2026 New York Liberty
124 · 2026-06-14 · medium
"You lose and lose and lose and lose... and someday, baby, you win." Before Ellen Etchingham deleted her Theory of Ice blog from the internet – which used to be the kind of thing that got folks really, really angry – she wrote my favorite essay ever about the Post-Dynasty Era. The 21st Century has more free agency, more competitive balance mechanisms, more numbered and named contract rules than ever before. Her point was that even though the NHL had become a weighted random number generator, it also meant that everyone gets a parade if they manage to live long enough. "The Stanley Cup, in its own tiny, silvery mind, is the most pure-hearted and charitable creature in this whole bloody mess of a game," she wrote. "A joy for the victorious, a hope for the rest. The Cup exists not only to reward the winners, but to keep us all on the ice, despite all the losing." Anyway, basketball. When Adam Silver said last week that the NBA is not necessarily trying to have a different champion every year, I immediately entered Etchingham Mindset. I'd wager take a prediction-market contract that the Larry O'Brien Trophy, awarded to 19 different teams since it debuted in 1977, disagrees with the guy who gives it away. In its own tiny, golden mind, it just wants to make people happy. When New Yorkers run around in the streets chanting my mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish, it smiles extra-wide because Larry was a true-blue East Coast liberal. Someday, baby. My teenage decision to follow the New York Knicks represented a teenage rebellion. My father had been there for all sixteen Boston Celtics banners, so this was like coming home one afternoon and saying "Dad, I'm gay." There's me in January 1989, walking downtown from Madison Square Garden instead of taking the 1 train, so I could listen to Forever Your Girl on my blue Walkman with the orange ear puffs. It's the Rick Pitino era, the middle of a win streak, and I just paid five bucks to sit with the dockworkers up in the obstructed blues. Michael Jordan would average 35 and 9 and rip the Knicks' guts out in the conference semis, but whatever. My attachment to the Rangers was the one that stuck, and I was at the University of Oregon when they won their first Stanley Cup in 54 years. "This one will last a lifetime!" Sam and J.D. were right, because that was 32 years ago. I pivoted to college hoops, I didn't die in peace, and those are the two primary reasons you're reading these words right now. What I'm doing right now is watching Stephen A. Smith on ESPN (via the Armed Forces Network) at 8 a.m. local time, babble-drooling about how much this means to him as a lifelong New Yorker, and getting the basic Wikipedia-level timeline of the last 53 years wrong. I suppose there's an Earth-2 where I'm standing on the corner of Greenwich and Jane with my shirt off and my chest painted orange, but no, no, I'm somewhere else now. When I came back East at the turn of the century, after the first round of major MSG renovations, I split a Rangers season ticket with some option-trader buddies, but I never went to any Knicks games. I did, however, see the Lobo Liberty a few times every summer. There's me in August 2002, walking downtown from Madison Square Garden instead of taking the 1 train (limited service due to 9/11) so I could listen to The Meadowlands on my first-generation iPod. It's the Richie Adubato era, the middle of a losing streak, and I just paid five bucks to sit with a whole row to myself up in the newly-sterilized 400 level. When the Liberty won the WNBA in 2024 after 27 years of waiting, I felt more in that moment than I feel right now. All I can say, to paraphrase Sam Rosen, is that New York better damn well pleasenjoy this... because this one will last a lifetime. Someday, baby is today. The chances of this sprawling Jenga city replicating itself – this exact pattern of ACL tears, a top-seed wipeout in the East, a spate of OKC injuries including but not limited to Chet Holmgren's non-contact CTE in the West finals – are somewhere around Iga Swiatek's chances of repeating as Wimbledon champion next month. Everyone gets a parade, and that means everyone. The New York Liberty will win another title before the New York Knicks do, and it might even be in 2026 because it's Hoop Girl Summer. Oh, and what's Ellen Etchingham doing these days, anyhow? She's about to win a Stanley Cup.