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I wish I stuck it out': Patrick Ewing reflects on his career, Knicks' 2026 title When the Knicks paraded up New Yorks Canyon of Heroes, Patrick Ewing was right there with them.
I wouldnt miss this for the world, he told USA TODAY Sports.
Ewing was one of the biggest names in sports in the 1980s and 1990s, rising to NBA stardom when the league reached its most magnificent heights of popularity.
He was the face of a team and city and delivered on the hype of being the No.
1 overall pick in the 1985 NBA Draft.
He is arguably some might say decisively the Knicks best player of all time.
Hes the franchise leader in points (23,665), rebounds (10,759), blocks (2,758), steals (1,061), games (1,039) and field goals (9,260).
Hes an 11-time all-star, a Basketball Hall of Famer and one of the NBAs top players to never win a championship.
His closest chance came in 1994, when the Knicks lost to the Rockets in seven games in the NBA Finals.
The team also reached the finals in 1999, falling to the San Antonio Spurs in five games.
Ewing missed that years finals with an injury.
He was part of an era, starting in the late 1980s into the mid- to late 1990s, when the Knicks were the main event of New York sports.
Ewing led a title contender for more than a decade until his tenure with the club ended in 2000.
During our interview, I reminded him those days were filled with fans who lived and died with the tough-minded team.
They sold out Madison Square Garden 433 consecutive times, from February 1993 to November 2002.
You cant say, those days now, he says with a laugh, because we world champions again.
Ewing, 63, reflected on his life and career with the Knicks the day before the Thursday, June 18 parade, when he finally celebrated the franchises first NBA title since 1973 and third overall.
(Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.) Relieve the Knicks' glorious NBA title with our new book'It was rough' in the beginning of Patrick Ewing's Knicks career In the first year of the draft lottery (1985), which still exists today to discourage teams from tanking, the Knicks were awarded the first overall pick.
Ewing, a 7-foot center out of Georgetown and most dominant player in the country, was the obvious choice.
But it wasnt a fairy tale beginning.
The Knicks had lost Bernard King, then the NBAs leading scorer (32.9 ppg), in March 1985 to a devastating knee injury, then lost 11 games in a row.
King missed the entire 1985-86 season, and he and Ewing would never play together for New York.
Ewing got injured, too, those first two seasons, and the team won a combined six out of 36 games in his absence and finished in last place twice.
But he met forward Louis Orr, who would later coach with Ewing at Georgetown, and guard Trent Tucker.
Both had played in big playoff games with the Knicks in the early to mid-1980s and both would remain as the franchise began to rise again under head coach Rick Pitino.
I was blessed to be surrounded with some guys with great knowledge and great wisdom, Ewing says.
USA TODAY: What do you remember about those early days with the Knicks when you were first drafted? Patrick Ewing: It was tough because we weren't very good.
We had lost Bernard.
That's the only reason why they were able to draft me.
Bernard tore his knees up.
We werent one of the most talented teams and then I hurt my knee and it was rough to start.
We had Hubie Brown as the coach; he was there for my first year and some of my second.
Bob Hill took over, then I got hurt again.
Then they brought in Rick Pitino and when Rick came, thats when we started to trend upwards.
USAT: In those early couple of years, did you feel a lot of pressure on yourself being the No.
1 pick and having to be kind of a leader and a role model from the get go? PE: When I think about basketball, I don't think about pressure.
To me, pressure is my mom and dad picking up from Jamaica, moving to America (when he was 12), a place that we knew nothing about.
That's pressure.
Basketball is a sport.
There's some type of pressure, but I think it's a different type of pressure.
We were out there trying to be the best team and the best players that we could be.
Patrick Ewing rises to the center of it all Fulfilling the teams potential started under Pitino, a bundle of energy on the sidelines who had led Providence College to a Final Four in 1987.
Pitino installed a fast-paced style with lots of pressing and 3-pointers.
Ewing played 82 games and the team improved by 14 wins in 1987-88, sneaking into the playoffs as a No.
8 seed.
The team soared by another 14 wins to go 52-30 and win the Atlantic Division in 1988-89, losing to the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
But the Garden was starting to rock again after years of empty seats.
USAT: What was it like to play in New York and looking back, can you imagine playing anywhere else in your NBA career? PE: No, I mean, I'm playing in the mecca.
Theres no place like it.
Fortunate enough to play at Georgetown and D.C.
is right down the street from New York.
But playing in the mecca, I had family here, a lot of my Georgetown friends were here.
USAT: When you look back on your, career, what would you say are your best memories? I've had some great memories being in New York.
Getting to the Finals against Houston, the guys that I played with we are still friends today playing with, and against, some of the greatest players to have played this game.
'The Garden at its peak': Patrick Ewing's tough-noses Knicks Pitino left after two seasons for the head mens basketball coaching job at the University of Kentucky.
Stu Jackson, a Pitino assistant, shepherded the Knicks respectably for a little over a season, though he and successor John MacLeod flamed out in the early rounds of the playoffs.
The true turnaround of the Ewing era came in 1991-92 season, when new team president Dave Checketts lured Pat Riley to be the head coach.
Riley, who had coached the Showtime Lakers to three NBA titles in the 1980s, installed a defense-first philosophy in New York that overpowered many opponents.
The Knicks, led by Ewing, Charles Oakley, John Starks, Anthony Mason and others, reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 1992-93 and the NBA Finals in 1994.
After Ewing had the game-winning dunk and the Knicks held on defense to beat Indiana in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, he climbed above the press table at the Garden to celebrate with the crowd.
It was a scene that was replayed during the Knicks title run this season.
I told coach, Give me the ball, Ewing told NBC after the game.
If Im gonna lose, let me lose it.
USAT: How about the moment that you heard the Garden the loudest? Hey, look, I'm blessed, man.
I heard the Garden at its peak when I played, but I also heard it at its peak in Game 4 (this season) when OG tipped that ball in.
So I've been fortunate enough to be around as a player and then come full circle to be around as a fan/front office/consultant/whatever else you want to call me.
(Laughs.) How about 94? When you look back at that year, do you think of that as a really good year or do you think of it as the year that came up just short? PE: We had a great year, we just fell short.
That was our first time in my career getting to the finals, going through a hard fought series against Indiana and making it to the finals to go against Hakeem (Olajuwon).
We just didn't get the job done.
'We weren't a full team': Did suspensions cost Patrick Ewing's Knicks their best chance at title? Reggie Miller and Indiana got their revenge on the Knicks in 1995, winning Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals at the Garden when Ewings potential game-tying finger roll missed at the buzzer.
Riley resigned after the season, and the Knicks lost to the Pacers again in the 1998 Eastern Conference semifinals.
But under Jeff Van Gundy, they dispatched Indiana in the 1999 Eastern Conference Finals before they fell to the San Antonio Spurs.
Riley took over coaching Miami, where he received an ownership stake.
While New York beat Rileys Heat in the first round of the playoffs in 1998, the more consequential result for Ewing came the year before.
That season, New York was in control with a 3-2 series lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals but an altercation at the end of Game 5 saw Ewing and the teams other three leading scorers (Allan Houston, Starks and Larry Johnson) all suspended a game for leaving the bench area.
The suspensions were spaced over the last two games of the series, both of which the Knicks lost to Miami.
USAT: Was Reggie Miller or Michael Jordan the bigger nemesis for your team? PE: Michael Jordan.
Reggie was Reggie, but you know, Michael is the face of the league.
Michael and I have been friends since we started.
We met in high school.
Reggie was a little younger than us.
But Michael and I have been friends from when I visited North Carolina and he had already committed to North Carolina.
And then the McDonald's All American game.
We're still friends today.
Reggie, we're more friends now than back when we played.
(Laughs.) What year do you think you had your best team when you were a Knick? I'm not sure, maybe the year that we had the fight with the Heat.
I thought that we had a great team that year.
Do you think the suspensions played a factor in that series? Oh definitely.
I mean, I really didn't do anything to be suspended.
I stepped on the floor.
I didn't even step all the way on the floor.
I stepped on to see what was going on and went back and then I got suspended.
So we weren't a full team.
Miami was able to beat us and then ended up losing to the Bulls.
'It was just time for me to leave': Patrick Ewing's ending in New York and a new beginning Ewings Knicks couldnt get past Chicago in a year Jordan was playing for the Bulls.
I asked him if there was anything he could pinpoint to get the team over the top.
No, he said softly.
Unfortunately, we just didnt get it done.
The Knicks traded Ewing to the Seattle SuperSonics in September 2000 as part of a four-team deal.
He retired after a season with the SuperSonics and season with the Orlando Magic before getting into coaching, first as an assistant in the NBA and then as head coach at Georgetown from 2017-23.
He won a Big East championship with the Hoyas in 2021 in the Garden with his Knicks No.
33 hanging from the rafters, albeit with no spectators present amid COVID restrictions.
USAT: What would you say your biggest regret was from your career? PE: Not winning a championship and leaving.
USAT: What was that like when they traded you.
What was going through your mind? After 15 years of playing in one place and hearing all the naysayers saying, Theyre better off without him, it was just time for me to leave.
But sometimes you gotta block out in noise I wish I blocked out the noise a little bit more and just stuck it out.
Does winning this year kind of give you a little bit more peace and closure with your time with the Knicks? Give me more peace? Yeah.
We definitely wish when we got there, we could have been able to win it.
But it just wasn't in the cards for us.
But I think that me being back and me being a part of it, and management and ownership making me feel like I'm part of it, yes, it's fulfilling.
It's like a dream come true.
What is your biggest advice for young athletes and their parents about their kids who are coming up in sports? Believe in yourself.
There's gonna be people who doubt you.
It could be a coach, could be a family member.
Whatever is your dream to achieve, make sure you put forth the energy and the effort to try to get it done.
Don't let others define you.
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