The Long Island story behind Knicks star Jalen Brunson's Siegelman Stable hat

Siegelman Stable, a clothing brand with Long Island roots, has found an unexpected spotlight within the fame of the Knicks' championship win. 

The equestrian clothing brand was founded in 2020 by Max Siegelman, 36, who was raised in Roslyn Heights. Knicks guard Jalen Brunson wore a hat donning the brand's logo earlier this week on "The Tonight Show" and at the championship celebration in Manhattan on Thursday as he received a key to the city from Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Other NBA champions were also wearing the sportswear brand, which has its own Knicks hat line and is primarily sold online and through pop-ups in the Hamptons and New York City.

"It's like we've become an alternative logo for the New York Knicks," Siegelman said Thursday. "Jalen just started wearing our stuff. A friend of mine was connected to a friend of his. I connected with him and they're, like, 'You guys need to meet.' We've just formed a friendship over the last four or five years." 

Siegelman's 72-year-old father, Robert Siegelman, founder of Siegelman Racing Stable, was born and raised on Long Island and started training horses at Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury. After the raceway was demolished in 2000, he opened a stable in New Jersey's Meadowlands, and then south of Freehold, to continue his passion for harness horse racing and equine therapy, a form of mental health therapy incorporating horses in structured sessions.

"So I grew up kind of around it, not embedded in it as much as people probably think," Max Siegelman said. 

After college graduation and landing a job in creative consulting for music artists, athletes and brands, Siegelman said he never expected to work in the fashion industry.

"I always say this started by accident," he recounted. "I think I made a couple hundred dollars' worth of pants and sweatshirts and gave it to family, friends and some of those athletes, music artists and others that I had worked with in the past saw me posting it and asked for pieces. Once I sent them pieces, it's kind of really when I started to build a platform."

Working with the Knicks, he said, was a huge steppingstone for what Siegelman Stable has built through outreach over the last five years.

Inspired by his father's career, Siegelman put his dad's horse stable logo from the 1980s at the forefront of his brand. "It represents a core of things that my parents instilled in me and what my dad has created for himself and his life," he said. "I went to college in upstate New York, I live in Manhattan and so to represent New York in terms of everything, but in terms of fashion, is amazing."

Using a different avenue of expression, Siegelman found a way to keep his father's story alive outside the raceway, landing him the opportunity to work with the NBA team. 

"We're grateful that the Knicks organization, obviously Jalen being the face, the MVP, the captain of the Knicks, want to represent us and become a friend of the brand," he said. "Not just him, his family, and the entire roster of the Knicks over the last couple of years. It's been amazing to kind of ride by their side, and as they win, we kind of also win."