Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Lord Castleton | Miscellaneous | June 15, 2026
In 2022, free agent Jalen Brunson signed a four year, $104 million dollar contract to join the New York Knicks, a figure which instigated a litany of mockery. It was an "overpay," smacking of "desperation," and represented the type of operational nearsightedness that had plagued the Knicks for half a century. Why would anyone ever give that much money to someone who was too small to ever be more than a "secondary" player?
No one is saying that now.
On Saturday night, Brunson did what felt like the impossible and led the Knicks to their first NBA championship in 53 years, winning the honor of finals MVP in the process. It's difficult to capture in words what this moment means to the people of New York and to every long-suffering Knicks true-believer worldwide. This was the San Antonio Spurs' series to win. Everything seemed to favor them, including much of the gameplay, where they often seemed to build up huge leads and outclass the Knicks. Prior to the finals, even with the Knicks coming in on a hot streak, platforms like DraftKings had the Spurs likelihood of victory hovering around 68%.
But that's why they play the games.
The craziness truly took hold in game four, when the Knicks somehow, someway, managed to erase what felt like a 9000 point lead to secure a last second victory.
I'm only a casual basketball fan and I still felt the electricity after a ridiculous comeback like that. "That's the best sports-related thing I've ever seen" texted a friend of mine who is particularly susceptible to recency bias. Nevertheless, the stage was set, and on Saturday the basketball gods allowed everyone outside of the greater San Antonio area a rare glimpse of unadulterated joy.
The storylines were abundant. The 53-year drought was the big one. The Western Jin Dynasty was only 52 years long, as was the Colombian Civil War, the Apollo Manned Lunar Program and the marriage of Warren and Susan Buffet. Hell, even the Cleveland Curse, finally overcome by the Cav's 2016 win was only 52 years long. And we're talkin' Cleveland.
So, yeah. The drought was no joke. Neither was the coach. Just eighteen months ago Mike Brown was unceremoniously fired as coach of the Sacramento Kings, and then he composed himself, refocused, and won a championship in his first season in New York. I wouldn't want to be in that particular plus/delta meeting in Sacramento. Or any meeting in Sacramento, now that I think of it.
There was also the "Nova Knicks" reunion, as Villanova teammates reunited under the Knicks banner and showed that college-tempered chemistry can still endure the heat of the NBA.
And, of course, there was fan favorite, seven-foot-tall Karl-Anthony Towns, who anchored the Knicks defense and grew up rooting for the Knicks, dreaming one day to win a title with them. He dedicated his championship to his late mother, Jacqueline Cruz-Towns, who passed away in 2020.
I asked my friend Orlando Bishop, a Brooklyn native and lifelong Knicks fan, to put his experience into words:
"I am 54 in July and I was, literally, in diapers the last time the Knicks won. And I thought I'd be diapers again before I would see this glorious moment. Seriously, everything about them is the essence of the city. A 6'1" point guard leading to a championship is, seriously, generational shit. Isaiah, Steph... DASSIT. Those elite ones. And he sacrificed $100m to give the org the money to build around him. You've got so much culture in the room that Dominicans and Puerto Ricans get to engage in public ribbing while the love that bonds the entire squad is on full display. And that 29 point comeback, quite seriously, improved my outlook on life a little. I didn't expect to feel all of this. But that team did more than represent what makes New York so fucking great... they embodied it."
The Knicks winning felt...great. It felt right. It felt like, unlike all the worst timeline bullshit we've been enduring, that good things can actually happen.
That's how the Super Bowl felt this year, too, when the Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots in a statement game that felt like everything was right in the world.
And I'm saying that as a Patriots fan.
When the Seahawks signed then defensive coordinator Mike MacDonald away from the Ravens in 2024, many people in Baltimore were devastated, aware that he was one of the most blue-chip parts of that program.
The Seahawks took a chance on former second overall pick Sam Darnold after Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell turned the former "bust" into a Pro Bowler. Once a cautionary tale, Darnold turned it around as a Viking, winning both Pro Football Writer's Association Most Improved Player as well as being voted by his peers as the Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year in 2024. Darnold wasn't even supposed to start. He was signed to be a backup to supposed wunderkind J.J. McCarthy, who tore his ACL before playing a snap for Minnesota.
Darnold was a revelation, and that's when it came time to pay him. The Vikes said no. Seattle said yes.
That's one of the best things about Seattle winning. Against the advice of coach O'Connell, who wanted to keep Darnold, the Vikings GM (now former GM) made a financial decision, where money was the central concern. Seattle paid on the dotted line, a process where a fundamental belief in the player pushed other concerns aside, valuing the player that they believed Darnold had become over the player he had once been.
To his credit, and despite a rocky start, Darnold didn't disappoint. As a football fan, I always find it simple to root for a team with both a coach and QB that you like. Seattle had Macdonald and Darnold. A 37 year old defensive guru and a quarterback that everyone had once left for dead. It was a no-brainer to like them. But could they wash away the awful taste of losing Super Bowl XLIX to the dreaded Patriots in the last 20 seconds of the game? They had the game in hand. They had the most unstoppable running back in the league. They were on the 2 yard line. All they had to do was pound it in and they would have won. But Russell Wilson stepped back and threw a quick slant that was picked off by the Patriots Malcolm Butler and that was it. I remember it vividly. Tom Brady threw four touchdowns and the Pats were still going to lose. Seattle had it. They had it. And then they somehow, someway, lost it.
It's a moment that is laser etched into the soul of every Seahawks fan. So, with a Patriots rematch in the big game, how did it feel?
I asked my friend Pete Chiarelli, a lifelong Seahawks fan, to write me a few words about how it felt to watch the Hawks win.
"I went into the season feeling good about the team. The coaches, the players, the scheme. My family had convinced ourselves that we had put together an amazing team, and that no one outside of Seattle was recognizing it. Then we lost the first game and had a rough start to the season and were completely written off. Still, the team wasn't rattled. And Sam Darnold kept throwing picks, but no one pointed fingers. They rallied around one another. Got better. Did all the things you would want your team to do. They did things the right way. And then they got on a roll. And my family is scattered all over the country, but we're texting each other all season, so excited about what we were seeing. And then to have this team run the table and beat all the teams that everyone said were going to beat us at the beginning of the year, AND to dominate the Super Bowl and win against the team that delivered the most heartbreaking loss that the city of Seattle had ever had. It was glorious. It's why you root for a team. The whole season was this kind of catharsis for my family, and for anyone who is a Seahawk fan. And honestly, it was a reminder that good things can happen to good people. And now, my brother and I will still text one another out of the blue and say "I can't believe we won the Super Bowl."
I remember watching the Super Bowl and realizing that the Patriots were outmatched. They just didn't have the players, the experience, or the coaching to compete. That's how it felt last night watching the Carolina Hurricanes play as close to a perfect game of hockey as I've ever seen, as they undressed the Las Vegas Golden Knights in Vegas, winning the Stanley Cup Finals in six games, 4-2.
But it wasn't headed that way, initially.
The Canes had been a benchmark of excellent play for years - in fact, over the last eight seasons, no team had won more games in the regular season and playoffs than the Carolina Hurricanes. Lots of people questioned whether or not former NHL star Rod Brind'Amour could get them over the finish line. They always seemed to come up short.
But not this year. This year they annihilated the first two teams they faced in the playoffs, beating the Ottawa Senators and the Philadelphia Flyers 4-0, 4-0, respectively. They had to wait eleven days for their side of the playoff bracket to catch up to them and when it did, they had to knock off a little rust, losing the opener to the Montreal Canadiens before winning four straight and heading to the Cup Final.
That's where things started to go wrong. League bad guys, the Las Vegas Golden Knights had somehow triumphed over a scrappy Utah team, then the Anaheim team that had knocked off the perennial contenders from Edmonton, before stunning the hockey world by trouncing the favored Colorado Avalanche in four straight games.
So, the finals were set. The most hated team in hockey vs one of most well-liked. Bullies vs Dorks. In the net for Vegas, Carter Hart, one of five players charged with a gang rape that rocked Canada Hockey. (Hart was later acquitted, but the stench of the incident will be forever tied to him.) Playing goalie for Carolina, Frederick Anderson, the 13 year NHL veteran and the very first Dane to play goalie in the NHL.
Coaching for Vegas, John Tortarella, one of the most polarizing coaches in NHL history, versus the Canes coach, Rod Brind'Amour, one of the most beloved players and coaches in recent memory. As a player he was known as "The Ultimate Competitor."
Captaining the Golden Knights is Mark Stone, a great player who unfortunately resembles a cartoon pirate, vs. Jordan Staal, a revered, 20 year veteran who epitomizes the concepts of hard work, leadership and teamwork.
You see where I'm going here.
It felt like kind of a binary option. Dark side vs Light Side.
But then Canes goalie Freddy Anderson got some terrible news before the Cup Finals. His close friend and long time agent, former NHL player Claude Lemieux, had taken his own life. The news hit Anderson hard.
"Claude made an unimaginable impact on me during the more than 15 years that he was a part of my life. I almost feel sorry for people who didn't have an opportunity to get to know him beyond his achievements and impact on the ice. As phenomenal as his hockey career was, he was an even better human being. From day one, he made me feel like I was a part of his family - treating me with care, compassion, loyalty and love as if I was his own son. He had a similar effect on members of my own family, leaving a lasting impression on every life that he touched.
"I cannot imagine the pain Claude was in, and I pray that he is in a better place now. My thoughts are with Deborah, Brendan, Claudia and the entire Lemieux family as we grieve together. Claude's spirit will remain in my heart, always." - Frederick Anderson
The Finals opened with Anderson giving up five goals. It was a huge departure from his career playoff Goals Against Average (GAA): 2.32. Still, just one game. The Canes lost 5-4. In game two they eked out a tight overtime win, but Anderson, long known as one of the most dependable goalies in the league, gave up three goals.
The series was tied 1-1. But something was wrong with Freddy. He had been on the business end of a coincidental hip check that fans speculated had given him a concussion, but the club had no comment. After Anderson gave up four goals in game three, coach Brind'Amour had seen enough. He made the bold call to bring in 27 year old "rookie" goaltender Brandon Bussi. Sitting Freddy Anderson for Brandon Bussi is like parking a Mercedes so you can drive some obscure electric car no one has ever heard of.
Look at this dude. That's not a hockey goalie! That's a gentle numbercruncher. That's a guy who writes grants for homeless vets. That is not a professional hockey player. Wait - that's gotta be Christopher Storer, who created THE BEAR, right?
No. He's a goalie. A real, honest-to-goodness goalie. He's a 6'4" kid who went undrafted, endured years of relative obscurity in the minor leagues and only moved up to the pros in October. It was a hell of a vote of confidence for Brind'Amour to believe in the long-time minor leaguer in the first place, but even more for him to play in the Stanley Cup finals. But the Canes had given up 13 goals in three games and needed a change.
So in comes a kid no one knows and puts on a clinic. There are no nerves. There are no butterflies. He blocks the cage like a seasoned pro, and thanks to a litany of mindblowing saves that took the wind out of the Golden Knights over and over again, the Canes won the Stanley Cup. Before he came into game three it looked like they were destined to lose. Once he was in front of the pipes, it felt like a certainty that they would win. That's the difference a red hot goalie makes.
I asked my friend Jane Robinson to write a few words about the Canes win.
"I grew up in Hartford in a family of die-hard Whalers fans and when they left the city everyone felt so empty. Hartford isn't exactly Paris, so we all knew that once a pro team left, they were never coming back. A year later my mom got a job in North Carolina and we ended up following the Whalers - now the Hurricanes - to Raleigh. I was still little and I remember going to my first Canes game. There was no one there. It was like a big, empty cave. The arena held 18,000 people and there were maybe two thousand of us there. It must have been awful for the team to play for an empty house all the time.
But gradually, word spread, and it's been kind of amazing to sort of become an adult when the Canes became a real franchise. Over the last two decades, the Canes fan base has gone from the worst to one of the best. They call us Caniacs now. The Hurricanes could be down by three goals and we never lose faith. We cheer like they're up by three. But still, we haven't won a Cup in 20 years, and eventually that gets to you. It felt like the same old story in the finals, where every bounce seemed to go to the Knights and then Freddy uncharacteristically started to let soft goals in and we would look at each other and think "oh no." But we kept cheering even as it felt like it was all slipping away. Bussi came in and that game went to double overtime. As a hockey fan, you know at that point no one is beating him fair and square. He was too good. That game ended with a flukey bounce off the boards that hit a player and then went in off the back of Bussi's leg. He never even saw it. People started to worry that we were cursed. But then - I don't know - it was like the old Canes came back. Guys started to play with more fun and more passion and after that it was like, I don't know - like everything clicked. There was no way we weren't going to win. I've been smiling for like twenty six hours. My face hurts. This is incredible."
One final note- when they present the Stanley Cup they give it to the captain, in this case Jordan Staal, who also won the Conn Smythe trophy for the playoffs MVP, and then he passes it to a player, who passes it to another, etc. Everyone gets to raise the Cup. But the order means something. When the Canes won, it was Jordan Staal, who, in the ultimate show of respect, handed it over to pulled goalie Freddy Anderson. It was a beautiful moment and a testament to the importance of teamwork. The cup went down the line, and eventually Brandon Bussi got to lift it, and when he was later interviewed, he commented the way you might expect of a mild mannered junior accountant, "I just played, what? Three and a half games? Freddy deserves most of the credit. He's the one who got us here. I love that guy."
So - in one calendar year, three of the four major American sports have been won by teams who weren't complete shitheels. Who knows? Maybe Major League Baseball will catch up someday.
Until then, it just feels good.
