Photo by Jason Nocito
This interview took place the afternoon before game 1 of the NBA finals between the New York Knickerbockers and the San Antonio Spurs in San Antonio, Texas
PRE INTERVIEW
Ben Detrick: Andrew, Jesse
Down to roll at 1 our time if that works for Andrew
Looking Stupid: Works for me
Andrew Kuo: is jesse! Is this the interview?
Might as well roll?
LS: We could haha
BD: sure
LS: *rebooting like a robot at the carnival*
INTERVIEW
LS: Fellas. It’s the big day. How are we feeling? Are we feeling?
AK: nervous and insecure. Contempt for excited fans having “fun”
a “party”? what are we doing!?!?
LS: Right, all that insane yelling footage that started bubbling two years ago was borne out of being starved for anything to be excited about and now it’s time for fun?
AK: guess I’m the only Mamba in a sea of orange and blue SMDH
BD: Andrew is a wreck, I’m composed and keen-eyed
AK: Ben has no dawg in this fight
Basketball zen
LS: Ben, are you still a sixers man at heart?
These finals feel much more even than if it were the spurs next year or a healthier OKC
BD: It’s impossible for me to give up the ghost of Allen Iverson and the Process championship that never was—but 100% on board with the Knicks after Philly was rudely bounced from the playoffs
AK: wow we’re talking sixers now
Despite what we’ll all find out in the first 10, 15 or 30 minutes, this matchup feels good
LS: Andrew what do you mean by that, the first 10, 15 minutes
AK: I think the transitive property is all we have, despite the games NYK played vs SAS this year, and seeing the teams play, at this point in the season, will be telling. Let’s go!
waiting for the first player to wince or grab at their wrist, arm, back, knee, ankle or foot
rage-bait Wemby into a 3 game suspension. Sochan… become immortal
Never buy another slice again
BD: This has been a charmed run for the Knicks, in terms of ideal matchups and hitting their groove at their right time. The Spurs are really good, ferocious defensively, and have the next all-time great—but it still feels like that can exist within the context of a NY storybook postseason
Unless you’re bumbling around with the best roster in the solar system (like the Hamptons 5) playoff success mostly comes down to quasi-random things like injuries and vulnerable opponents. Being really good for enough of a window to take advantage of that one opportunity is how a lot of teams sneak a championship
Look, Boston proved it’s possible to win an asterisk title without a true superstar—it can be done!
I’m wondering which Spur with be loathed for life by Knicks fans after this series, In the lineage of Reggie, Trae, Embiid, etc
LS: Who do you have your money on?
LS: What do you guys think about the conversation around the game rn? It’s sort of comical that after the loudest year of “basketball is broken” we get a finals that works for fans and the league office I feel like
AK: I find most NBA chatter disingenuous and not worth the effort
BD: Basketball fans were moaning about flops and immoral basketball after game 5, which was like a week ago
Despite this being the greatest crowd-pleaser Finals since Cavs/Warriors, I’m sure that a bold new complaint will rise from the ashes of the current, temporary contentedness
AK: The fuck do I care that the ratings are up/down? The Knicks are in the Finals
LS: Ratings hawks are utterly bizarre to me I don’t get that phenomenon
It feels like a larger symptom of corporate sports seeing how much they can extract and it gets put into all these other blame silos
AK: yeah it’s the effect of not actual *psyops* but a corporate meddling that you can smell
rooting for the NBA over the NFL? GTFOH lol
BD: The league’s greatest weapon for extracting money from basketball fans is that the players and the game is great
AK: Alvarado vs castle. That’s what I like
LS: I think Castle could be the villain actually
In that way i could see him as a beloved Knick
AK: it was great when he was like “awno… I flop, too”
BD: Luke Kornet’s revenge, served cold
Darkhorse bet for villain: Keldon Johnson
AK: can anyone really be mad at Bismack?
Plumlee and Olynyk are on the roster tho
olynyk dislocating Love’s arm was very bad
BD: A mob of Sidetalk guys outside the Garden yelling about Luke Kornet and Magic City wings
LS: I find the sidewalk guy hate funny bc it’s so easy to ignore
Or is that vibe becoming insistent on itself
BD: I respect the enthusiasm, although it’s also something that’s become kind of meme-ified fan behavior
LS: Has the conversation around basketball getting so dumb contributed to you guys using cookies to focus on street ball and tournaments and actually playing the game?
AK: it’s just the evolution of sports radio. same characters respawning. they’re a constant not to be taken seriously unless that kind of vibe is what you like
BD: It doesn’t have the spontaneity of the original incarnation but it’s also harmless
AK: i think great convos are still out there to be had but being selective of your attention is a skill that’s becoming more valuable
also, i’ll have a stupid convo with anyone who’s nice. I am a participant in stupid convos. i have dumb thoughts for days
BD: My frustration is only with the repetition of bad takes. I like bad takes, but not when it’s the same point being reissued to the point of it being conventional thought
AK: i think men are lonely and reach out for commonality. it’s hard getting older. Brunson is no Jordan
LS: I think the fact that there’s no Jordans anymore is a clear demarcation that time and society have moved on from a moment, right? He was such a particular kind of psycho I don’t know if we have the societal buy in to produce those, and that’s ok too lol
Actually it’s striking how many spurs and Knicks just kinda seem chill? Even KAT has mellowed out in ny
BD: In the book we had a section about “Jordan Originalism” which is the idea of that prototype being recycled endlessly as (the) basketball ideal. I don’t think there’s someone who exactly fits that mold, but people will always want it. If Brunson or Wemby has an ice-cold moment in the Finals, they might just be wedged into that MJ mold by the public
AK: Wemby’s trying to mine a few tropes, including Jordan’s. i don’t think it’s working. Giannis also tries this
LS: Wemby is so physically singular its hard for him to use some else’s playbook, at least to me
AK: to jesse’s point, where’s the new character. is it the corporate chess piece in Brunson
BD: It’s also worth remembering that a lot of fans—especially those who actually remember MJ as a player and not as a sneaker brand—are like twice as old as NBA stars
LS: Exactly, the world was *so different*
AK: there’s safety in death… no beatles fan is unsure. basquiat is a god
LS: So the key to the 2026 NBA finals isn’t necessarily to win or lose but to die a noble death hahaha
BD: We haven’t seen a noble death yet in the playoffs. As one of the Chapo guys described it, every round a superstar gets jammed into the wicker man
AK: is there dignity anywhere? scorsese is gettin torched
LS: I think the noble death is super disappointing because it looks like Haliburton last year, or Klay at the line before he limped off
BD: Haliburton was only a noble death because people wanted OKC to lose
So his death cheapened an enemy’s victory
AK: you have to be handsome. kobe and MJ get that fate
Edwards
LS: Edwards is the one people love to wish cast on to the most
AK: what if he looked like sochan, with respect to sochan
Josh, why is Jose a Broke Boy. WHY IS HE A BROKE BOY
LS: Did you guys really think there was something notably worse about the way OKC played basketball this year vs the rest of the league?
AK: fuck naw. OKC is awesome and the refs have to tighten their shit up
BD: I think SGA is guilty of selling calls, but the reality is also that he takes a ton of shots because of the pace of the game
AK: the thunder played the game
SGA is bad at flopping. he makes it too obvious
BD: I just blame the refs—stop giving players those calls if you don’t like it. Punish them for it
AK: it’s like blaming the customer for the market
BD: From these conversations about flopping, it’s very strange that free throws are proportionately at their lowest amount ever in NBA history
AK: and a proporation of “flops” weren’t even flops. if you look for something, you will find it. a travel-truther only sees steps
LS: To me, by game 5 or 6 of the western conference finals, it seemed that the refs were sorta over it and calling way less, idk if the stats back that up
That was my unstudied couch analysis
BD: It’s also very clear that the refs can totally dictate the amount of scoring simply by choosing what to enforce and at what extent. We hear a lot of grief about too much scoring and then voila, teams are scoring 95 a game because the refs decide to let them play more
LS: The more we talk about it the more I wonder if people are just made at human variance which…if you don’t have that what is the game?
BD: Maybe the enlightened position is that the heaps of abuse and fury are just necessary noise to accompany people caring about the outcome of games
LS: It’s just emotional c02 haha
AK: it’s impossible to achieve sports enlightenment because, at some point, something has to matter
LS: Regardless of outcome, what do you guys want out of this year’s finals? As basketball fans and I guess as New York residents
AK: i want the Knicks to crush the souls of every Spurs employee/player who ever existed
BD: Zen is great when you don’t have real stakes. That’s why being a fan of a terrible team is fake misery—it’s the easiest thing to do
AK: i want definition. i want happiness
i will get none of those things
BD: I want to see Andrew weep, preferably in joy
AK: I want justification, which I know is impossible
i am stoic. like wemby in washington sq park
BD: I want to see this gradual insanity of the city boil over, during the court of the next week
AK: i want sports peace, but have seen no proof it exists