Just one win away from their first NBA championship in over 50 years, the New York Knicks have officially taken over the region. But who knows what a Knick, or Knickerbocker, actually is?
The Knicks pulled off a massive comeback win on the night of June 10. After being down by as many as 29 points, they outscored the Spurs 58-30 in the second half, stunning fans and bringing Madison Square Garden to life.
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Trailing 106-105, OG Anunoby tipped in Jalen Brunson‘s missed three-pointer with 1.2 seconds left. The Knicks now lead the series 3-1 as they head back to San Antonio for game five.
After the greatest comeback win in NBA Finals history, and amid the Knicks’ first finals appearance since 1999, the team is the talk of the town, from merch, to bars, to highlight reels.
But what actually is a Knick, and where did the team’s name come from? Here’s what we know.
The New York Knicks get their name from the term “Knickerbocker,” which traces back to the Dutch settlers who came to New York as early as the 1600s. More specifically, according to History.com, Knickerbockers are “loose trousers, rolled or gathered just below the knee, worn by Dutch settlers in 18th- and early 19th-century New York.”
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In 1809, author Washington Irving helped popularize the word with the publication of his satire “A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty,” under the pen name Diedrich Knickerbocker. As detailed by NBA.com, Irving’s book introduced the word “knickerbocker” to signify a New Yorker who could trace their ancestry to the original Dutch settlers.
By the 1830s, according to History.com, “Father Knickerbocker,” a symbolic figure dressed in a wig, a three-cornered hat, buckled shoes, and knickerbockers, became a mascot of New York.
The term spread widely, eventually becoming linked to anything and everything from New York, from beer to the Broadway musical “Knickerbocker Holiday.” As detailed by History.com, a nearly 70-foot Father Knickerbocker balloon even appeared in the 1936 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
New York sports teams embraced the term as early as 1811, according to History.com, when the Knickerbocker Boat Club launched.
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In 1845, Alexader Cartwright’s Manhattan-based baseball team, the first organized team in baseball history, according to the NBA, was named the “New York Knickerbockers” or the “Knickerbocker Nine.”
When the Basketball Association of America granted a charter franchise to the city in the summer of 1946, the name was literally pulled out of a hat and was ultimately finalized by the club’s founder Ned Irish.
“The name came out of a hat. We were all sitting in the office one day – Irish, (publicity man) Lester Scott and a few others on the staff. We each put a name in the hat, and when we pulled them out, most of them said Knickerbockers, after Father Knickerbocker, the symbol of New York City,” former MSG executive Fred Podesta once said, according to NBA.com. “It soon was shortened to Knicks.”
The Knicks have almost always worn orange, blue, and white, the colors of New York City’s official flag.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: What is a Knickerbocker? How the Knicks got their name
