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Secret Base - Endless Summer
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About This Title
Do you have a favorite team? I mean: Do you have a favorite team? I do. I'm Seth. My favorite team is the Knicks. I have rooted for other teams in the past. Used to be a pretty big Raiders fan. Once tried to follow the Nationals for some reason. These days I want the Yankees to win. I want the Liberty to win. But watching those teams at their best and worst has proven to me, beyond any doubt, that when it comes to truly caring, I'm a one-team guy. It's the Knicks. It's always been the Knicks.
Perhaps you already know this about me. I haven't made it a secret. Perhaps you also know the Knicks were very good while I was growing up in the 1990s. They made it to the NBA Finals in 1994, when I was 5, and again in 1999, when I was 10. By the end of that magical but ill-fated '99 run, it was over for your boy. I'd become a permanent fan.
If you knew the above, then you also know what happened afterward: The Knicks sucked every flavor of dogshit for the better part of twenty years. They lost, they humiliated themselves, and they mercilessly pummeled the psyches of every regretful soul invested in their fortunes. Consigning any of my attention and emotion to the Knicks was a mistake, but it was too late for me. I felt no choice other than to steer into the skid. When they played well or made good news, I tried to stir up some hope inside myself. When they didn't, which was most of the time, I just tried to look past them.
In early February 2023, the Knicks narrowly defeated the Heat to bring their record to a plumb 28-25. Fine. Hours later, my wife gave birth to our son. Talking at length about my son would not be fair to you or to him, but I mention him because something pertinent and funny happened right after he was born. Like RIGHT after. Beginning in early February 2023, the Knicks got hot as fuck. They'd been refreshingly okay for a bit before that, but this was something else. A couple days after we brought our baby home, the Knicks traded for Josh Hart. Then they won 9 straight games, which felt like a lot at the time. That spring, they won their first playoff series in a decade (their second since '99).
You see why this is pertinent, but I'll tell you why it's funny: I wasn't ready for a baby, and I didn't act ready. I felt and thought terrible things. It scared the shit out of all of us, including him I bet.
... and all the while, the Knicks were hooping. New York won another playoff series in the spring of '24, beating back the nasty-ass 76ers. Cool feeling, but I had no idea where to put it. Triumphing over Joel Embiid's bullshit, enshrining Donte DiVincenzo's Game 2 dagger, eclipsing the images of Tyrese Maxey prancing around the Garden in Game 5 ... at another time, these events would have colored every vacant space in my psyche. But in the spring of '24, with a one-year-old who still wasn't sleeping, with an irrepressible sense of despair, and, to be blunt, with psychiatric treatment not kicking in quite yet, there just wasn't much vacant space. In a way, it was easier to process the subsequent series against the Pacers, in which the Knicks blew their best chance to shorten the series then crumbled to dust when the series went long.
I am delighted to report some things have changed since the spring of 2024. Time! Experience! Maturation! Therapy! Sweet, delicious Lexapro! I get it now. I love having a son. I love being a dad. The kid pisses me off constantly, but I take it in stride. I love him so much and I love spending time with him and when I'm not spending time with him, I just look at pictures of him and think about him. He's my guy. It's him.
And, my miniature computer friends, I am delighted to report another change with respect to the New York Basketball Knickerbockers. In the spring of 2026, the Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years. I love the 2026 Knicks so much. I loved spending time with them, and now that I'm not spending time with them, I watch YouTube videos of them and think about them constantly. An acquaintance asked me the other day how I felt about the Knicks winning a championship and I blurted "I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY SINGLE DAY" with such force that he changed the subject.
I really do. Thinking about the Knicks used to keep me up at night. It was embarrassing. Now, no matter what happens, I have '26 to review, and boy oh boy do I review it. Every moment I might otherwise be bored or distressed, I pick a playoff game or a player reel and grin at my phone for a few minutes. I think I will do this forever.
Some new shit shall transpire, I know. Quite soon, the '27 Knicks will begin playing basketball. They'll tamp down the sunny certainties with new fears and doubts. I believe all that will be easier to handle now that I have '26 to review whenever I want.
By the time all that happens, and by the time you read this, it will be the middle of October. I'll be on leave from Secret Base. I'm writing this in late September. My wife is due to have our second child any day now. I think I'm ready. I think I get it now. I think I'm not a one-team guy anymore.
Do you have a favorite team? I mean: Do you have a favorite team? I do. I'm Seth. My favorite team is the Knicks. I have rooted for other teams in the past. Used to be a pretty big Raiders fan. Once tried to follow the Nationals for some reason. These days I want the Yankees to win. I want the Liberty to win. But watching those teams at their best and worst has proven to me, beyond any doubt, that when it comes to truly caring, I'm a one-team guy. It's the Knicks. It's always been the Knicks.
Perhaps you already know this about me. I haven't made it a secret. Perhaps you also know the Knicks were very good while I was growing up in the 1990s. They made it to the NBA Finals in 1994, when I was 5, and again in 1999, when I was 10. By the end of that magical but ill-fated '99 run, it was over for your boy. I'd become a permanent fan.
If you knew the above, then you also know what happened afterward: The Knicks sucked every flavor of dogshit for the better part of twenty years. They lost, they humiliated themselves, and they mercilessly pummeled the psyches of every regretful soul invested in their fortunes. Consigning any of my attention and emotion to the Knicks was a mistake, but it was too late for me. I felt no choice other than to steer into the skid. When they played well or made good news, I tried to stir up some hope inside myself. When they didn't, which was most of the time, I just tried to look past them.
In early February 2023, the Knicks narrowly defeated the Heat to bring their record to a plumb 28-25. Fine. Hours later, my wife gave birth to our son. Talking at length about my son would not be fair to you or to him, but I mention him because something pertinent and funny happened right after he was born. Like RIGHT after. Beginning in early February 2023, the Knicks got hot as fuck. They'd been refreshingly okay for a bit before that, but this was something else. A couple days after we brought our baby home, the Knicks traded for Josh Hart. Then they won 9 straight games, which felt like a lot at the time. That spring, they won their first playoff series in a decade (their second since '99).
You see why this is pertinent, but I'll tell you why it's funny: I wasn't ready for a baby, and I didn't act ready. I felt and thought terrible things. It scared the shit out of all of us, including him I bet.
... and all the while, the Knicks were hooping. New York won another playoff series in the spring of '24, beating back the nasty-ass 76ers. Cool feeling, but I had no idea where to put it. Triumphing over Joel Embiid's bullshit, enshrining Donte DiVincenzo's Game 2 dagger, eclipsing the images of Tyrese Maxey prancing around the Garden in Game 5 ... at another time, these events would have colored every vacant space in my psyche. But in the spring of '24, with a one-year-old who still wasn't sleeping, with an irrepressible sense of despair, and, to be blunt, with psychiatric treatment not kicking in quite yet, there just wasn't much vacant space. In a way, it was easier to process the subsequent series against the Pacers, in which the Knicks blew their best chance to shorten the series then crumbled to dust when the series went long.
I am delighted to report some things have changed since the spring of 2024. Time! Experience! Maturation! Therapy! Sweet, delicious Lexapro! I get it now. I love having a son. I love being a dad. The kid pisses me off constantly, but I take it in stride. I love him so much and I love spending time with him and when I'm not spending time with him, I just look at pictures of him and think about him. He's my guy. It's him.
And, my miniature computer friends, I am delighted to report another change with respect to the New York Basketball Knickerbockers. In the spring of 2026, the Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years. I love the 2026 Knicks so much. I loved spending time with them, and now that I'm not spending time with them, I watch YouTube videos of them and think about them constantly. An acquaintance asked me the other day how I felt about the Knicks winning a championship and I blurted "I THINK ABOUT IT EVERY SINGLE DAY" with such force that he changed the subject.
I really do. Thinking about the Knicks used to keep me up at night. It was embarrassing. Now, no matter what happens, I have '26 to review, and boy oh boy do I review it. Every moment I might otherwise be bored or distressed, I pick a playoff game or a player reel and grin at my phone for a few minutes. I think I will do this forever.
Some new shit shall transpire, I know. Quite soon, the '27 Knicks will begin playing basketball. They'll tamp down the sunny certainties with new fears and doubts. I believe all that will be easier to handle now that I have '26 to review whenever I want.
By the time all that happens, and by the time you read this, it will be the middle of October. I'll be on leave from Secret Base. I'm writing this in late September. My wife is due to have our second child any day now. I think I'm ready. I think I get it now. I think I'm not a one-team guy anymore.
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