Knicks legends Earl Monroe and Bill Bradley reminiscence about their NBA championship banner being raised 53 years ago

Knicks legends Earl Monroe and Bill Bradley think they know what the current players are going to be feeling on Tuesday night. That’s when the franchise’s first NBA championship banner in 53 years is going to be raised to the Madison Square Garden rafters before the season opener against LeBron James and the 76ers.

Because they’ve been there.

“It’s a very moving moment,” Bradley, who won titles with the Knicks in 1970 and 1973, told Newsday on Thursday. “It’s a recognition of achievement, recognition of the values that we played by like unselfishness, discipline, resilience. It's a celebration of all the good things. And for New York, they saw the good things this year. That's why it was a different place for a few weeks."

How different? The 1972-73 team is no longer the last Knicks squad to win a title.

Monroe, a member of that team, said this year’s Knicks title meant something else to him.

“Well, first of all, it meant that all of a sudden I wasn't the guy anymore,” he said on Thursday. “But it felt great that we've had some great players come through over the years, and finally getting over the hump. Not only just for me. I mean, just for the city itself. We're a city of champs, so we deserve it.”

Bradley and Monroe were together again Thursday at the ribbon cutting for a new building for the Earl Monroe New Renaissance Basketball School, a charter high school in the South Bronx.

The ceremony drew NBA commissioner Adam Silver, former Knicks including John Starks and Stephon Marbury, actor/comedian Tracy Morgan, a super Knicks fan, and ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, who hosted.

Bradley, 83, made an emotional speech to the more than 460 students in attendance.

“The fact that it has Earl Monroe on the [school] name — that might be a little reason why I'm here,” Bradley said. “But you guys are the reason that makes my heart full. Earl is the reason of my heart because he is in my heart. When you are a teammate and you go to the top, it's a forever bond.”

The current Knicks team has that bond after last year’s title. Starting Tuesday night, we all get to see what they can do for an encore.

“It's a little different [after you win],” said Monroe, 81. “Certainly, the fact that you won, obviously, it makes it so that you understand that you can win again. I'm quite sure that they're coming into this season thinking that we're number one, and it's up to other people to prove that we're not.”

Silver, in his address to the students, said the exploits of the 1970s Knicks teams inspired him as a youngster growing up in Westchester and is part of the reason he went after a career with the NBA.

Said Monroe: “We knew that we inspired a lot of folks. After all, it's been 53 years.”

Not anymore.