screen or names in a box score. They are students, just like you.” Non-sports fans often mock sports fans for caring so much about millionaires who couldn’t care less about them. But that is not the case with college sports (at least pre-NIL). The players on your college team feel more like friends and family.

While those Villanova recruits were not the most highly-touted NBA prospects coming out of high school, many did go on to have NBA careers, including Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, Donte DiVincenzo, and Jalen Brunson—who would go on to team up together on the New York Knicks. Many Knicks fans watching this 2026 team have remarked how they’ve never seen such perfect selfless basketball before. But that’s exactly what I saw from my college team in 2016 and 2018. It’s no coincidence that those teams include three of the same players. And it all stems from the captain and MVP, Jalen Brunson.

Brunson was the only player who started on both Villanova championship teams. (Bridges came off the bench for the first, and Hart was in the NBA for the second.) In 2016, I wrote that Brunson, a “Freshman starter… played with poise, wise beyond his years.” And in 2018, I called Brunson, “The well-deserved National Player of the Year… the perfect college point guard. He’s not the most athletic, fastest, or highest jumper, but he just knows how to play the game. He reminds me of Chris Paul in that respect. He’s a savvy point guard who uses his basketball IQ to control the game.” I foresaw future greatness for Brunson, comparing him to one of the best NBA point guards of all time, but with a Finals MVP, Brunson has even surpassed “the Point God.”

After the Carmelo Anthony era ended, the Knicks cleared their salary cap books in 2019 in hopes of landing the next free agent superstars, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, both proven NBA champions. Except that dynamic duo chose to team up across town in Brooklyn. It felt like a bizarre choice, as the Nets have always been second-class citizens in New York, whether they played in Brooklyn or New Jersey. But like LeBron, Durant was deterred by the Knicks’ poor management over the previous two decades. So again, the Knicks had to settle for the consolation prize of free agent Julius Randle. He was a fine player, able to eventually get them Karl-Anthony Towns via trade⁸. It was clearly a blessing in disguise to lose out on Durant⁹ and Irving because the cap space the Knicks saved allowed them to sign another free agent in 2022: Jalen Brunson.

This Knicks front office, led by former agent Leon Rose, has been the inverse of the incompetence of the past. Every move he’s made has turned to gold. But when Brunson was first signed, everybody around the league (most Knicks fans included) thought it was an extreme overpay. Four years and $104 million for someone who was unproven as a backup to Luka Doncic in Dallas? They mocked it as another classic Knicks mistake. But I could not be more excited. For the first time, I would get to watch a Villanova player star on the New York Knicks.

I knew Brunson was a smart player, a clutch performer, and could run an NBA team. I thought he could easily have a career similar to Kyle Lowry, a fellow short but bulky guard from Villanova, who became a 6-time All-Star, 3rd team All-NBA, and started on a title team. But I did not envision Brunson becoming one of the best scorers in the league. He’s had a 61-point game, multiple 50-point games, and too many 40-point games to count—including 45 points in a road close-out game of the NBA Finals, a feat no other player has accomplished except Michael Jordan. That is the kind of territory Brunson has risen to: an all-time great.

I always thought Brunson was good enough to be the starting point guard on a Finals-winning team because Lowry had done it, and Jalen was at least as good as Kyle. But honestly, I didn’t think Brunson could be the number one scoring option on a championship team. I thought he would need a Kawhi Leonard (or a Luka Doncic) to star beside him. Then again, I compared Bridges to Kawhi pre-draft (though OG is closer to that),¹⁰ and Towns is an all-NBA talent as well. The Nova Knicks are not a one-man (or 3-man) team; it is a fully balanced collective.

When speaking of the “Nova Knicks,” there are actually several different versions (ignoring Tim Thomas’s years during the dark days of the early 2000s). The Nova Knicks 1.0 were in 2022 with Jalen Brunson starting and Ryan Arcidiacono as a 3rd string point guard at the end of the bench. Then the Nova Knicks 1.2 was when Josh Hart joined the team mid-season via trade in 2023. The Nova Knicks 2.0 was when Donte DiVincenzo signed as a free agent for the 2023-24 season, joining Brunson and Hart (though they lost Arch). The Nova Knicks 2.2 was when they traded for Mikal Bridges in the offseason to join Brunson, Hart, and Donte—but all four never got to play together because Donte was traded for Karl-Anthony Towns just before the season started.¹¹ That left the Nova Knicks 3.0 (Brunson, Hart, and Bridges), which exists to this day—and hopefully for the rest of each of their careers.

Watching former Villanova stars like Kyle Lowry have success on other NBA teams feels great, and seeing the Knicks succeed feels great, but when the two combine—as on the “Nova Knicks”—it feels doubly special. In fact, I feel more affinity for the Nova Knicks than actual Villanova teams of recent years. After the NCAA changes allowing players to be paid (which I have no problem with) and transfer schools each year without penalty (which I do have a problem with), it has been difficult to connect to the team when they have a completely new roster every year. Part of the allure of college basketball was seeing the players grow and mature over the course of four years, but now with the transfer portal, almost everyone is a “one-and-done.” I don’t blame Jay Wright for retiring before the NIL rule change. It would be impossible to recreate his “Villanova Basketball” family atmosphere in the age of the transfer portal.

I watched Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges (and Donte DiVincenzo) grow and mature during their years at Nova, then I continued following them from afar in the NBA. But when they teamed up on my hometown Knicks, I got to follow them more closely. The Knicks started to feel like a college basketball team because they played Jay Wright’s form of “Villanova Basketball.” I previously defined “Villanova Basketball” as “playing hard, but also unselfishly, with amazing chemistry built through a family atmosphere. In the post-game speeches, the players repeatedly mentioned how they were ‘brothers.’ And it really showed. That kind of camaraderie doesn’t happen automatically. It comes top-down from the coach.” The Nova Knicks have that same kind of team-first chemistry and family atmosphere, also referring to each other as “brothers”—which is rare in the NBA.

Mike Brown deserves credit for coaching this Knicks team (and Tom Thibodeau building the program before him), but the locker room chemistry in this case actually comes top-down from the captain. In college basketball, the team’s culture is set by the head coach, but in the NBA, it is set by the team’s superstar player. Jalen Brunson brought “Villanova Basketball” to the Knicks, not just by having two former Nova teammates, but by getting everyone else to play that way as well. It is easy to buy in and play unselfishly when your captain and leader is unselfish. Jalen Brunson did what Carmelo Anthony didn’t: sacrifice his salary for the betterment of the team and a chance to win the championship. He took a pay cut so that the Knicks could afford to add other stars like OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Mikal Bridges. Bridges and Towns were leading scorers on their former teams, but they were willing to sacrifice their stats to help this team win because the captain sacrificed $100-million for them.

There have not been many superstars as selfless and classy as Jalen Brunson. Only Steph Curry and Tim Duncan come to mind in the NBA. In other New York sports, Brunson reminds me of the other “Captain Clutch,” Derek Jeter. Jeter brought my Yankees five World Series, a full hand’s worth of championship rings.¹² So far, Brunson has brought me three championships (two with Nova and one with the Knicks). Can he win two more? I am done underestimating Brunson. You cannot count him out for anything.

I stopped writing my Nova basketball blog in 2011, partially because I didn’t have the time to follow the team as closely as I used to, but more so because it felt wrong for an adult to be criticizing kids for a game they weren’t being paid to play.¹³ Now the Nova Knicks are adults and getting paid quite generously, even with Brunson’s team-friendly pay cut. But I have no criticisms to write about. They are exemplary professional athletes. Kids learning basketball couldn’t ask for a better role model than Jalen Brunson, an undersized underdog who always says and does the right thing. He’s worked hard and maximized every ounce of physical talent he has. He cares about nothing but winning—and he’s won the greatest prizes in the sport. I’ve been following Jalen Brunson for over a decade now, and it’s been an honor to root for him every step of the way. I’ll continue to root for him in whatever he does, for decades more.

1. Ewing got injured and wasn’t able to play against the Spurs. ↩︎
2. Villanova’s famous upset win over Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown team in 1985 happened the year before I was born. ↩︎
3. And I briefly wrote a Knicks blog in 2008. ↩︎
4. Ariza won a title with the Lakers and Lee won a title with the Warriors. ↩︎
5. With Nova’s former Big East rival Syracuse. ↩︎
6. Led by Arch, Hart, Brunson, and Bridges. ↩︎
7. Led by Brunson, Bridges, and DiVincenzo. ↩︎
8. Unfortunately, Nova Knick Donte DiVincenzo was lost in the process. ↩︎
9. Plus Brooklyn traded Durant for Mikal Bridges, who the Knicks later traded for. ↩︎
10. I have a tendency to overrate Villanova prospects (and Knicks draft picks). I am still surprised Scottie Reynolds (a similar type of player to Jalen Brunson) never made it in the NBA. (And I’m still waiting for the breakout season from Frank Ntilikina.) ↩︎
11. I and many Knicks fans wish they could have kept DiVincenzo, as he was key to their playoff success the year before, but the Knicks don’t win a title without Towns. ↩︎
12. And with the Giants winning two Superbowls, I’ve now seen all of my favorite teams win championships. All that remains is for the US mens soccer team to win the World Cup. ↩︎
13. That was before NIL. ↩︎