Spike Lee poses for a portrait prior to game four of the eastern conference finals between the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks for the 2025 NBA Playoffs. / Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images

There are few fans more dedicated to their team than Spike Lee, who is regularly in attendance courtside at Madison Square Garden to support his beloved New York Knicks.

The Knicks are currently trailing the Indiana Pacers 3-1 in the Eastern Conference finals, and are facing elimination if they do not win Game 5 of the series on Thursday night. Lee is so desperate for the Knicks to win a championship, that he went as far as to say he’d give up an Academy Award for the Knicks to pull it off.

“I would give up an Academy Award. Oscar, for the Knicks to win a Championship,” Lee said on NBA on TNT while dressed in a blue and orange pinstriped suit.

With the Pacers’ leading 3-1 and on track to advance to the NBA Finals, Charles Barkley hilariously replied to Lee, “Well you’re gonna keep ’em!”

Lee has won two Academy Awards over his career in film, including an honorary Academy Award in 2015 and Best Adapted Screenplay in 2019 for the motion picture BlacKkKlansman.

The Knicks have twice become champions in Lee’s lifetime—in 1970 and 1973—but haven’t won a title in over 50 years. Unless they pull off a remarkable comeback in the Eastern Conference finals and then go on to beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, it looks like Lee will be disappointed again, regardless of the awards he’d be willing to give up.