vest, thick-framed black glasses, and a
hat emblazoned with the words “The
Starry Night.” Walking to their seats,
his companion, the writer Ben Detrick
(sweater, fraying khakis, gray sneakers),
spotted a small shrine inside the arena
and posed for a photo. It was a wall
panel commemorating “the Dunk,” in
1993, when John Starks scored over Mi-
chael Jordan during a playoff game.
(The Knicks, being the Knicks, won
the game, then lost the series.) “The
vibe here is like the basement of a mid-
dle school,” Detrick said, after paying
his respects. Translation: still better than
a Nets game.
Kuo and Detrick run a company called
Cookies Hoops, which is like a support
group for the basketball-obsessed. There’s
a podcast, an apparel line, a newsletter,
an annual three-on-three tournament,
and a new book, called “The Joy of Bas-
ketball.” Written by Detrick and illus-
trated by Kuo, it’s an encyclopedia: part
art book, part social commentary, part
desk reference. The entries are alphabet-
ical, listing players (“Durant, Kevin”),
teams, and miscellaneous themes (“Feral
Bigs,” “Ninja Headbands,” “Load Man-
agement”). Under “Knicks 4 Life,” there’s
one of Kuo’s trademark charts, plotting
the emotions of Knicks fans on a color
spectrum ranging from “Relying on hope/
faith” (very bad) to “Raving under bridges”
(kinda good). A full-page illustration de-
picts the Starks dunk, with the rim made
to look like a halo. “The Knicks reflect
the self-identity of the New Yorker—this, but I just found out that owls are
considered bad luck there,” he said.
He’d made a Times-manipulation
work about the late Barry the Owl, of
Central Park fame. In Tomaselli’s piece,
Barry is paired with the headline “Fac-
ing Afghan Chaos, Biden Defends
Exit.” “They don’t really make any sense
together, but it just felt right,” he said.
“I saw Barry; I see all the celebrity birds.”
The mandarin duck? “I saw that duck
before it was famous! And I was, like,
it’s an escaped pet, big fucking deal. And
then the mandarin duck became a thing,
in the news, and I was, like, that duck is
fake! You know you can buy them on
the Internet for a hundred and fifty
bucks. They’re, like, ornamental ducks
you can have in your ornamental pond
in your back yard in Connecticut.”
—Emma Allen
1
BACKCOURTDEPT.
BALLERS
W
hen the New York Knicks re-
cently hosted the Houston Rock-
ets, the worst team in the N.B.A., two
superfans decided to visit Madison
Square Garden. “The really bad teams
are almost as rewarding as watching a
LeBron game,” one of them, the artist
Andrew Kuo, said. He wore a puffy
past and present,” Detrick writes. “It is
basketball funneled through Fran Lebo-
witz, wearing Lugz boots and shoveling
a bacon, egg, and cheese into her maw
while smoking a loosie.”
Clutching beers, Kuo and Detrick
settled in for a slow game. The Rockets
turned the ball over eight times in the
first nine minutes. “You can see the idea
of an N.B.A. team,” Detrick said. Mid-
way through the first quarter, Whoopi
Goldberg appeared on the jumbotron.
“It’s the patron saint of the Knicks,” Kuo
said. Detrick lifted his sweater to reveal
a T-shirt with Goldberg’s face on it.
“Didn’t even plan that,” he added.
Knicks optimists expecting an easy
night were proved wrong by halftime.
The score was tied. “I don’t get mad any-
more,” Kuo said. “Linsanity made me a
better person.” This was a reference to
an eleven-day stretch, in 2012, during
which a Harvard-educated benchwarmer
named Jeremy Lin stunned the city, and
the league, with a bout of dominant play.
(Lin, Jeremy: “Before each game there
was a sense that, tonight, the spectacle
would capsize in flames, and yet, for two
weeks, it did not.”)
“Cookies” is hoops slang for a nifty
steal—and a hallmark of the Kuo-Det-
rick backcourt. Several years ago, the two
were arguing on Twitter about advanced
metrics without actually having met.
“I’m Ben, from the internet,” Detrick
told Kuo when they finally did. They
became friends on the night-life circuit;
Kuo was d.j.’ing and Detrick was work-
ing for the Styles section of the Times.
In 2015, Detrick started a basketball pod-
cast for Vice, but Kuo was wary. “I was
a painter. I didn’t want anything to do
with this,” Kuo said. “I had to come out
as a basketball fan. I had to say, ‘I, too,
am a baller.’ ”
Now, during a trip to the concession
stand, they were discussing edits to the
footage they’d shot from their recent
tournament. Local businesses field teams
(Williamsburg Pizza, Lucien), but the
level of play can be suspiciously high
(Ringers: European pros, Division 1 play-
ers, Royal Ivey). At this year’s tourna-
ment, Kuo appreciated one group play-
ing for the Drunken Canal, the downtown
gossip paper: “They seemed hungover
from the night before, but young enough
to ball. Wiry shooters!” (The Canal says
“Whatever confidence I once had in him is now gone.” that only its managers were hungover.)