All the Pain Was Worth It

By

Will Leitch,

a contributing editor covering sports and film at New York since 2008

and the author of six books, including the novels 'How Lucky' and 'The Time Has Come.'

One of the more amusing videos to come out in the wake of the New York Knicks’ thrashing of the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night, which completed a series sweep and booked New York a ticket to the NBA finals, featured a look at what Celebrity Row looked like the last time the Knicks made it this far. This was back in 1999, when Timothée Chalamet was 3 years old and Jalen Brunson was a 2-year-old puttering around the Knicks locker room with his father, Rick, a backup guard for the then–Eastern Conference champs.