When Knicks point guard Jose Alvarado collided with former mayor Mike Bloomberg while chasing a loose ball in Game 3 — and then made sure the 83-year-old was OK — it was no surprise to those who grew up coaching the determined-but-kind kid from the Brooklyn projects.
“He fought and he fought and he fought,” Dan Klores said of a teenage Alvarado’s focus and grit playing for him in the New York RENS youth league.
He recalled one game where the team was vying for a championship. A young Alvarado dove for a loose ball and collided with another kid who was “built like a football player.”
The two smashed heads — hard.
“All of the sudden, there’s more blood on this floor than I’ve ever seen in my life. I grew up in Coney Island and I was in the army. I never saw the amount of blood. It was swimming out of his head. It covered half the floor. The other kid’s two front teeth went into his head,” Klores said.
Alvarado was taken away on a stretcher and the team lost the game. But, they still had a chance at the championship and Alvarado insisted on playing again.
“He says to me, ‘Dan, I’m playing.’ I said, ‘Jose, are you kidding me? You can’t play.’ His father comes over to me, Jose Sr., he says, ‘Coach that’s my son. He’s playing,’” Klores said. “We [went on to] win the game.”
Alvarado grew up in the Lindsay Park Housing Corp. projects in Williamsburg, the son of an electrician and a stay-at-home mom.
“He’s a tough New York kid,” Joe Arbitello, who coached Alvarado in high school at Christ the King in Middle Village, Queens, told The Post. “It was a tough area of New York. There were some gangs there — unpleasantries. He was able to stay away from that.”
The sharpshooter was a star at Christ the King. In 2016, he was named the Catholic High School Athletic Association’s Player of the Year for averaging 16 points per game.
But, St. John’s, Duke and Miami all passed on him for college. He went on to play at Georgia Tech, where, in his senior year, he led the Yellow Jackets to their first ACC Champion Ship title since 1993 and was named the ACC Defensive Player of the Year.
He declared for the 2021 NBA draft, but went undrafted.
Unwilling to let his NBA dreams die, he reached out to Klores.
“He comes to me and says, ‘Dan, can you connect me to a trainer? Because I’m not going to make the NBA,’” recalls Klores, a Peabody Award-winning filmmaker.
Soon after, he was offered a contract deal with the New Orleans Pelicans.
When it happened, Alvarado “broke down in tears. He couldn’t stop crying,” Klores recalled.
After five seasons in New Orleans, where he distinguished himself with his defensive prowess, Alvarado was traded to the Knicks this past February, finally joining the team he grew up idolizing.
It was a full circle moment for the scrappy, 28-year-old point guard, who is still with his high school sweetheart, Flor Castilo, and named one of his two daughters Brooklyn. (Castillo is currently pregnant with their first son.)
“Everything about him screams New York. He’s a lovable kid,” said Arbitello, who notes that Alvarado regularly returns to his alma mater to speak to the kids.
“He comes back [to Christ the King] a lot. I don’t think he understands he’s a celebrity celebrity.”
Grand Theft Alvarado — as he’s been christened for his ball-stealing skills — had a high energy game on Tuesday, despite the hard loss to the Spurs, 115-111.
Arbitello spoke with him last weekend and isn’t worried.
“He wants to win,” he said. “It’s always been the most important thing to him.”
