For years, the 2019 Knicks have lived in NBA lore as a franchise that swung big and missed. Now we know they also swung loud.
In an episode of Pablo Torre Finds Out, Method Man revealed that the Knicks paid Wu-Tang Clan to create an original song as part of their effort to recruit Kevin Durant in the summer of 2019.
Torre’s team later said they unearthed the actual music video with Method Man’s help, turning what sounded like a myth into a real artifact: a full-on pitch package aimed at one person.
The details make it even more surreal. Reporting around the reveal describes Method Man appearing in the video in a Knicks jersey customized for Durant, and the clip functioning like a recruiting tape, part performance, part direct appeal to bring a superstar to Madison Square Garden.
The Knicks paid Wu-Tang Clan to woo Kevin Durant in 2019 free agency with an original song.
We unearthed the music video, with a little help from @MethodMan himself. It goes kinda crazy. pic.twitter.com/LlgNQqgKlH
— Pablo Torre Finds Out (@pablofindsout) December 11, 2025
It’s the kind of thing only the Knicks would attempt, and the kind of thing only New York could plausibly commission without anyone batting an eye.
Of course, the ending is the one basketball fans already know: Durant didn’t choose the Knicks. Despite being the crown jewel of that free-agent summer, and despite the organization’s creativity, he signed with inner-city rivals, the Brooklyn Nets.
The conclusive takeaway isn’t that a rap video “cost” the Knicks a superstar, or that it nearly landed one. It’s simpler, and more revealing: the franchise understood that recruiting in New York isn’t just about cap sheets and depth charts, it’s about myth-making. The Wu-Tang pitch wasn’t a basketball argument as much as a cultural one, a very Knicks attempt to sell Durant on the idea that in Manhattan he wouldn’t just play; he’d headline.
