Legendary director Spike Lee received a standing ovation when he finally took home his first competitive Academy Award for writing “BlacKkKlansman” in 2019. He also received a Lifetime Achievement Oscar in 2015. But the “Inside Man” filmmaker said he is willing to relinquish one of statuettes in exchange for the New York Knicks winning the NBA Championship.
“I would give [an] Academy Award — Oscar — for the Knicks to win a championship,” Lee said May 29 on “Inside the NBA” prior to the Knick’s 111-94 win over the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. “I got two already.”
Charles Barkley quickly interrupted Lee with sarcastic skepticism.
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“You’re gonna keep ‘em,” he qupped.
Lee is a longtime fan of the Knicks. He was at Madison Square Garden on May 8, 1970, for the Knicks’ first championship — and he has the late Coach Red Holzman’s ring around his neck to prove it, as well as a ring from the Knicks’ second, and to date last, championship. Lee also wears the ring given to him when he was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s James F. Goldstein SuperFan Gallery in 2024, alongside Jack Nicholson, Billy Crystal and Alan Horwitz.
During a Cannes Festival press conference earlier this month, Lee drew an analogy between awards shows and basketball.
“With these awards, it’s like basketball, where the ref blows a call and you have to make a call,” he said, stating he felt Denzel Washington should’ve won an Academy Award for his work in Lee’s “Malcolm X.”
“So, the call I think was ‘Training Day,’ which he won an Oscar for. But we don’t do our work for awards, which are nice, but it’s the work that is going to stand above all awards,” Lee continued.
The director expressed a similar sentiment in 2018 in an interview with GQ – months before his “BlacKkKlansman” Oscar win.
“To be honest, after ‘Do the Right Thing,’ I said, ‘That’s it.’ You know?” Lee said. “That’s not to say I wasn’t happy to get the honorary award, but as far as Oscars, my thing has always been my body of work. What film won best film of 1989? ‘Driving Miss Daisy.’ Driving Miss motherfucking Daisy. Who’s watching that film now?”
The Knicks face the Pacers again for game six of the Eastern Conference Finals in Indianapolis May 31 at 8 p.m. ET, live on TNT, truTV, HBO Max and Sling TV, as the teams battle it out for a chance in the NBA Finals.
