{"id":857146,"date":"2026-06-10T09:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/857146\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T09:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:22:16","slug":"knicks-player-stays-connected-to-his-queens-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/857146\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks player stays connected to his Queens high school"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was quite a play.<\/p>\n<p>In Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs, Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado took on 7\u20194&#8243; Victor Wembanyama and hit a pull-up jumper, not to mention he was fouled. ABC Play by Play announcer Mike Breen called Alvarado fearless.<\/p>\n<p><b>What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New York Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado played high school basketball at Christ the King in Queens\u00a0<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>Alvarado is playing in the NBA Finals for his hometown team\u00a0<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>He grew up in Williamsburg and Flushing and attended college at Georgia Tech<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That moment for Alvarado may not have been possible if not for the lessons learned inside the gym at Christ the King High School in Middle Village, Queens.<\/p>\n<p>Principal Joseph Arbitello has also been head coach of the varsity men\u2019s team here for 18 years and has coached for 25 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the only guy that I have coached that went to the NBA finals and it couldn\u2019t be more special a guy from Brooklyn being able to do that,\u201d said Arbitello of Alvarado, who grew up in Williamsburg and Flushing and was a standout player at a school that has a history of basketball success for both the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n<p>That includes Lamar Odom, Speedy Claxton, Khalid Reeves, Sue Bird, Chamique Holdsclaw and Tina Charles, just to name a few.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Arbitello said Alvarado is a frequent visitor and is helping the school with reconstruction projects in the library and a locker room. The Queens native added that watching Alvarado play can be nerve-wracking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t even watch it, I feel like I get butterflies in my stomach; it\u2019s like I\u2019m coaching him here again in the city championship game,\u201d said Arbitello.<\/p>\n<p>In a \u201cwow, what a small world\u201d scenario, Christ the King Dean of Students and assistant men\u2019s varsity coach C.J. Council is the uncle of San Antonio Spurs player Julian Champagnie. Champagnie grew up in Kensington, Brooklyn, and played at Bishop Loughlin High School.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That included matchups against Alvarado and Christ the King in the Catholic High School League.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust the idea of both these two kids from the city from the league playing against each other, the fact that they are there is almost unbelievable,\u201d said Council, who has also coached college basketball.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Arbitello said Alvarado\u2019s greatest attribute is loyalty. He added that the 2017 graduate, who went on to a successful four-year career at Georgia Tech before the NBA, had great advice for today\u2019s players and students.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen he walked into our locker room, he said most of you are bigger than me, most of you are more athletic than me, some of you may even shoot it better than me, but I\u2019m in the NBA which means it takes a little bit more than just skill,\u201c said Arbitello.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Alvarado said it\u2019s about persevering through adversity in anything that you do, which he learned growing up in Brooklyn and Queens and during his time at Christ the King.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was quite a play. In Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the New York Knicks and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":857147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,21399,7448,9829,405,403,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,95593,52,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-857146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-america","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-human-interest","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-roger-clark","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116725084957343810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}