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James Dolan called his shot.
Throughout the year, the Knicks owner expected his team to win its first NBA championship under his ownership.
“I would say we want to get to the Finals and we should win the Finals,” Dolan said on WFAN in January. “This is sports. Anything can happen in sports. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely got to do. Winning the Finals, we should win.”
On Wednesday before Game 4, Dolan doubled down on his prediction in a second interview with WFAN and predicted the Knicks’ historic 29-point comeback win, too.
“I expect to win tonight,” he said. “We’ll win tonight and we’ll win the Finals.”
On Saturday night, he was proven right.
The Knicks defeated the Spurs 94–90 in Game 5 on Saturday night in San Antonio, snapping a 53-year title drought. The weight of the moment was vividly on players’ faces, with Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Karl-Anthony Towns all shedding tears shortly after the final buzzer sounded. “Let’s Go Knicks” chants rained down on the Frost Bank Center as long-suffering fans celebrated. Brunson was named Finals MVP after scoring 45 points in the title-clinching game.
“Hey New York, I’m sorry it took so long,” Dolan said to Ernie Johnson. “But here we are and hopefully it won’t take that long again.”
New York is the NBA’s eighth champion in as many years, continuing the league’s unprecedented run of parity. The team went 16–3 in the playoffs and faced no elimination games throughout the run. The Knicks clinched every playoff series on the road.
Dolan, who took control of the franchise from his late father Charles in the late 1990s, had a reputation as one of the most meddlesome owners in American sports, and the Knicks spent much of the 21st century mired in mediocrity or worse.
Their fortunes started to change in 2020, when Dolan hired CAA agent Leon Rose to run the team.
Rose hired Tom Thibodeau as his first head coach. Thibodeau restored the Knicks to relevance and keyed consecutive 50-win seasons for the first time this century. Dolan fired Thibodeau at the end of last season despite the team’s first conference finals appearance in 25 years, and hired Mike Brown to replace him—a move that worked out spectacularly.
But none of it matters if the franchise didn’t lure Brunson away from the Mavericks in 2022.
Brunson has since become a New York legend.
Instead of building a roster through the draft, Rose built his around Brunson through multiple blockbuster trades. The other four starters were all acquired through trades: OG Anunoby (2023), Josh Hart (2023), Bridges (2024), and Towns (2024).
Rose and his front office also developed depth by hitting on multiple second-round picks such as Deuce McBridge and Tyler Kolek and got high-value out of fliers like Landry Shamet, who is perhaps the NBA’s best player on the veteran minimum this season.
The Knicks and the 2019 Raptors became the only NBA champions with four starters acquired via trades, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. New York also became the only team to start a Finals-clinching game with five players who weren’t drafted by the organization.
“Forget them picks,” Hart said during the trophy celebration.
Hart, Brunson and Bridges all won a national title together at Villanova in 2016 and became known as the “Villanova Knicks.” Ten years after their NCAA title, the trio won an NBA championship together.
Brunson and his father, Rick, an NBA veteran who is an assistant for the Knicks, became the first father-son duo to win an NBA championship together.
The playoff run has unleashed the Knicks as one of the biggest moneymakers in pro sports. One analyst estimated that this playoff run generated $145 million, with tens of millions left on the table because the Knicks wrapped up series so quickly.
Merchandise flew off shelves within MSG during Monday’s Game 3, with fans returning for Game 4 to see Finals shirts limited to two per customer.
Knicks fever took over New York City in June. Ticket prices rose to five-figures for the Finals and New York fans took over road arenas in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and even San Antonio.
Wild watch parties in midtown Manhattan near the arena became a flashpoint between Dolan and local officials, though the sides managed to figure out a watch party for Game 5 on Saturday night.
The controversy over cancelled watch parties outside MSG for Games 3 and 4 were another hurdle fans had to deal with to watch their team break its decades long title drought.
A year after the Finals included the first non-luxury tax matchup in 23 years, the Knicks won it all with the NBA’s second-highest payroll at $207 million. In August 2024, Brunson took a nine-figure discount on his contract extension to help the Knicks have the cap space to build a competitive roster. Bridges also took $3 million less with his contract extension last summer to do the same.
“Obviously this is no guarantee that we win a championship, right?” he said at a 2024 press conference announcing the extension. “This is just me wanting to do my part to help this team try and get one.”
Two years later, it paid off.
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