For more than 50 years, the 1972-73 New York Knicks stood as the franchise’s last championship team, their place in history untouched through decades of near misses and heartbreak.
Ohio State basketball legend Jerry Lucas was on that championship-winning team and had been waiting, as many Knicks fan were, to see another title in New York.
That finally changed on June 13, 2026, when head coach Mike Brown led the Knicks to their first NBA title since Lucas and his teammates brought the Larry O’Brien trophy home to New York more than a half-century earlier.
As the Knicks celebrated their first NBA title since defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 4-1 in the 1973 NBA Finals, Lucas watched with nothing but happiness for the organization he helped bring a championship to more than 50 years ago,
For Lucas, he could never have imagined the wait for another New York Knicks championship taking this long.
“I never thought how long it might be until they win again,” Lucas told Buckeye Sports Bulletin. “But as years went on, I thought, ‘Wow, hopefully they’re going to be able to win it again.’ ”
While Lucas said he has had limited contact with members of the 2026 championship team and the current organization outside of gatherings honoring the 1972-73 title team, he has remained in touch with several of his former Knicks teammates over the years.
“I’ve reached out to them,” Lucas said. “I’ve talked with Earl Monroe and Bill Bradley a few times. Walt Frazier doesn’t text, so it’s almost impossible to reach him, and Phil (Jackson) doesn’t communicate well. I text him once in a while, and he answers something brief.”
The 1972-73 Knicks championship team featured a whopping nine Hall of Famers, including eight players — Dick Barnett, Bradley, Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier, Jerry Lucas, Monroe, Willis Reed, and Jackson (inducted as a coach) — as well as head coach Red Holzman.
Lucas said that in his conversations with Monroe, known by many as “Earl the Pearl,” the two often reminisce about the Knicks’ back-to-back NBA Finals matchups against the Lakers in 1972 and 1973.
A traditional power forward, Lucas said they frequently discuss his battles with Hall of Fame center Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA’s all-time rebounding leader. With Reed limited by injuries, Lucas stepped into a larger role during the 1972 finals, when the Knicks fell to the Lakers in five games. A year later, New York returned the favor, defeating Los Angeles to capture the 1973 NBA championship, where Reed returned to win Finals MVP.
“We’re a little older now, so it starts with ‘How are you doing? How’s your family?’ That kind of thing,” Lucas said. “Then we start talking about the Knicks, and Earl always brings up, he said, ‘Lucas, you started the big man going away from the basket, you shot it farther than anybody in the NBA when you played.’
“Of course, I did that because I was playing against Wilt (Chamberlain), and guys who had never been away from the basket in their lives. There was no reason for a big man to go out there, then there was no three-point line. We talked about those kinds of things and how much fun we had playing together. What a joy it was, and what a great group of people they were.”
Lucas continued, stating that though the championships came over 50 years apart, he sees many similarities between the 1972-73 Knicks and the team that ended the franchise’s title drought in 2026.
He highlighted both the 2026 Knicks’ frontcourt and backcourt, with Finals MVP Jalen Brunson running the offense and All-NBA power forward/center Karl-Anthony Towns anchoring the post, with a talented supporting cast around them.
“We talk about this year’s team, which is kind of similar, somewhat to ours in ways. I don’t think the two teams are exactly the same over time, but they were close. They had a good center and guard control. Of course, we had two of the best guards who ever played, Walt (Frazier) and Earl Monroe, and then we had good backup players like they had this year.”
Following the 1973 championship, Frazier has remained an integral part of the Knicks organization, Lucas said, serving as a broadcaster since he joined MSG Networks in 1987. He began on the radio before eventually teaming with play-by-play announcer Mike Breen on television.
“If there is a Mr. Knick, (Frazier’s) the one,” Lucas said. “He’s been with the organization for such a long time, since his playing career ended, almost to the present. He was at all the games, he traveled with the team when they went up to get their awards and stood on the stage, he was there on the stage in the background with them.”
Lucas also said the chemistry of the 2026 Knicks reminded him of his championship team, adding that the players’ offensive intelligence was a major factor in their success.
“It was perfect. I’m telling you, it was good. We had everything, we had comics, we had stoic guys, we had everything,” Lucas said. “Everybody had their part, and did their part. Practices were fun, not always, but most of the time they were fun.
“The players basically ran the offense. Our coach, Holzman, was a defensive coach, that was his forte. He would come in at halftime, ‘OK guys, you’re not doing this.’ He said, ‘I know what’s going well on offense, you guys decide what you need to do.’ That was basically how he coached because he knew our team knew the game, and we knew how to take advantage of certain things. So it was fun. What I really appreciated was the knowledge of the game that players had, not just that we had some intelligent people, scholars, Phi Beta Kappas, etc., but the knowledge of the game was extraordinary, which made it a lot of fun.”
When discussing the greatest teams of all-time, Lucas certainly believes the 1972-73 Knicks belong in that conversation.
“We’re up there,” Lucas said. “I don’t know where. It’s hard to rate players and rate teams from different eras. I think players can be successful in any area, as long as they are trained and did you know, like, whatever the players do in a certain era,”
More than five decades after helping deliver a championship to New York, Lucas no longer carries the distinction of being part of the Knicks’ last title team. Instead, he gladly passes that honor to a new generation.
“I’m very happy for them. I wish they had won before,” Lucas said. “There is no bittersweetness. I’m not resentful in any way. I would love for the Buckeyes to win the national championship. I’d love for my high school, Middletown High School, to win the state championship again. I root for them and wish them the best.”
