At the NBA finals, the Very Important President showed his favorite sport is status. Donald Trump arrived at the Knicks' biggest night in 27 years hoping to cement his status and power in his hometown. But the fans had other ideas.
On Monday night, the most powerful man in the world crashed a citywide celebration 27 years in the making and almost shut it down, with barricades around Midtown Manhattan, security lines outside Madison Square Garden and agents wanding Victor Wembanyama as if the San Antonio Spurs phenom were a threat off the court as well as on it. And when Donald Trump finally arrived for his grand entrance, it was in a half-mile-long motorcade. Anyone taking in the scene couldn't help but ask the quintessential New York question: who does this guy think he is, some kind of big shot?
At this point in Trump's presidency, it's fair to wonder if he got into politics for the free tickets. On a night when he could've been dealing with far more pressing issues – soaring living costs, war with Iran, a global economy under strain – Trump flew to New York expressly to watch the Knicks play host to their first NBA finals game since he started making noises about running for office someday; he evidently couldn't turn down the game after being invited by 'numerous people.'
Monday's trip to the NBA finals came amid a stacked sports calendar for the president during his second term that has seen him appear at everything from the Super Bowl to college wrestling championships. This weekend he will even turn the White House South Lawn into the staging ground for a UFC card on his 80th birthday. There's no doubt Trump is a sports fan – the zero-sum contests, the dominant athletes, the spectacle of it all. But that's not the real pull for him.
The point is social hierarchy. Sports makes that legible. The farther you are from the action, the lower you are in status – unless, of course, you're watching from a suite, where you either have connections or are the connection. When Trump went to Knicks games in his pre-presidential days, he sat courtside between his second wife, Marla Maples, and the actor Elliott Gould. The Garden's celebrity row was a glitzy club where he fit relatively comfortably – unlike the US Open, where New York's old-money gatekeepers still treated him as a headline-chasing arriviste.
Becoming president changed the geometry. He was no longer just another celebrity; he was the axis around which the event now had to revolve. When Barack Obama attended basketball games during his time in office, he picked his spots, stayed out of marquee moments and tried to avoid turning the night into a logistical nightmare. He sat courtside, posed for selfies and dapped up players and coaches. The intention was always the same: don't upstage the game.
Trump does the opposite. Sporting events are not so much something he attends as something he encroaches upon, reshapes, and absorbs into his own image – more of a black hole than a true-blue fan. He makes them fodder for political memes. Game 3 wasn't just a high school revenge moment, his night to tell the hometown haters who counted him out after his federal conviction on 34 felony counts in May 2024: 'Look at me now, bigger than ever.' It was also meant to double as a PR victory over a league that has long functioned as one of his most visible cultural antagonists.
Before Monday's game, Knicks players tried to downplay the impact the president's attendance would have; only center Mitchell Robinson, a proud owner of a Trump flag, didn't really bother. 'He's welcome here,' NBA commissioner Adam Silver said on ESPN before tipoff. 'What makes sports so special, especially when there's so much that divides people, is it's something we have in common. We should look for those things and build off that.'
It was a marked retreat for a league that once had a far more adversarial relationship with Trump – one defined by the president's public insults aimed at LeBron James, the rescinding of a White House invitation to the Golden State Warriors after Steph Curry opted out of celebrating the 2017 championship, and a broader political rupture during the player-led protests that followed George Floyd's killing. But Silver's comments underscore how fully the sports world bows to the Very Important President now.
That reverence was on display at MSG on Monday night. Before games, the Knicks distribute a VIP list to the press to identify who's who – but Trump wasn't included. Why would he be? The Very Important President looms well above such formalities. He doesn't sit courtside next to Spike Lee and Tina Fey (Can't risk the optics of seating a convicted felon too close to Law & Order: SVU's Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni, after all). He watches from on high alongside Knicks owner James Dolan, from a suite encased in plexiglass shielding with extra security. But just when it seemed Trump had won the status game, the damnedest thing happened: the party passed him by.
The real juice wasn't inside the plexiglass suite with the president, Trump's granddaughter Kai, secretary of the interior Doug Burgum and Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff. It was down on the floor with Jay-Z, Derek Jeter and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel – somehow both in the middle of the scene and easy to miss. It was with the Knicks crowd that endured the long lines and booed the president when he appeared on the big screen during the national anthem. For all of his clout, the Very Important President couldn't compete with the star power.
The true gravity came from a matchup that felt as big as Ali-Frazier at MSG in 1971 or any of Michael Jordan's signature nights. That it ended with the Knicks suffering their first loss in a month and a half gave the night a whiff of folklore. If they go on to lose the series, the Bernie Madoff curse may have to make room for the Trump jinx – especially if he makes good on his threat to return for Wednesday's Game 4. There was another annoyance for fans who ponied up a few months rent for game tickets only to be delayed by all the security checks on Monday: social media images appeared to show Grandpa Donnie napping during the game. All that security theater, all the midtown revelry disrupted for something he could have done at home or on the plane – and for far less taxpayer money.
In the end, Trump got what he wanted: a prime seat for one of the hottest events in sports, attention under a harsh spotlight, and his place at the center of a league that once defied him (even if he couldn't totally insulate himself from fan hostility). But this NBA finals foray proved the folly of his lifelong quest to be seen as the ultimate VIP. No matter how much the Very Important President inserts himself into the spectacle, it always – always – diminishes him.
