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Tag Archives: Victor Wembanyama

This Is How It Feels

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June 16, 2026
America, Basketball, NBA
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We all got it slightly wrong. After the first round, it was never Knicks in six, as poetic as the phrase imminently is. It was Knicks in ’26.

Down double-digits yet again at halftime, I nevertheless had full confidence, after all of what we’d already seen, that the New York Knicks were going to win the championship. I told Megan, Steve and anybody else who would listen. They believed, for they had also borne witness.

Believe though I did that this would be the ultimate outcome, more or less for the transitive property than for any other reason once the San Antonio Spurs literally and metaphorically got the Oklahoma City Thunder out of the paint, I was nervous for every one of these games.

Only at the final whistle on Saturday night did I feel an unfamiliar warmth in the familiar heat of the East Village. We marched from Avenue A up to Madison Square Garden, high-fiving strangers and chanting the various Knicks chants. This is why you live in New York City. This is when it feels like nine million become one, for this team, on a gorgeous June night. The country’s biggest city became not much more than one giant neighborhood for the duration of this run. All the pieces matter.

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“Everyone’s Pretty Excited”

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June 12, 2026
Basketball, NBA, Sports
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“Everybody stayed.”

After the fact, once we’d escaped the throngs of the initial wave down one avenue, and eventually to another, it was a pointed observation about the bar on 40th Street where we’d taken in the entire occasion. When it looked in doubt, New York Knicks fans retreated to scornful, Costanza-esque chuckles and the related feeling of having been kicked in the head while retaining no visible bruises.

But all of those fans stayed to watch the second half. After everything so far in this playoff run, it seemed fair. Sometimes, the celestial reward arrives. Better yet: sometimes the celestial reward arrives in the form of a huge fan of scarves, Anne Hathaway and Olympic gymnastics.

Taking advantage of a momentarily-paralyzed San Antonio Spurs backline, OG Anunoby floated down the lane and, more quickly than the eyes nor camera could capture, tipped in a Jalen Brunson missed three to put the Knicks up one. Thanks to Anunoby et al., there is now a basketball Hand Of God – Pope Leo notably having gone to Villanova – and it was perfectly legal. One Karl-Anthony Towns-led defensive stop later, and the Knicks of New York are up in the NBA Finals, 3-1.

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In The Costume Of A Monk

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June 10, 2026
Sports
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In stark contrast to my circumstances during Game 2, I was hyper-aware, too much even, during Game 3. Standing in a midtown east bar with ex-college roommates and friend of the program Shannon, most of us decked out in blue and orange, I couldn’t avoid it had I tried: the standard slow Knicks start; the comeback and halftime lead (!); and, finally, Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle grinding San Antonio to its first NBA Finals game win since 2014, 115-111, cutting the Knicks lead to 2-1 in the series.

As his scoring has increased in each game, so has Wemby’s interior presence. Despite Karl-Anthony Towns’ stout defense carrying into Game 3, Victor was above the rim and closer to it more often than he had been all series. He had three blocks and generally seemed calmer than he had in either of the games back in San Antonio, though his uncharacteristically vengeful shove on Jalen Brunson, and subsequent mocking of him, might not all the way fit into the Shaolin lifestyle.

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2000-Zero-Zero

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June 2, 2026
Sports
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This is it: it’s time for us to go to the wire. With one team having punched its ticket to the championship round over a week ago, and the other having had to punch its way through the widely-regarded toughest matchup in the league, the NBA Finals are finally set. For the first time since 2014, the San Antonio Spurs are returning to what’s become familiar ground since 1999.

At the same time, for these Spurs as well as the rest of the NBA, it is new territory because, for the eighth time in the last eight seasons, there will be a non-repeat NBA champion. None of the San Antonio players has even won a playoff series as a member of this franchise before this season. Parity being Adam Silver’s singular objective for the first decade of his stewardship of basketball bodes well for the league’s shift into international markets, at least as a roadmap. All anyone needs is a roadmap.

If Victor Wembanyama has anything to do with it, though, that tide may soon turn. Has he arrived ahead of schedule, or perhaps have his teammates? Is San Antonio going to auger in a new period of parity before it had a chance to launch? The short answer: not if Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks have anything to say about it in the next three weeks.

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The Gravel Beneath You And The Limbs Above

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May 19, 2026
Sports
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AP/Tony Gutierrez

On the same night as the cocaine-parachute-helicopter experience that is overtime playoff hockey, a Game 7 no less, the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder began their long-anticipated Western Conference Finals series in tantamount fashion. On the same night, even, when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was celebrating his second consecutive NBA MVP, Victor Wembanyama showed why his bronze finish this year might be the lowest he turns in for the next decade, give or take.

Despite Chet Holmgren’s stunning block at the end of regulation on Victor, the latter had much of the final rire. Wemby finished with 41 points, 23 rebounds, three blocks, three assists and a game-high +16 in San Antonio’s 122-115 win in double-OT. Previously undefeated in the playoffs, the Thunder have run into a familiar pain, with no ideal salve in immediate sight.

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Prelude, 2026

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April 17, 2026
Basketball, NBA
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On Tuesday night, the NBA put forth the best opening night of the play-in era by a considerable margin. Opening proceedings, the Miami Heat met the Charlotte Hornets, the former with its ostensibly altruistic #HeatCulture, the latter with a singularly special do-everything point guard who should possibly only drive and also never drive again. 

To the former: a last-second layup from LaMelo Ball extinguished the Heat, setting up a date with fellow division rivals the Orlando Magic, themselves at a team crossroads going into the summer. Charlotte enters ablaze. Well, the thing with Bam, whatever happened there–

In the late game, Jrue Holiday reminded you that he’s won NBA championships, plural, in past lives, delivering the Portland Trail Blazers to a land that nobody promised: the 7-seed, to face off against the San Antonio Spurs. Frustratingly, and despite their best efforts, the Phoenix Suns remain in the present. Courtesy of the Wednesday game, Phoenix now has the opportunity to face the Golden State Warriors, fresh off a deconstruction of Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers.

Standing two games away from us, finally, are the NBA playoffs. Breathe in; exhale.

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One To Remember

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December 22, 2025
America, Basketball, Gambling, NBA, Sports
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TITLE! I meant *title! The New York Knicks were going to win the title this year, and what I meant when I said “2026” was “2025,” and what I meant by “NBA championship” was, actually, the NBA Cup[1], by far the most exclusive and wonderful of the annual basketball trophies. Down twelve in the third against a Victor Wembanyama-led team that had already defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Knicks came back to win the Cup final 124-113.

In what amounted to a single-elimination tournament held far enough away from anything familiar to make it feel neutral in mid-December, New York beating San Antonio in Nevada seems like a warning shot. Along with the rest of the league, NBA commissioner Adam Silver continues to eye Las Vegas as a potential expansion site, if only they would seriously consider it.

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You Know You Sometimes Lie

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February 3, 2025
America, Basketball, NBA, Olympics
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“I don’t do anything that’s scary.” – Nico Harrison, Dallas Mavericks general manager, February 2nd, 2025, right after taking one of the wildest, most inexplicable swings in NBA history.

Firstly, no: I have no idea why the Dallas Mavericks would do this, “this” being trading Luka Dončić for Anthony Davis, which is exactly what they did late Saturday night. Secondly, yes: I do think LeBron and Luka can work it out as an oversized Tatum-Brown spanning generations and leading a dynamite offense, if only anybody on the Lakers could defend anymore. 

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You Might Say I’m Unlearned

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December 28, 2024
America, Blues, Folk, Movies, Music, Politics, Pop, Pop Culture, Religion, Rock
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One thing that you need to know about my viewing of A Complete Unknown was that I saw it with a couple of coworkers from college work-study in the heart of Times Square on Christmas Day. Later on that night, I ate some of the best risotto I’ve ever had at the home of a separate college friend from the same job in Astoria. It was a normal day, before I rung the fallout shelter bell.

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