Knicks<\/a> guard grew up just steps from the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues \u2014 close enough to watch the area change in real time, long before an NBA arena reshaped the borough.<\/p>\nLong before it reshaped his neighborhood.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Fort Greene] got expensive,\u201d Alvarado said after practice ahead of his first game at Barclays Center as a Knick. \u201cMy grandma still lives there, my dad\u2019s mom. She lives in the projects right there down the street from Fort Greene. She still lives there. So me and my dad we go visit. We could walk there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember it being a train station. Obviously, it got developed to a nice city area.\u201d<\/p>\n
That transformation mirrors Alvarado\u2019s own path.<\/p>\n
Like many New Yorkers, he didn\u2019t grow up expecting Brooklyn to house an NBA franchise. And he certainly didn\u2019t expect to one day return to that same neighborhood wearing a Knicks jersey.<\/p>\n
Not after leaving the city to play at Georgia Tech.<\/p>\n
Not after going undrafted in 2021.<\/p>\n
Not after grinding his way into a reputation as one of the league\u2019s most disruptive point-of-attack defenders.<\/p>\n
And not, especially, as a hometown player crossing borough lines to play for New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cNah, nah, I didn\u2019t really think of that,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think none of this. I didn\u2019t think I was going to be playing for the Knicks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Friday marked a full-circle moment.<\/p>\n
Alvarado logged 13 minutes in the Knicks\u2019 one-point victory over the Nets, finishing with two points, two assists and a steal in front of a crowd filled with familiar faces \u2014 friends, family, and a community that watched him grow up just minutes from the arena floor.<\/p>\n
For one night, the hometown kid returned as the opponent.<\/p>\n
The villain.<\/p>\n
And in the lead-up, the requests came with it.<\/p>\n
\u201c[They have] not yet, but they know that [game is] coming, and they\u2019re going to ask for tickets soon,\u201d he said. \u201cI might just do it this time because it\u2019s my first time with the Knicks in Brooklyn, but I\u2019m usually a no guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s learned to manage that part of the job.<\/p>\n
Quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI set the tone of just knowing that it\u2019s not free tickets. I definitely want to focus on the game,\u201d he said. \u201cSo as is, I just tell them if you want to support, I\u2019ll take care of sometimes, but you better go buy your own tickets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, there was no mistaking what the night meant.<\/p>\n
A return home. A reminder of how far he\u2019s come. And a chance to take it all in \u2014 even briefly \u2014 before the next game, the next city, the next moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s cool. It\u2019s just cool all the time to play with a Knicks jersey on,\u201d he said, \u201cbut obviously playing at Brooklyn, playing against Brooklyn pretty special.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a kid from down the street, I was raised probably 10 minutes down the street from Barclays center. So it\u2019s going to be a lot of family members, just a good energy in there. Just have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time for a pop quiz, New Yorkers: What was Barclays Center before it was Barclays Center? Jose Alvarado…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3767],"tags":[7,670,247,3803,11053,304,6,671],"class_list":{"0":"post-673420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brooklyn-nets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn","10":"tag-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-brooklynnets","12":"tag-jose-alvarado","13":"tag-knicks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116275316756708934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}