The New York Knicks defeated the Boston Celtics 119-81 on Friday to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals and, as expected, New York City celebs filled in courtside to watch as one of the league's most beloved (though far from winningest) franchises moved closer to that elusive first NBA championship in more than 50 years. There was Spike Lee, as effusive as ever, along with Bad Bunny, Lenny Kravitz, Ice Spice, and Ben Stiller. But no other celebrity there Friday night quite holds our current zeitgeist, at least among the average reader of this website, quite like Timothée Chalamet, and that's before you factor in he's dating a member of the Kardashian family.
A born-and-bred New Yorker, Chalamet's Knicks fandom makes perfect sense. If anything, he is living every New Yorker's dream, hamming it up with Lee afterward on the court, then getting caught on video leaning out of a black car, high-fiving, screaming, and losing his mind with his fellow Knicks fans—until he almost gets pulled out. The video ends with another person in the vehicle makes a move to bring the 29-year-old actor back in.
But for Chalamet, the win also embodied a period of time he has spent alluding to, then invoking, and finally fully embodying his Sports Bro Era. It began late last year when an interviewer asked Chalamet about doing another bio-pic after his Oscar-nominated performance as Baby Boomer singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Chalamet replied that he would like to play Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson. Next, he popped up on ESPN's College GameDay slinging college football takes that were better than those dished by some of the people paid millions of dollars to do just that.
Perhaps all this of could have been dismissed as line memorizing or savvy marketing, but then Chalamet took the stage to receive his Screen Actors Guild Award for best male actor in a leading role for "A Complete Unknown" and invoked one of the highest powers available to the Sports Bro—the great Knicks slayer himself, Michael Jordan.
"I know we're in a subjective business, but the truth is I'm really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don't usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I'm inspired by the greats. I'm inspired by the greats here tonight," he said. "I'm as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there."
Never in my life did I think I would hear Jordan's name invoked at a Hollywood awards show acceptance speech, let alone in the same sentence as Marlon Brando. But I suppose that's what makes life worth living, in a small and minor way. So, no, I was not surprised by Chalamet appeared courtside recently. His seatmate changed from game to game—Kylie Jenner in Game Four, Bad Bunny for Game Six—but Chalamet, the devoted New Yorker, remained.
How long Chalamet will wish to remain in his Sports Bro Era is a question only he can answer, though I doubt it will be any time soon. Frankly, it's just going too well for him and the tour must go on. As for how much of this is real versus how much of this is performance, that is always a question, especially with someone who makes a living by being charming, present, and giving people what they want. But who are we to judge? Our previous Chalamet coverage focused on his appearance on College GameDay, a Chalamet look-a-like contest in New York City, and the film adaptations of the sci-fi novels Dune. If there is something one of the hottest young actors of our current time and your favorite sports blog have in common, it's that they both know their audience.
