Knicks Fan Rich’s Prediction for Who Wins the NBA Finals Is….?

With the NBA Finals set, the desk went around the room with predictions, and Rich, a lifelong Knicks fan, made his pick with his heart on his sleeve.

First, the table set the stakes. Knicks fans are nervous, Rich noted, because they may be witnessing greatness rather than merely watching it. After New York rallied from 22 down to beat the Cavaliers in Game 1, fans took to the streets chanting for Victor Wembanyama, and Rich winced at the dare.

He played the reason. Wembanyama, asked after Game 7 what drives him, said he wants to feel that buzzer-beating emotion again and again, that he wants to win so badly it feels like his life depends on it. Hearing a 22-year-old talk that way, Rich said, sounds like a man who has been waiting two decades, the kind of hunger not heard since Kobe Bryant or LeBron James.

Then the picks. Chris Brockman, admitting he is financially invested, took the Spurs in six with Stephon Castle as MVP, a call the rest of the room found nuts. TJ Jefferson, sticking with a declaration he made weeks ago, went Knicks in six with Karl-Anthony Towns, the player who has tormented him for years, as his MVP. The show's guest joined the Knicks-in-six chorus with OG Anunoby for MVP.

Rich refused to overthink the MVP. If the Spurs win, it is Wembanyama. If the Knicks win, it is Jalen Brunson. No reason, he said, to reinvent the wheel. Teased for making the easy call, he shrugged that he was simply being accurate.

On the series itself, Rich was torn. His head told him Spurs in seven, a deep, grinding battle. His heart said Knicks in six, complete with a Josh Hart pun he could not resist.

What he could not hide was conviction about this New York team. Rich has watched the Knicks through the Pat Riley era, the Jeff Van Gundy era, the Patrick Ewing years, all the way back to Bernard King. Stack this roster against the one that reached the 1999 Finals, he argued, and even allowing for the injured Ewing, this group is deeper and better.

The wild card, to Rich, is the X factor, the player who answers when the stars get clamped. He believes OG Anunoby can be that guy. Others on the desk made the case for Castle or Towns, prompting a verdict that summed up the whole conversation: rooting for Towns, the man who has caused so much pain, is basically Stockholm syndrome.