For a generation of Knicks fans, the 1972-73 championship team remains a treasured part of the franchise’s history. On Thursday morning in the South Bronx, two stars from that legendary roster shared a moment that revealed an even deeper bond.
Speaking to a packed gymnasium at the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School, two-time NBA champion and former U.S. senator Bill Bradley delivered an emotional tribute to his longtime friend, former on-court rival and eventual Knicks teammate, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe.
“The fact that it has Earl Monroe on the [school] name, that might be a little reason why I’m here, but you guys are the reason that makes my heart full. Earl is the reason of my heart, because he is in my heart,” Bradley said. Monroe was seated just to his left, prompting an enthusiastic reaction from the students. “When you are a teammate and you go to the top, it’s a forever bond, and we did that twice.”
Bradley, 83, said his appearance was “one small way for me to say to my friend, I love you.”
The two Knicks icons were reunited to mark the opening of a new 69,000-square-foot facility for the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School, a specialized charter school in The Bronx. Its curriculum uses basketball as a foundation while preparing students for careers both on and beyond the court.
Founded in 2021, the school serves 440 students in grades 9-12. Its programs cover fields including broadcast, print and digital media, law and marketing.
“Everybody can’t play basketball, even though everybody wants to, but there’s so many other aspects of the sports and the game that you can be involved in without being the sports person,” Monroe, 81, said after the ceremony. “I think that this is an excellent way for people to be involved in the sport and still get the same satisfaction as scoring a basket.”
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The ribbon-cutting attracted a notable group of guests, including former Knicks stars John Starks and Stephon Marbury, Knicks superfan Tracy Morgan, ESPN personality Mike Greenberg, who served as host, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
Silver said the timing of the ceremony was especially appropriate. The Knicks had ended a 53-year championship drought this past summer, becoming the first New York team to win the title since Monroe’s 1973 squad.
“It felt great,” Monroe said of the Knicks’ latest championship. “We’ve had some great players come through over the years, and finally getting over the hump. Not only just for me, just for the city itself. We’re a city of champs, so we deserve it.”
As defending champions, however, the Knicks will enter the season with increased expectations and a target on their backs. Repeating as NBA champions will be no easy challenge.
Monroe knows that challenge firsthand. As a member of the Baltimore Bullets, he helped eliminate the Knicks in the 1971 Eastern Conference Finals, preventing them from defending their championship. Still, the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer expressed confidence in New York’s mentality heading into the season.
“Certainly, the fact that you’ve won, obviously, it makes it so that you understand that you can win again,” Monroe said. “So I’m quite sure that they’re coming into this thinking that we’re No. 1, and I’ll tell other people to prove that we’re not.”
Monroe and Bradley’s connection stretches from their days playing in Philadelphia’s Baker League to college and, eventually, the NBA. Yet Bradley’s most enduring impression of Monroe was shaped less by what he witnessed on the court than by the community commitment on display Thursday.
“This is the Earl Monroe that I know,” Bradley said before the ceremony. “From the first day I met him, when we had a shootout at Bry Pope Baptist Church in Philadelphia in the summertime, Earl Monroe was interested in the community, and this is the epitome of being interested in the community.”
