One of the oddities of the New York Knickerbockers is that although they play at the World’s Most Famous Arena, they practice up the Saw Mill in Tarrytown. New York City is the playground of the rich and famous, but most rich and famous players have lived in Westchester.
That seems to be changing, in a trend started by good old Amar’e Stoudemire, who brought the Knicks back in many ways it seems. Berman of the Post is on the case.
A record six players, plus Phil Jackson & Jeff Hornecek, all live in Manhattan now. Can you guess who they are?
Here’s a picture of Melo holding a panda to look at while you guess.
OK, the answer is Melo, Rose, KP, Joakim Noah, Lance Thomas & Sasha Vujacic. Noah, of course, was raised in Hell’s Kitchen, and simply returned to the old neighborhood. Melo and Lance were born in Brooklyn, but said, “Screw that.”
Here’s a fun article about the opening of the Tarrytown facility back in 2002 (which makes it sound pretty nice), but here’s an EVEN MORE fun article interviewing Knicks about living in Westchester from 2013.
There are lots of reasons for the trend (Berman thinks it’s because they can just hop on the West Side Highway and be in Westchester in 30 minutes, but hasn’t that always been the case?) but I think it’s because if you’re used to the suburbs and the big box stores, Manhattan’s gonna look pretty familiar these days. Sigh. (Lived here all my life don’t @ me)
I would have thought Sasha would be living in Brooklyn, BTW.