Here's How Different Life Was the Last Time the Knicks Reached the Finals

The New York Knicks are back in the NBA Finals.

It feels like it’s been a long time since the Knickerbockers made it to the championship round, and that’s because it has.

The last time the Knicks played in an NBA Finals game was on June 25, 1999, when Latrell Sprewell and Marcus Camby lost to a young Tim Duncan in Game 5, allowing the San Antonio Spurs to capture their first-ever championship.

Since that day, the Spurs have won several more titles and built their own dynasty around Tim Duncan, with their last title coming in 2014.

But how else has the world changed since the Knicks last made the NBA Finals?

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Well, here are all the North American professional sports teams that still existed the last time the Knicks made the championship.

The Houston Texans became a thing in 2002.

The Montreal Expos left Canada and became the Washington Nationals, who won the World Series in 2019.

Los Angeles, after being denied an NFL team for decades, received two, in the Rams and the Chargers.

Atlanta Thrashers? They’re now flying high as the Jets in Winnipeg. The Oakland Raiders are now in Sin City. Oh, and they got a hockey team that can’t lose in the Golden Knights.

And how about the NBA itself, with the Grizzlies moving from Vancouver to Memphis and the Charlotte Bobcats being a thing. If you told someone in 1999 that the Seattle Super Sonics would move to Oklahoma City, you would have been laughed at.

How about players?

Thanks to basketball pundit Molly Morrison, who pointed out that the entire San Antonio Spurs starting lineup, headlined by 7-foot-4 superhuman Victor Wembanyama, wasn’t alive when Tim Duncan was leading the franchise to their first Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.

Social media wasn’t a thing.

LeBron James was just beginning high school.

YouTube? What’s that?

Online dating was considered taboo.

Amazon was mostly known as a place to get good deals on books and DVDs.

It’s been a long time since the Knicks were this close to a championship.

The last time they actually won a title, though? 1973. Let’s wait until they win a game first to start thinking about how life has changed since that date.

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This story was originally published May 26, 2026 at 9:12 PM.