In case you missed it, former Marquette guard Tyler Kolek recently won an NBA championship with the New York Knicks. It was a whole thing, as the Knicks turned into the most dominant team in NBA history (by way of aggregate margin of victory) for about six weeks and rolled through the playoffs after falling behind 2-1 to the Atlanta Hawks in the first round.
After the Knicks won Game 5 on June 13th, New York City held a championship parade for the squad on Thursday, June 18th. At some point in the proceedings, Tyler Kolek figured out exactly why the players mostly stay on the floats or in the cars or whatever in the parade. Kolek — who did not play in the NBA Finals but still gets a ring, making him a more successful NBA player than Karl Malone — ended up wandering around down by the barricade along the street with what appears to be a Michelob Ultra bottle in his hand and celebrating with the fans.
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This was fine for the first eight NYPD officers that he passed.
BUT NOT THE NINTH.
Turns out, in fairness, it might be hard to tell that you are an NBA player if you are a 6’2”, 195 pound white guy of relatively average build wearing a ballcap, black T-shirt, and black shorts. That’s the defense for the officer in the white uniform running over to collect Kolek. However, because Kolek did pass by eight different law enforcement officers, I feel like White Uniform Officer and his backup, Bearded Officer With Stripes, qualify as non-ball knowers here. Eight different officers watched Kolek skip on by and said “oh, that Tyler Kolek, what a scamp” and let him go. Not those guys. They tried to stop Kolek and then grab Kolek and turn it into A Whole Thing. If they knew ball, then they would have never come close to stopping the 2023 Big East Player of the Year from doing what he does best.
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Thankfully there’s the guy in the matching ballcap that’s right next to Kolek at the start of the video. I’m presuming that he’s team security walking along with the parade for exactly this circumstance. He trails along and then runs up to clearly say “hey, that’s Tyler Kolek, he’s on the team.” The situation immediately de-escalates from there, so no harm, no foul.
Although…..
….. I can’t be the only one who is wondering what the presumably at least slightly intoxicated Kolek is shouting at Bearded Officer With Stripes, right?
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