{"id":751290,"date":"2026-06-03T10:09:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/751290\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T10:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T10:09:27","slug":"only-a-new-yorker-could-love-the-knicks-the-san-antonio-spurs-are-americas-team-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/751290\/","title":{"rendered":"Only a New Yorker could love the Knicks. The San Antonio Spurs are America’s Team | Opinion"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA Finals haven\u2019t even begun<\/a> and already the fixation with the New York Knicks<\/a> is exhausting.<\/p>\n

Did you know this is their first trip to the Finals since 1999? Did you know they haven\u2019t lost in more than a month? Did you know they have the most famous fans<\/a> in the world? Did you know tickets<\/a> to games at Madison Square Garden cost more than a car?<\/p>\n

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Stahhhhhp.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for folks who aren\u2019t Knicks fans, which is pretty much the rest of the country, New York\u2019s opponents in these Finals are the San Antonio Spurs<\/a>, who might just be the most down-to-earth team in the NBA.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Spurs are America’s team in the NBA Finals<\/p>\n

They\u2019re small market and worth about half what the Knicks are. Their nickname does not bring instant recognition. Their arena does not have name recognition in their own state, let alone the whole world. Their most famous fans are nuns<\/a>, not celebrities.<\/p>\n

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And while Victor Wembanyama is the undisputed future of the NBA<\/a>, he\u2019s an unassuming superstar.<\/p>\n

Instead of hanging out with Kardashians, Wemby spent last off-season with monks<\/a>. While not an actual alien, he is interested in outer space and can talk at length about it. He\u2019s responsible for an uptick in reading<\/a> in San Antonio, for goodness sake.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are what you want in a championship team.<\/p>\n

The Knicks are \u2026 what New York wants in a championship team.<\/p>\n

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Knicks are a team only New Yorkers can love<\/p>\n

Every sport has at least one team that everyone else loves to hate. The Dallas Cowboys in the NFL. The New York Yankees in Major League Baseball. Duke in men\u2019s basketball.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s usually a byproduct of success, a toxic owner or an arrogant fan base. In the Knicks\u2019 case, it\u2019s a little bit of everything. Well, maybe not the success part. Not lately, at least. But the owner and the fan base more than make up for that.<\/p>\n

1 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship<\/a> against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Knicks last reached the NBA Finals in 1999, falling to the San Antonio Spurs, and are seeking their first championship since defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in 1973.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

1 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship<\/a> against the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Knicks last reached the NBA Finals in 1999, falling to the San Antonio Spurs, and are seeking their first championship since defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in 1973.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

2 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

3 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

4 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

5 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

A Knicks fan celebrates winning the Eastern Conference championship against the Cleveland Cavaliers on May 25, 2026.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

6 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

7 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

A Knicks fan celebrates his team’s sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers with a broom.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

8 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

A Knicks fan celebrates winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

9 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

10 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

A Knicks fan celebrates winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)\"\"<\/p>\n

11 \/ 11<\/p>\n

New York Knicks fans take to the streets to celebrate reaching NBA Finals<\/p>\n

Knicks fans celebrate winning the Eastern Conference championship.<\/p>\n

(David Dee Delgado, Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Longtime Knicks owner James Dolan is easily the worst owner in the NBA<\/a>. With Dan Snyder having sold the Washington Commanders, he can make a case for worst owner in all of sports.<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s picked fights with superfan Spike Lee and Knicks legend Charles Oakley. He provided cover for Isiah Thomas<\/a> after he was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Dolan treated his WNBA team like something he found on the bottom of his shoe.<\/p>\n

Dolan also has reportedly used surveillance technology to track those who are critical of him and ban them from Madison Square Garden in retaliation. Even Knicks fans hate the man.<\/p>\n

As for those fans, they\u2019re brash, they\u2019re loud and, let\u2019s be honest, they\u2019re a little arrogant. And that\u2019s just Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet! New Yorkers see New York as the center of the universe and don\u2019t have much use for anything outside the five boroughs.<\/p>\n

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Maybe New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

That kind of smugness is as annoying as a pebble in a shoe to people who aren\u2019t from New York. Since we can\u2019t take our irritation out on the city itself, its teams become the proxy. The Knicks, the Yankees, the Mets, the Rangers \u2014 whoever they\u2019re playing becomes everybody else\u2019s second-favorite team.<\/p>\n

(Yes, I know I left out the Giants and the Jets. They\u2019re too pathetic to hate.)<\/p>\n

And if it\u2019s the post-season? The loathing ratchets up to another level.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

San Antonio Spurs are easy to root for<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to San Antonio.<\/p>\n

The Spurs are an incredibly likeable team on their own. This is the franchise of David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich. This is the franchise that showed it really is possible for people from all corners of the world to work together. This is the franchise that has Wemby, who is revolutionizing the game in real time while also being an utterly decent human.<\/p>\n

San Antonio\u2019s bandwagon would need extra room regardless of who they were facing in the Finals. That they\u2019re playing the Knicks makes them America\u2019s Team.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

C’mon Spurs. Do the rest of the country a solid. The last thing anyone needs is to give New York another reason to brag about itself.<\/p>\n

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour. <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: San Antonio Spurs are America’s Team in NBA Finals. NY fans can have the Knicks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA Finals haven\u2019t even begun and already the fixation with the New York Knicks is exhausting. Did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":751291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[92295,7,4930,3237,304,2318,6,1136,191,8251,3810,3806,969,474,2594,1674,693,10293],"class_list":["post-751290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-knicks","tag-america39s-team","tag-basketball","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-james-dolan","tag-knicks","tag-mets","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkknicks","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-the-spurs","tag-tim-duncan","tag-victor-wembanyama","tag-washington-commanders"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116685633610791083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751290","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=751290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/751291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}