Those Knicks Trash Cans Will Not Survive the Weekend

New Yorkers take a peculiar pride in the nastier parts of the city: the rats, the shit-and-piss-filled subway cars, the fat slobs in mysteriously stained wife beaters, and of course, the streets overflowing with trash bags because no one could figure out basic sanitation. These are all icons of the Greatest City on Earth.

So what better way to honor the Knicks than with their very own orange-and-blue limited edition trash cans? In any other city this would be a tasteless knock against a division rival. In New York? This is their love language.

The cans are hitting street corners right now as part of a collaboration between Only NY and NYC Sanitation. They were custom hand-painted at the DSNY’s paint and sign shop, and the brand rode along to City Hall for the delivery. They’re NYC’s ubiquitous corner litter baskets, done up in the team’s colors, sitting on streets that are about to be absolutely packed with people who have been waiting for this moment for decades.

This particular collab carries some extra meaning: June 17 also happens to be Global Garbage Man Day, making the timing a tribute to the DSNY workers who keep the city clean through events far more chaotic than a championship parade.

There is no universe where any of these trash cans are still on the street by Monday morning. With 63 arrests, a shooting, a stabbing, and multiple cars and buses vandalized or lit on fire during the Knicks’ victory celebration Saturday night, it’s pretty clear that fans won’t be drawing the line at a little bit of banditry.

To be clear: we don’t condone stealing public property. Taking a city trash can is technically theft, could land you in actual legal trouble, and deprives the neighborhood of a valuable (and probably rare) sanitation resource. We are obligated to say that. It’s also a bit gauche.

That said, these cans are going to walk. A limited run of hand-painted, officially sanctioned Knicks championship memorabilia, slung on street corners along a parade route that will see hundreds of thousands of people? The only question is whether it happens tonight, during the parade, or in the first quiet hour after. Our guess is that at least one has already found a new home.

The more interesting question for our purposes: will any of them surface on the secondary market?

It’s possible, but not exactly clean. These are bulky, oddly shaped objects with no retail price, no established comp, and a pretty significant complication in the chain of title. There’s also no print run to reference, no authentication, and no obvious platform that’s set up to move stolen municipal property with any efficiency.

That said, stranger things have ended up on eBay. If someone does manage to list one, the novelty alone is going to attract attention. Championship parade memorabilia + limited art collab + the sheer audacity of the provenance story? That’s a combination that could pull real money. We just wouldn’t personally want to be the one explaining the acquisition.

Keep an eye on eBay and Facebook Marketplace this weekend. If a Knicks trash can shows up for sale, we want to see it.

And if you happen to… find one, you might want to look for any sort of tracking device. Just saying.