Jalen Brunson’s Knicks Finally Ended 53 Years of Pain. Then Alicia Keys Showed Up.

The New York Knicks held their championship parade on Thursday, and it turned into a full-on citywide sing-along when Alicia Keys showed up at City Hall. She belted out “Empire State of Mind” and the crowd—packed with fans, actors, and the mayor—sang every word back at her.

It was a scene nobody in New York dreamed they’d see this century. The Knicks had not won a title since 1973. That’s 53 years. For most of the 2000s and 2010s, they were a punchline. Bad contracts, weird front-office moves, a revolving door of coaches. The Garden still sold out, but the basketball was brutal.

Then Jalen Brunson showed up in 2022. He wasn’t supposed to be a savior. He was a solid point guard who’d been good in Dallas. But in New York, he turned into something else. All-NBA. A leader. The guy who made everyone around him better.

The front office didn’t stop there. They traded for OG Anunoby, then Mikal Bridges, then Karl-Anthony Towns. None of those guys were homegrown. Usually that matters less when you win. The Knicks became the rare champion where every key piece came from somewhere else. It worked anyway.

The parade and the party

Thursday’s celebration snaked through lower Manhattan. Timothée Chalamet was there. Ben Stiller too. Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke. But the loudest moment came when Keys hit the stage at City Hall. She sang the song that’s basically the city’s second anthem, and fans recorded it on their phones. The SNY Knicks account posted video and it spread fast.

The Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs in five games to get here. They did it with defense and three-point shooting and a bench that actually contributed in the playoffs. They also broke the so-called “40-20 rule,” which said NBA champions traditionally hit 40 wins before 20 losses in the regular season. The Knicks didn’t. Doesn’t matter now.

Sustaining this will be hard. The league is too balanced for repeat titles to feel automatic. But that’s a problem for October. On Thursday, New York just wanted to hang a banner and hear Alicia Keys one more time.

Opening Night at Madison Square Garden is expected in mid-October. The ring ceremony should be something else.