WAITING

My dear friend’s 11-year-old son, let’s call him Sonny, is becoming quite the New York Knickerbockers fan. He stays up as late as he can for the West Coast games clandestinely on his phone, wears his Number 3 Josh Hart jersey proudly whenever and wherever he can and has successfully cajoled his father into a couple of decent seats at the Garden the past few years.

Been there, done that.

Sure, I caught those Lakers games on a transistor radio, had no wearable merch I can recall and had two years to go before I’d make my first trip to 32nd and Seventh.

But I get the feeling.

There is nothing like being a Knicks fan. Just ask one. So many highs, so many more lows. We are often described as long suffering.

I like the term waiting better than suffering. It’s more accurate. Yes, there have been seasons to forget. Really decades, the 1980s and the 2000s for the most part, where the teams lost many more than they won, and add in a couple of hard to forget 17-win seasons in 2015 and 2019. Seasons that proved that you cannot just throw money at a problem. But for the most part, in their long and storied history---yes, storied, for the Knicks have had larger than life characters and drama enough to light up the Post’s back pages these past 80 years---the Knicks have been competitive and entertaining.

I was 18 years old when the Knicks won their second and last NBA Championship in May of 1973 and my hero Walt Frazier was 28 years old. I’m now 70 and Clyde’s 80 and we’re both waiting.

It was a different time. Very different. Knicks coach Red Holzman used to come with his wife into a Long Island restaurant I worked at for a quiet dinner on a regular basis. He was indistinguishable from the local attorneys, accountants and garment salesmen seated at adjacent tables.

Tomorrow evening the Knicks will try to close out a spectacular, hard-fought series against the up-and-coming Detroit Pistons in the fourth time these two original NBA teams have met in the playoffs. There has been an edge to this series that harks back to 1984’s Bernard King versus Isaiah Thomas (Knicks 3 games to 2 in the Eastern Conference First Round), 1990’s Bad Boys Championship Redux (Pistons 4 games to 1 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals) and 1992’s Badder Boys Beat Bad Boys (Knicks 3 games to 2 in the Eastern Conference First Round).

More importantly than any of that, we owe a lifelong debt of gratitude to these very same Detroit Pistons. They were the team who sent us Dave DeBusschere in exchange for the more than capable players Walt Bellamy and Howard Komives on December 19, 1968. Not only was the new Knick a terrific defender and fine shooter with all of the intangibles, his arrival allowed Willis Reed to move from power forward to center where he thrived. Those Knicks, often considered to this day a prime example of teamwork and camaraderie, would win their first championship a year and a half after the trade.

Coming back to Sonny, he is very excited. Sonny, this is only the First Round. Three more rounds to go. How much of the past do you know? How much do you need to know?

They say those who don’t know their history are doomed to repeat it. Can’t we just ignore that maxim for the purpose of a new fan’s budding life passions?

Can’t we revel in our star Jalen Brunson’s coming back from what seemed like another rolling leg disaster to pour in 15 points in the 4th quarter of yesterday afternoon’s one-point victory in Detroit? Can’t we just wink at each other when the NBA review folks acknowledge that former Knick Tim Hardaway, Jr. was fouled at game’s end and should have been awarded three foul shots?

How much does Sonny need to know?

Do we tell him that despite management’s moves for KAT, OG, Brunson, and Mikal, the Celtics, Cavs and Thunder seem mountains too high to climb? No need, he’s seen the season series in which the Knicks went 0 and 10 against those teams.

Do we tell him about the ghosts? MJ, Pippen, Shaq, Kobe, Duncan, Olajuwon, Lebron, Miller? Bernard King’s untimely ACL tear in ’85? Charles Smith’s four consecutive layup flubs against the Bulls in ’93? John Starks’s 2 for 18 in Game 7 of the ’94 NBA Finals against the Rockets? Reggie Miller’s 8 points in the closing seconds of Game 1 and Patrick Ewing’s finger-roll miss at the end of Game 7 in against the Pacers in ‘95?

No, we do not. We cheer and let our hearts race as they close out the feisty and talented Pistons tomorrow night on Seventh Avenue, or later in the week if need be. We dream, big dreams, of knocking off the uber-talented defending champs from Boston, reprising our two-seasons ago bottling up of the prohibitive favorite Cavaliers, and pulling some Game 7 magic from a hat in Oklahoma City. And if not, October exhibition games will be here before you know it.

If we are going to invoke ghosts, let’s leave it at Red Holzman and Willis Reed, sprinkle in some Tommie Agee and Tom Seaver from ’69, a little Broadway Joe Namath from ’70, import Mark Messier from ’94.

It’s been a long time. A long time waiting. No suffering here. Vince Lombardi was wrong. Winning isn’t everything and it’s not the only thing. It does beat losing, I’ll grant you that. But what winning is, really, is just a waiting game.

Sonny has plenty of time.