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There are easier (and less surreal) ways to fulfill an NBA dream than the Jose Alvarado route.
Go undrafted and fight your way onto a roster. Develop a reputation as a defensive menace on the court. Spend four and a half seasons in NOLA. Get traded home to New York mid-season. Help your favorite team from childhood win their first championship in more than half a century. Then parade through the streets of the city where you grew up with a few million people screaming at you.
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Alvarado sat down with SLAM during his cover shoot for KICKS 29, and the conversation naturally circled back to the improbable route that brought the Brooklyn native here.
Asked to choose one word for the Knicks’ championship run, Alvarado answered: “Believe. That’s one thing you got to do is believe the way we did it.”
That was especially true in Game Four of the Finals, when New York fell 29 points behind San Antonio and somehow dragged itself all the way back, aided by significant contributions from Alvarado. He said his focus during the comeback was simple: “It was more not really overthinking—like, what can I do to make us win the game regardless if it’s making shots or not.”
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The championship would have been a massive achievement anywhere. Winning it in New York meant even more for Jose, who grew up in Brooklyn before playing at Georgia Tech and eventually joining the Pelicans.
Pondering Jose’s experience, there is always something weird about getting a desperately wanted thing. For years, the dream existed at a distance, beyond the next practice, the next contract, the doubt expressed by others about your size or talent. Then one afternoon, you’re dancing on a float in Manhattan as an NBA champion with your hometown passing by, block by block.
“I almost cried on the float because . . . obviously going through the city that I was raised . . . I know a lot of people that’s in the crowd,” Alvarado told SLAM.
That’s the part of winning a championship nobody can really prepare for, that transition point when the dream stops being something you’re chasing and becomes something that has happened to you. Sounds…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jose-alvarado-believed-now-nba-113952813.html
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Publish date : 2026-08-29 11:39:00
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