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THE NEW YORK KNICKERBOCKERS

Andrew Fuzzy Levane does not have a particularly important part in the history of the New York Knickerbockers, not directly at least. But the whole career of Red Holzman, the coach who won more games while leading the Knicks, 613 (the jersey number they retired in his honor), and the only one who led them to the NBA championship, would never take off without him. In the last of his autobiographies, "My Unforgettable Season", Holzman - who passed away in 1998 at 78, due to leukemia - admitted that every job that he was offered in the NBA was a consequence of his friendship with Levane or of the high opinion that he had for him.                Levane signed to play for the Rochester Royals in the 1940s. The owner, Les Harrison, wanted a Jewish player on his team to satisfy the strong local community. Levane knew Holzman well and took him to the Royals. When in 1951 the Knicks lost the NBA Finals against Rochester ...
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MAY 8, 1970

On May 8, 1970, New York woke up waiting for great things to happen. At the beginning of the season the TV station broadcasting the Knickerbockers games counted 5,000 subscribers. In April they had grown up to 40,000. The Knicks were the story of the day. Despite being one of the original NBA teams, they played in the first game in history in 1946 in Toronto, and in spite of being traditionally a very strong team, they had never won an NBA title. They had made it to the Finals three times, in 1951, in 1952 and in 1953 with Joe Lapchick as their head coach, but they had always lost. They faced Rochester in 1951 and lost 4-3, then they met Minneapolis twice, losing 4-3 the first time and 4-1 later. From 1954 to 1969 when the NBA Finals were to be played, they were already vacationing. But in 1970, the first season after Bill Russell's retirement from the Boston Celtics, where he led the team to 11 NBA championships in 13 seasons, it was the Knicks turn to finally shine. The s...
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Location: New York, NY, USA
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NAGLE AVENUE-PROLOGUE

This book is a lifetime project. It didn’t start on a set date, it evolved from day to day, month by month, year by year. It was born out of my unconditional love for a city, New York, and an immense fascination with its sports stories, basketball in particular. During my sportswriting career, I’ve collected anecdotes, stories, informations about New York. I tried to write them down, and I did it several times. Every now and then, I found out about something new, about this park, this team, this player, this connection. A book about New York basketball is a never ending prject. I published the first version in Italy, back in 2000. I tried to update it many times, and every time basically I wrote a completely new book. Now, I hope this is something final, and I did it in English because it sounds better, it sounds new. It’s impossible - I guess - to write a New York basketball story. This is not a story. This is a collection of stories. I tried to cover as many bases as possible...
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