Contrary to what coach Mike Brown said before the final, if his team beat the Spurs in the 3rd edition of the NBA Cup (124-113), and what happened with the Lakers and Bucks, who have small banners alluding to their Cups, the Knicks will not, at least for now, place a banner of achievement on the roof of Madison Square Garden, where the two champions are (1969/70 and 1972/73), four conference titles, eight division titles and eight jerseys retired.
The most the New York club will do is celebrate the presentation of the trophy to the fans at the next regular season meeting, Friday, in the game against the 76’ers.
The justification for such a decision is the desire to keep the team focused on winning the championship, which they have not been able to achieve since beating the Lakers (4-1) in the 1972/73 Finals.
This despite the fact that, since then, they have returned to the League final in 1993/94 and 1999. The latter with a team featuring Rick Brunson, father of Jalen Brunson (25 pts, 4 res, 8 ass, 1 dsl), elected MVP of the NBA Cup final. The victory meant that each player on the winning team, with a contract, standardbe entitled to a prize of 530 thousand dollars (452 thousand euros). Spurs players have earned more than 212 thousand (181 thousand).
Remember that the Knicks are one of the three surviving founding clubs of the NBA, along with the Celtics (18 titles) and Warriors (7), and are always among the five most valuable in the League.
«This pressure is created without the coach having to constantly strive for it. When you are successful in doing so, it builds confidence in all team members. That can boost them at the right time, when they’re in that environment, to be able to handle the pressure, because they’ve already been through it,” said coach Mike Brown after the win.
The Knicks, on the other hand, did not reveal whether the option to place the banner, which is not mandatory under NBA rules, was a decision made by Brown or team owner Mike Dolan, whose relations with the commisisoner Adam Silver, as well as other club bosses, have not been the best and have seen several of their proposals defeated and criticized, such as the expansion of the WNBA, the new – already in force – contracts for rights to broadcast games, wanting to know the budget of the NBA headquarters or considering that the League favored the Raptors over the case in which Ikechukwu Azotam, assistant coach and video coordinator in New York between 2020 and 2023, moved to the Toronto team and will have took computer programs and Knicks information with him. Which is why they asked for compensation of 10 million dollars (11.7 million euros) in damages.
