NEW YORK–Knicks fans are wildly celebrating with their team’s first NBA title in 53 years. But some terrible ideas come out of fun parties. So let’s slow our roll on this social media drive to reward celebrity “superfans” such as Spike Lee with their own championship rings.
Movie star Kevin Hart got the ball rolling with a funny, expletive-filled post on Instagram this weekend, urging the Knicks to reward their No. 1 superfan.
“Shout out to Spike Lee, give Spike a ring. Spike deserves a fucking championship ring. I’m saying it here: Give Spike a New York Knicks championship ring. That motherfucker has been there for 76 years, in the front row. Spike has spent $17 million on New York Knicks games. Give Spike a fucking ring, man. Congrats. Congrats Spike. Yeah. Let’s go Spike!”
Lifelong Knicks fan Stephen A. Smith threw his support behind the proposal on X/Twitter, writing: “I completely support this for Spike Lee. No Knicks’ fan deserves this more than him.”
On Monday’s First Take, Smith noted Lee has spent millions as a Knicks season ticket holder since 1985. If there’s one fan who should get a ring, it’s Lee—but only Lee, said Smith.
Look, I give big credit to Lee for always cheering for his Knicks, home or away. Unlike many of the beautiful people, Lee put his money where his mouth is by buying his own season tickets for the last 41 years. The Oscar-winning director is there during losing seasons too, not just when the Knicks are making a run in the NBA Playoffs.
And, yes, there’s precedent for teams handing out ring bling to their biggest supporters; Raptors president Masai Ujiri gave superfan Nav Bhatia his own diamond-encrusted championship ring in 2016.
But here’s my take: Get a grip here, people. Call me a traditionalist, but championship rings should go to the players, coaches, and front office staffers who poured their blood, sweat, and tears into a title—not celebrity superfans like Lee. Not movie stars like Timothée Chalamet, or Ben Stiller, who seems to have appointed himself the president of the Knicks fanbase, complete with lectures on Twitter.
The presence of A-Listers like Lee, Chalamet, Stiller, Taylor Swift, and Jerry Seinfeld up and down Madison Square Garden’s courtside “Celebrity Row” certainly made ABC/ESPN’s NBA Finals coverage more interesting this year. The celebs became part of the story, supporting actors in a Knicks soap opera that stretched back to the Nixon Administration in 1973.
But some viewers—including me—grew a little tired of seeing the beautiful people during replays/timeouts. It’s bad enough that the biggest A-listers get their courtside seats at the Garden for free while real fans pay tens of thousands of dollars. But making the Knicks’ championship heroics about themselves, rather than the team, was a bridge too far.
WFAN sports radio host Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti spoke for many when they called Game 3 of the Finals at Madison Square Garden a “bougie-fest.” Noted Esiason: “Every Knicks game, we have to see every goddam celebrity there?…It’s about the Knicks. It’s not about them.”
When Stiller admitted he didn’t pay a dime for his Knicks tickets, Charles Barkley of Inside the NBA was stunned. Granted, Stiller is a true-blue Knicks fan who is working on a documentary about the team. But fans still ripped his “tone deaf” comments.
As one tweeted: “At the end of the day, we’re all Knicks fans. But knowing these people get the absolute best seats for free and have all their concessions comp’d kinda stings a little. It is what it is though. Pleb life.”
Speaking of Chalamet and Stiller, why were they celebrating in the Knicks locker room Saturday night like they were part of the club? Hell, Stiller hoisted the Knicks Larry O’Brien championship trophy while walking off with coach Mike Brown’s white board as a souvenir. Enough already.
So let’s keep the championship rings among the team as they should be. Because you never know what’s going to happen. Who can forget Eagles superfan Hart apologizing for his drunken attempt to crash Philadelphia’s Super Bowl trophy presentation in 2018? A burly NFL security guard blocked him from the stage.
“You know when alcohol’s in your system, you do dumb stuff,” explained Hart on Instagram. “Me trying to go onstage with the trophy is definitely one of the top two stupidest things I’ve ever done.”
So I don’t need to see Lee on the court with Jalen Brunson and his Knicks teammates when they get their rings this fall. Or Stiller and Chalamet piloting floats during the team’s championship parade down Manhattan’s Canyon of Heroes later this week.
As Lee himself might say: “Do the Right Thing.”
