Mamdani's Great Knicks Speech
This section gave me chills:
If you will allow me, I want to travel back in time eight days. Four minutes and 33 seconds left in the fourth quarter. The Knicks are down 20. The analytics guys, the sports-betting companies, the pundits who watch from far away β they do what they do. They run the numbers. They calculate the odds. They write the Knicks off. They give the Spurs a 99.6% chance of winning the game, a 99.6% chance of tying up the series 2β2, of reclaiming the momentum with the next game in San Antonio, a 99.6% chance of silencing the Garden, of another year of watching and waiting. But there is one thing that the pundits just don't get about this team, that they just don't get about this city. It is in that 0.4% that we go to work. It is in that 0.4% that Jalen Brunson, the same guy that so many said was too small, believes that not only is he good enough, he is the new standard for greatness. It is in that 0.4% that OG Anunoby watches the ball float from the top of the arc and starts running toward the basket, fingers reaching towards the heavens. It is in that 0.4% that Karl-Anthony Towns finds the strength to mourn his mother and still pull in rebound after rebound, make block after block. It is in that 0.4% that Jose Alvarado shows every kid in public housing that a son of Brooklyn and Queens can win for every one of the five boroughs. It is in that 0.4% that Mitch breaks his finger before game one and says, go get the tape. It's in that 0.4% that Josh Hart gets rebounds that break teams, that Mikal Bridges proves he was worth every single draft pick. Landry Shamet pulls up from downtown, every one of these 18 players transforms the franchise. That Mike Brown keeps this team believing. Most of all, it's in that 0.4% that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done when we are told something is impossible. We find a way. We win. Being here before what feels like the entire city, there is a Jalen Brunson quote I can't stop thinking about. I'm going to tell you. "You are allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you've got to go out there and do something about it." When Jalen Brunson took that pay cut, my friends, that was doing something about it. Time after time, we thought about the worst possible scenario. And time after time, the Knicks went out there and did something about it. The Knicks did not just win for New York City. They won like New York City. What is New York if not your back up against the wall, a dream that feels just out of reach, a rent payment you don't know how you'll ever make? What is New York if not 99.6% of the world stacked against you? And who are New Yorkers if not people who hear those odds and smile? Who look at a 0.4% chance of success and ask, why are you giving me a head start?
