Oops: Knicks Parade Banner Honors Retired Jersey Instead of Bench Player

Picture this: the New York Knicks just won their first NBA championship in decades, the city’s throwing a parade down Broadway, and somewhere in the celebration someone handed a designer a roster that was wildly out of date. The result? A banner at City Hall honoring bench player Dillon Jones plastered with the number 33—a jersey that’s been retired since 2003 in honor of Patrick Ewing, widely considered the greatest player in franchise history.

Yeah, that’s a problem.

Jones’s actual number with the Knicks is 1, but the mix-up traces back to his preseason stint with the Washington Wizards last year, where he did wear 33. Some outdated online rosters apparently still list him with that number, and whoever designed the banners clearly pulled from the wrong source. It’s the kind of detail that makes you wonder how something like that slips through at a citywide celebration, but here we are.

The irony isn’t lost on anyone paying attention. Ewing, a franchise legend who defined an era of Knicks basketball, gets his retired number accidentally handed to a player who appeared in just a handful of games. Jones saw limited action—nothing that would warrant a prominent City Hall banner in his honor. Ewing? He’s the reason the number is off limits in the first place.

To be fair, most New Yorkers won’t lose sleep over the gaffe. The city’s too busy soaking up championship fever after years of heartbreak. Still, it’s a reminder that even in moments of pure joy, someone somewhere is probably scrambling to fix a detail that nobody wanted to catch in the first place. At least the parade itself went off without a hitch—and that’s what really matters.