New York City —
The large man was dressed in a suit in unseasonably sticky 90-degree weather. He had an ear piece, a badge, and a walkie-talkie – and also a bit of wisdom for those who doubted Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks on Tuesday.
He was, quite clearly, some sort of security official, the kind associated with a classy establishment like The World’s Most Famous Arena. And, crucially, he was standing on the desirable side of a crowd-control barricade, although he was stoically facing away from the source of increasingly giddy revelry.
Inside – which is to say, some hundred or so yards from here, at the center of the city block that had…