New York City threw a parade for the Knicks on Thursday morning, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani made sure a few important names didn’t get left out of the celebration.
Standing in front of a crowd that lined the Manhattan streets, Mamdani took a moment to recognize former coach Tom Thibodeau and a handful of ex-Knicks players. He called Thibodeau the guy who helped lay the foundation. He also shouted out JR Smith, Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett and others, per SNY Knicks on X.
“This championship belongs to them too, because championships aren’t just built in one season,” Mamdani said.
It’s a fair point. Thibodeau inherited a mess when he took over in 2020. The Knicks had been a punchline for years. He got them back to the playoffs in 2021. That mattered. Then Jalen Brunson showed up the next season and everything shifted. But Thibodeau’s culture was already there — tough, defensive-minded, no shortcuts. Fans complained about his rotations and the way he ran guys into the ground, but he changed how the league looked at that team.
Mike Brown was the coach who actually finished the job this year, beating the Spurs in five games in the Finals. But Mamdani’s point was that the run didn’t start with Brown. It started with the guys who got the organization back on its feet.
The Knicks are now set up to make a real run at repeating. They’ll bring back almost the entire core next season. Nobody has won back-to-back titles since Golden State did it in 2018. That’s the goal now.
But for one morning, the mayor wanted everyone to remember who got the ball rolling.
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