Are the Knicks the Notre Dame Football of the NBA?
We've all heard the jokes about the Notre Dame football-New York Yankees-Dallas Cowboys-Los Angeles Lakers fan that only likes the most popular teams in any sport.
Yes, rich histories are also a big part of each of those, but the popularity of each is unmatched in any sport (although the Los Angeles Dodgers are probably closer to the Yankees than previously thought possible).
It's not the Yankees from New York that has me thinking about what a Notre Dame football national championship would be like, but instead the New York Knicks - this of course with the Knicks being just one win away from an NBA championship for the first time in over 50 years.
New York Knicks' Large Dislike ability for Years
I grew up watching the 90's NBA and there was no greater villian than the New York Knicks.
Sure, everyone got sick of losing to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls back then (besides the couple of Houston Rockets years in there), but nobody was more disliked than Pat Riley's Knicks.
Whether it was John Starks, Patrick Ewing, Anthony Mason, Hubert Davis, or any other of them, they played rough and were always a pain to watch your team try and get through.
They were also talked about as being such a prized jewel of a franchise, yet have only won two NBA championships all-time.
The stars are out for Game 4 at Madison Square Garden pic.twitter.com/RWmvsJAQ5w
- NBA (@NBA) June 11, 2026
Essentially, the hype doesn't meet the success, yet we're fed the storylines of the New York Knicks seemingly every year.
And with that, I can't stop thinking about how this is about as close to Notre Dame football winning a national championship as we'll ever get, until the Fighting Irish finally pull off the feat again one day.
Notre Dame Football Would Feel Similar Nationally
If you're a Notre Dame football fan, you're like a New York Knicks fan right now.
No matter your age, at the very least, the majority of your life you have heard about "the good old days".
For the Knicks that's Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Bill Bradley and the boys.
For Notre Dame fans, that's Tony Rice, Chris Zorich, Rocket Ismail, and the rest of that 1988 national championship squad.
For both, it's been a really stinking long time.
This run has gotten me to do the impossible: I find myself actually hoping the New York Knicks, the sports team I despised more than any during my childhood, finish the job and win it all.
Real #swifties know Taylor Swift was a Notre Dame fan long before the Chiefs pic.twitter.com/PhpHImXG9y
- Sports Talk Drew (@SportsTalkDrew) February 7, 2024
And I have a strange feeling that if Notre Dame can make another deep run in the College Football Playoff one day soon, that a large portion of its naysayers nationally will change their tune and be pulling for the Irish to finally finish the job for the first time in almost 40 years.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/notredame as Are the Knicks the Notre Dame Football of the NBA?.
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This story was originally published June 11, 2026 at 6:24 PM.