Jumping on the Knicks Bandwagon

I am someone you might call “half a New Yorker.” I live 2,500 miles away. Though I was born in San Francisco, where I’ve lived for the last 6 years, New York City will always be a part of my identity. I spent almost a decade of my childhood taking the subway from Tribeca all the way to 92nd, lucky to grow up in the city so many Americans dream of. 

I make an effort to return to the city every summer, to see old friends, visit my favorite haunts, and eat Manhattan’s best food. But every year, these trips feel more bittersweet; the city I once called home has gone on without me, and I feel more and more like a pretender.

This summer, however, visiting during the Knicks NBA championship, I was swept up in an electric buzz of New York excitement that made the city feel like home for the first time in eight years. And I’m not even a Knicks fan. 

Sitting on the 1-2-3 train on the way to Penn Station, two strangers next to me struck up a conversation. She was a younger woman in a soccer jersey and ponytail, and he was carrying a briefcase and wearing a Knicks hat as he commuted to work. They weren’t friends, yet suddenly, they started laughing and discussing the game that night. Next to them, I smiled, because I would be at the big screen in Battery Park City too.

“I go back to New York every year … It was a happy accident that the Knicks finals were happening here,” said Drake, a teenager visiting the city during summer vacation. “It was super electric, the atmosphere was otherworldly. It was sensational,” he said of the playoffs. He’d never supported the Knicks before, but that week, he cheered them on with the rest of the city.

“In my past years in New York, I felt like more of a tourist, but at this point in time, I was one of the community. I was at home,” he said. Drake tells me that he’s looked down on bandwagons in the past, yet after his experience with the Knicks, he “decided that being a bandwagon is more than supporting a team because they’re winning. It’s joining a community that’s going to accept you.”

On my way to dinner the evening before the game, I stood in a silent, classically awkward elevator with a friend and a few other adults. We watched a couple walk in wearing full Knicks gear, from their shoes to their fanny packs. “Go Knicks,” the man next to me said. We all smiled, laughed, started to pet a woman’s dog, and wished each other a good night. In that moment, I felt part of something — part of a community — just because of the team I’d started watching the night before.

Hayden, a student staying in the city for a pre-college program during the playoffs week, said, “It was really fun and everyone was bonding as a community.” Walking down the street, she said, “people would say ‘Knicks in 5,’ and [I] would respond.” 

“I had more fun when they won, from the energy coming off the people who live here,” she said. Wearing Knicks gear, according to Hayden, “definitely changed [her] sense of belonging, because it didn’t just feel like [she] was representing the Knicks, it felt like [she] was representing New York.”

Just like Hayden, members of my family bought their own Knicks gear to wear on the street; with each person who high-fived us or cheered, I watched our group’s confidence grow. To associate with the Knicks was to feel a sense of connection, of community, of being “a local.” 

But for me, the true moment of belonging was on the final night of the playoff run, when the Knicks finally won their championship.

The Battery Park City field was packed with hundreds of New Yorkers, all in blue and orange, staring intently at a large projected screen near the water. I stood in the crowd, pulled away from my nighttime run by the sheer energy radiating off the group. We screamed and cheered together, groaned together, and watched the game not as individuals, but as a community — I felt wrapped up in the identity of New York.

The Thursday after the triumphant game, victorious players were greeted by the city of New York as countless fans watched the celebratory parade. I, however, wasn’t in the mix; I’d left the city the day before and watched the parade from my couch. Still, my memories of the championship tied me to the cheering crowd on my screen. Despite the distance, these were the same people I’d watched the game with, and I knew that just like me, people across the world were feeling the energy of the victory through their televisions.

For me, the connection I built during the championships didn’t just last throughout my trip — it’s prevailed to tie me to New Yorkers despite our distance. Being swept up in that crowd gave me a feeling of unity and belonging I won’t lose for years to come. I may have been a bandwagon fan, but the Knicks helped me reconnect with my old home

Growing up learning to take pride in our hometowns, we also learn to look down on tourists, to disdain those “less local” than us. I have spent enough visits to New York glaring at someone in an “I Love NY” shirt, as if their obvious foreignness makes my own pretense of locality less obvious. But the Knicks games brought visitors the opportunity to become part of New York, to experience the city that only some lucky ones can call home. I think it’s time to accept the bandwagon fan.

Sophie Martin attends The College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. (Class of 2028). A section editor of her school newspaper, she loves writing and aspires to become a journalist.