We Need to Talk

On Knicks fever, double merch, and knowing when to put it on ice.

Sit down, this is an intervention.

You look ridiculous.

I know the Knicks won the title. As a vaccinated Nets fan, I was close enough to Knicks fever without catching it.

Now, we have to get something out of the way. I’m not a hater. I rooted for the Knicks. There are people that saw me rooting for the Knicks. Not jumping up and down, but I would cheer, toss out a high five. Send encouraging texts to my distressed loved ones.

The bandwagon merch is a given, and I’ve already shared my thoughts on the collabafication of everything. But whatever, it’s fun to root for a winning team. You can root without being a billboard.

I have, however, witnessed the most blatant display of double merching of my lifetime.

The ’80s and ’90s may have had the best jerseys, but the 2000s and early 2010s were the best time to wear them.

The black Iverson, baby blue Melo, just to name a few. My personal favorite being my stitched Vince Carter Nets. The long sleeve under the Marbury went triple platinum in every New York City public school. (Again, Nets fan. I was left out of this.)

I was an active participant in the throwback jersey arms race that was a college day drink in the early 2010s and the Chinese bootleg boom, where I bought a Mark Sanchez jersey in front of a pork store in the Pathmark parking lot for $50 his rookie season.

I will never forget you, Sanchize.

Forever procuring knowledge before wearing a band tee thanks to the childhood “name five songs” kid asking you about obscure Green Day songs when your mom saw the shirt at Target and you loved American Idiot. That person is now a moderator on r/incel and you’re reading a Substack, so who knows who really came out on top.

Merch comes in waves. Before “Knicks in 5,” we had the Marty Supreme jacket. The difference being that shit was cooked before it touched the masses, with the exception of Susan Boyle. (DREAM A DREAM GIRL.)

That leads me back to the Knickerboxers. This shit is tangible. It’s not Tom Brady being lame in something before we can even buy it. It is everywhere.

With everyone and literally their mother buying it, we’ve arrived at a cardinal sin: the dreaded double merch.

Now, who among us has rung the bell of shame? I HAVE DOUBLE MERCHED. Recently, I didn’t notice until I caught my reflection in the restaurant window that I was wearing my Nets shirt and Arsenal hat.

A transatlantic sin.

It was sloppy. I was sloppy. But the intentional double merch being trotted around is a different story.

Pre-Knicks hoisting the Larry O, the most common place to double merch was at a baseball game. The classic hat-and-jersey combo. Add a glove and you could be confused for a ball boy on his post-divorce Make-A-Wish. Sad, but confined to a stadium most days.

Y’all were outside in this shit all summer and it’s over. Don’t bring that weak shit into fall.

A grown-ass man in the championship hat and the shirt. Stop going to the bar looking like you’re trying to get on the Jumbotron.

I understand the excitement. I have loved shitty teams all my life, but it’s time to get yourself together.

May I recommend an alternative? Put that shit on ice.

Merch, like cheese, is always better when it is aged, obscure, and a little funky. You don’t have to retire the fandom, just the championship hat. Get a GR one for the new season and pull it out in a few years. It’ll hit so much harder.

This goes for you too, guy who went to the US Open.

-SP