Honored for his unwavering dedication to a basketball team without a stellar Hall of Fame history, Billy Crystal couldn’t help but note the irony.
“How strange to be getting a ring before any of the Clippers,” he remarked.
The actor was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s James F. Goldstein SuperFan Gallery in a ceremony on Sunday, alongside fellow entertainer and filmmaker Spike Lee and Philadelphia businessman Alan Horwitz. Longtime Lakers fan Jack Nicholson was also honored, though the three-time Academy Award winner couldn’t attend.
Crystal donned a sports jacket and slacks, contrasting with Lee and Horwitz, who dressed like they were situated courtside. Lee sported an orange vest over a New York sweatshirt, topped off by a black Knicks bucket hat, and sparred with the opposition as if he were in his seat at Madison Square Garden.
“I saw some Boston Celtic green. Uh-uh,” he quipped, before revealing to the fans that he had brought coach Red Holzman’s 1973 NBA championship ring, the last title won by the Knicks.
“It’s been a long time, but I think this year it’s going to be orange-and-blue skies,” Lee predicted.
Horwitz, known as the 76ers’ Sixth Man, wore a 76ers sweatshirt, a blue Sixers hat, and blue-and-white colored sneakers. He became emotional, pondering how proud his mother would have been of his accolade.
Their loyalty as basketball fans spans more than five decades. Horwitz watched the Philadelphia Warriors when Wilt Chamberlain was a rookie in 1959. Crystal, in high school a few years earlier, was drawn to another high schooler, Larry Brown, who later achieved enshrinement after winning championships as a coach in college and the NBA.
Lee witnessed the Knicks’ first championship in 1970, and Crystal was no stranger to MSG either, having started as a Knicks fan. After moving across the country, he attended Lakers games before someone suggested he check out a Clippers game.
“And I said, ‘Why?’” Crystal recalled.
Yet, he enjoyed it and has been a devoted fan ever since, despite the team never rewarding him with a championship. Lee has held Knicks season tickets since 1985, the year they drafted Patrick Ewing, though it took some time to secure the prime real estate he now occupies.
“Every film I moved down,” he said.
While Lee speaks of a title this season, Crystal remains more reserved about the Clippers’ prospects. However, he emphasized that dedicated fans stick with their teams through thick and thin.
Not that it’s always easy. As he spoke, a baby began to cry.
“That’s how we felt for the last 30 years,” Crystal said.