By David Aldridge | The Athletic, 2026-06-10 09:30:50
纽约——尼克斯上一次登上NBA之巅还是在1973年5月。就在那之后的一周，由一位慈祥、睿智如猫头鹰般、对美国宪法怀有无比敬意的参议员萨姆·埃尔文 (Sam Ervin) 主持的美国参议院总统竞选活动特别委员会，开始对近一年前发生的事情进行电视听证会直播——当时，一群蠢货闯入了位于水门大厦的民主党全国总部。
马刺上一次登上NBA之巅是在十多年前的2014年，当时他们将一位并不以进攻见长的年轻攻防一体球员培养成了总决赛最有价值球员（MVP）。多年以后，这位曾经的年轻球员依然是新闻焦点。嗯，耐人寻味。
纽约和圣安东尼奥中的一员将成为下一支NBA总冠军球队——这也是勇士王朝结束以来，联盟诞生的第八个不同的冠军。这无疑让亚当·肖华 (Adam Silver) 乐开了花。
尼克斯在周一的第三场比赛中以111-115不敌马刺，遭遇了46天以来的首场失利。如果尼克斯再赢下两场比赛，肖华梦寐以求的场景就将实现——在过去的12个月里，收获两个首尾呼应的总冠军：第一个由联盟最小市场之一的俄克拉荷马城夺得，第二个则由最大市场的球队斩获。还有什么比让两支如此截然相反的球队在连续两年里捧起奥布莱恩杯，更能让这位总裁证明一切运转良好呢？——忘掉摆烂和空想吧，NBA再次变得太棒了（faaaaantastic）！
雷霆在过去几年里通过多次选秀进行了艰苦卓绝的重建，尽管他们并没有拿到太多高顺位乐透签。而尼克斯目前的阵容则主要通过自由市场和及时的交易组建而成。
尼克斯在圣安东尼奥赢下了前两场比赛，因此即便在周一输掉了麦迪逊广场花园的主场比赛，他们依然在系列赛中占据着破发优势。如果纽约最终夺冠，联盟在进入与Amazon Prime、NBC/Peacock和ESPN/ABC全新转播合同的下个赛季时，将拥有一个收视率和社交媒体的流量巨兽——一个老牌豪门重新夺冠，围绕着一个让人产生共鸣的超级巨星杰伦·布伦森 (Jalen Brunson) 以及轮换阵容中多位极其讨人喜欢的球员构建。接近胜利者的陶醉感已经将纽约五个区的大部分人凝聚在一起，其狂热程度堪比1977年的雷吉·杰克逊 (Reggie Jackson) 和1994年的马克·梅西尔 (Mark Messier)。
但如果马刺在开局连续输掉两个主场后，能够卷土重来并完成惊天逆转，那么从长远来看，这对于奥林匹克大厦（联盟总部）来说可能会是更好的结果。
因为维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 已经蓄势待发，准备接管这个联盟。
像所有天才一样，他缺乏耐心。他不想听那些关于为什么他必须像大多数伟大的前辈那样，经历等待才能拿到自己第一枚总冠军戒指的陈词滥调。
“我们拭目以待，”文班亚马在周二说道。“但我敢打赌，是的，这是可能的（无需等待就能夺冠）。我们学到了什么？我是说，在这次季后赛中学到了很多东西。很多东西。比如用手去支撑，而不是用下巴。如果要下手，就打在头部以下。还有很多其他事情。但最重要的是，要坚持不懈。”
美国奥运男篮，你们最好现在就击败他。哥谭，趁现在还能抢走他的糖果，赶紧动手吧。这位22岁的年轻人正冲着夺走一切而来。
随着他将NBA推向世界，联盟将欣喜若狂地搭上他那瘦长身躯的顺风车，帮助联盟建立比以往更多的国际据点。如果这位来自法国勒谢奈的宠儿文班成为地球上最好的球员，肖华心爱的项目“NBA欧洲”无疑将获得强劲动力——但联盟在其他地区的合作也是如此，比如非洲篮球联赛。文班亚马的父亲菲利克斯 (Félix) 出生于比利时，拥有刚果血统。
伟大是有迹可循的，但每一个独特的故事，就像文班亚马的故事一样，在不同的地方会产生不同的共鸣。它偶尔会带来争议，但更多时候，它孕育着希望——而且往往是在那些极少有希望驻留的地方。
就像在希腊长大但家族来自尼日利亚的扬尼斯·阿德托昆博 (Giannis Antetokounmpo) 一样，文班亚马可以成为篮球世界的公民——他显然拥有自己的祖国，但他能用自己的个性和独一无二的打法激励世界各地的人们。文班亚马似乎对全世界注视他的一举一动感到泰然自若。无论是在球场上还是在采访室里，他都不会心浮气躁。他对待每一个话题都深思熟虑，极少落入俗套。因此，他可能会成为连接NBA后勒布朗·詹姆斯 (LeBron James)/斯蒂芬·库里 (Stephen Curry) 时代的完美桥梁。
但首先，也是最重要的一点，你必须在最需要伟大的时刻打出伟大的表现，以此来赢得那个宝座。文班亚马在周一的第三场比赛中做到了这一点。他让全场统一了声音，哪怕是用粗俗的语言——这种待遇几乎总是只留给那些来到麦迪逊广场花园的伟大对手。对对手口出秽言，意味着这个对手已经让你破防、让你感到紧张。这里的人们至今仍在齐声高喊特雷·杨 (Trae Young) 的名字，就是因为特雷·杨曾在2021年季后赛中攻克麦迪逊广场花园并带走胜利。
库里曾在这里一战成名，即便那场比赛输了。科比·布莱恩特 (Kobe Bryant) 曾在百老汇的灯光下闪耀；仅仅两天后，詹姆斯就在这里的篮球行家面前留下了他的名片，轰下了令人叹为观止的52分、9个篮板和11次助攻的超凡表现。
迈克尔·乔召 (Michael Jordan)？你是想看他的“双镍”（55分之夜），还是“盖帽-抢断-盖帽-盖帽”的防守神迹，亦或是86年的50分大餐？
因此，要想确立自己作为“他们”中一员的地位，你就必须在篮球麦加拥有一场代表作。
周一晚上，文班亚马步入了一个久违的、被炒作到极致的麦迪逊广场花园。你可能已经听说总统也出席了比赛。这座城市的新市长也在场。此外，还有Jay-Z、拉里·戴维 (Larry David) 和戴夫·塞佩尔 (Dave Chappelle) 等名流，以及那些更频繁光顾尼克斯比赛的明星们。（唉，遗憾的是，伟大的伊迪·法尔科 (Edie Falco) 似乎并不在其中。）这本应是对年轻但仍显稚嫩的马刺面对势不可挡的尼克斯时的一次终极宣判。
然而，文班却在他们的头上完成了暴扣。 一次又一次，他在第三场比赛中砍下了32分、8个篮板、6次助攻和3次盖帽。马刺通过使用与前两场被尼克斯限制时不同的战术配合来帮助他们年轻的球星，为他们的后卫创造了更多突入禁区的空间。但文班亚马自己也做得更多。他不再被动接受那些在第一场和第二场中阻碍他的身体对抗——当时纽约的防守队员一次又一次地贴防他。周一，他顶住了尼克斯的强硬对抗，在禁区深处强行要位。
这不再是那个在圣安东尼奥的前两场比赛中，总是在关键时刻显得精疲力竭的文班。这是那个沉着冷静的文班亚马，他能在同一场比赛中投进超远三分，又能高高跃起，触碰到我们其他人只能凭空想象的高度，让对手的球迷瞬间鸦雀无声。
“我认为我从未见过像他这个年纪的球员，能够如此优雅地应对他所面对的舞台和压力，”马刺老将前锋哈里森·巴恩斯 (Harrison Barnes) 说道，他曾于2015年与库里一起在金州勇士夺冠，并曾在达拉斯与德克·诺维茨基 (Dirk Nowitzki) 并肩作战。
“在那些时刻，他显得非常自然，”巴恩斯说。“我想，在进入（周一）晚上之前，在我14年的职业生涯中，那是我见过的季后赛中最疯狂的主场氛围之一。尤其是总决赛。我觉得他在那个时刻非常自如，只是去享受它，并做回自己。”
尼克斯在通往这座等待了53年的总冠军奖杯的道路上依然占据着主动。他们仍然可以为这个童话故事画上一个圆满的句号——没有护栏、路障和防弹玻璃的阻隔，只有他们疯狂的球迷在麦迪逊广场花园内外尽情狂欢，下周左右在英雄峡谷举行夺冠游行。但如果马刺能在周三在这里拿到第二场胜利，圣安东尼奥就将彻底颠覆这个系列赛。在某个时刻，迪伦·哈珀 (Dylan Harper)、德文·瓦塞尔 (Devin Vassell) 和朱利安·尚帕尼 (Julian Champagnie) 可能会同时找回手感。而这也许就是文班亚马将这轮总决赛、乃至整个联盟弯曲并顺从于他个人意志所需要的一切。
无论哪种结果，NBA都能赚足眼球。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：Whether Knicks or Spurs win NBA Finals, the league can run with a compelling narrative
Whether Knicks or Spurs win NBA Finals, the league can run with a compelling narrative
NEW YORK — The Knicks were last atop the NBA in May 1973, just a week before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, chaired by an avuncular old owl of a senator named Sam Ervin, who happened to revere the U.S. Constitution, began its televised hearings to find out exactly what had happened nearly a year prior — when a bunch of nincompoops broke into the national headquarters of the Democratic Party at the Watergate Hotel.
The Spurs were last atop the NBA more than a decade ago, in 2014, having developed a young two-way player not known for his offense into a finals Most Valuable Player. That once-young player, all these years later, is still in the news. Hmmm.
Either New York or San Antonio will be the next NBA champion — the eighth different one the league has had since the end of the Warriors’ dynasty. This warms the cockles of Adam Silver’s heart.
Two more victories by the Knicks, whose 115-111 Game 3 loss to the Spurs on Monday was their first in 46 days, and Silver will have a fever dream fulfilled, bookend championships in the last 12 months — the first by the team in one of the league’s smallest markets, Oklahoma City; the second by the team in its largest. What better evidence could the commissioner summon up that all is well — forget tanking and Aspiration; the NBA is, again, faaaaantastic! — by having such polar opposite organizations rise up to claim the Larry in successive years?
The Thunder have rebuilt painstakingly through multiple swings in the draft over the last few years, though with few lottery picks. The Knicks assembled their current roster mostly through free agency and timely trades.
The Knicks, having won the first two games in San Antonio, are still up a break in the series, even after Monday’s home loss at the Garden. If New York ultimately prevails, the league will have a ratings and social media monster going into next season for its still-new rights deals with Amazon Prime, NBC/Peacock and ESPN/ABC — a legacy franchise, again a champion, built around a relatable superstar in Jalen Brunson and multiple exceedingly likable guys in its rotation. The intoxicant of being in proximity to a winner has unified most of the five boroughs to Reggie Jackson in 1977 and Mark Messier in 1994 levels.
But if the Spurs come back and pull off what would be a shocking reversal, after losing back-to-back home games to kick things off, it might be even better, long term, for Olympic Tower.
Because Victor Wembanyama is waiting in the wings to run this league.
Like all prodigies, he’s impatient. He’s not trying to hear about why he has to wait, like most of the greats had to wait, to go get his first ring.
“We will see,” Wembanyama said Tuesday. “But my bet would be yes, it’s possible (to win without waiting). What we’ve learned? I mean, many things over these playoffs. Many things. Brace with your hands and not with your chin. Hit below the head, if you do. Many other things. But most importantly, be relentless.”
You better beat him now, U.S. Olympic team. Gotham, you better take his candy while you can. The 22-year-old is coming for everything.
And the league will giddily jump on his slender frame as he takes the NBA around the world, helping the league establish more international footholds than ever. Silver’s pet project, NBA Europe, will certainly be turbocharged if Wemby, the darling of Le Chesnay, France, becomes the best player on earth — but so, too, could the league’s collaborations elsewhere, like the Basketball Africa League. Wembanyama’s father, Félix, born in Belgium, is of Congolese descent.
There are patterns in greatness, but each individual story, like Wembanyama’s, resonates at a different timbre in different places. It brings the occasional notoriety, but just as often, it fosters hope — frequently, where hope rarely abides.
As with Giannis Antetokounmpo, who grew up in Greece but whose family is Nigerian, Wembanyama could become a citizen of the basketball world — a man definitely with a home country, but who can inspire people all over with his personality and one-of-one play. Wembanyama seems perfectly at home with the world watching his every move. He does not speed up on the floor or in the interview room. He speaks on everything with thought, rarely devolving into cliche. He could be, then, the perfect bridge to the NBA’s post-LeBron James/Stephen Curry era.
But you, first, and always, have to earn that perch by playing great when greatness is most required. Wembanyama did so Monday, in Game 3. He unified, even if it’s in vulgarity, almost always reserved for only the great opponents to come into Madison Square Garden. Going to cussing an opponent means the opponent has gotten under your skin, has made you nervous. They still chant Trae Young’s name around here because Trae Young came into the Garden and came out with a 2021 playoff win.
Curry made his name here, even in defeat. Kobe shined under the lights on Broadway; two nights later, James left his calling card with the basketball cognoscenti here, dropping a sublime 52-point, nine-rebound, 11-assist performance.
Mike? You want the Double Nickel, or Block-Strip-Block-Block or the 50-burger in ’86?
To establish yourself as one of Them, then, you need to have a signature moment at the Mecca.
Wembanyama came into as hyped a Garden as there’s been in some time Monday night. You may have heard the president was in attendance. So was the city’s new mayor. So, too, were the likes of Jay-Z and Larry David and Dave Chappelle, along with the celebs who frequent Knicks games more regularly. (Alas, it does not appear that the great Edie Falco was among them.) This was to be a final rendering of judgment on the young but still green Spurs, facing the white-hot Knicks.
And then Wemby dunked on their beans. Again and again and again, to the tune of 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists and three blocks in Game 3. The Spurs helped their young star by using different sets than the ones the Knicks had short-circuited in the first two games, creating more spacing for their guards to get two feet into the paint. But Wembanyama also did more. He didn’t accept the contact that had stymied him as New York defenders tagged him, over and over, in Games 1 and 2. Monday, he pushed through the Knicks’ physicality, demanding space deep in the paint.
This was not the Wemby who seemed gassed at all the wrong moments in the first two games in San Antonio. This was the poised Wembanyama, the one who renders opposing fanbases mute when he splashes a deep 3 in the same game he goes vertical, touching air molecules about which the rest of us can only speculate.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a player at his age handle the platform and pressure that he’s been able to, with the grace that he’s been able to,” said veteran Spurs forward Harrison Barnes, who won a ring with Curry in Golden State in 2015 and played alongside Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas.
“He feels very natural in those moments,” Barnes said. “I think, coming into (Monday) night, in 14 years, that was one of the craziest atmospheres I’ve seen for a playoff game. Especially a finals game. I feel like he was extremely comfortable in that moment, just to embrace that and be who he was.”
The Knicks still have the inside track to a title 53 years in the waiting. They can still finish the fairy tale with the appropriate ending — not barriers and barricades and bulletproof glass, but with their crazy fans going mad, both inside and just outside of the Garden, a parade in the offing down the Canyon of Heroes in the next week or so. But with a second win up here Wednesday, San Antonio would set this series on its head. At some point, Dylan Harper and Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie might all get hot at the same time. And that’s all Wembanyama might need to bend these finals, and this league, to his will.
Either way, the NBA can sell it.
By David Aldridge, via The Athletic