Diehard NYC fan built a brand on local teams misery but Knicks are making him see the bright side

He’s having a change of Hart.A diehard Knicks fan who cashed in on a decade and a half of palpable New York sports misery is changing the tune to “Go NY Go NY Go!” with much more optimistic merch as the team is one game away from its first title in 53 years.“I’ve been just posting a lot of my raw emotions about how happy I’ve been and how far we’ve come from 10, 15 years ago,” “Forever Next Year NY” creator Justin Silberlust told The Post of New York’s magnificent finals run.“At the time we felt hopeless, but now we’re here,” added the 28-year-old from Dix Hills, who is in awe by a historic Game 4 comeback on Wednesday, when the team erased a 29-point deficit to win 107-106 over the Spurs.Silberlust is suddenly a popular beacon of unrivaled Knicks faith online — coming after he built up the relatable and pessimistic brand about recent Big Apple sports futility.Mike Brown’s group has inspired enough hope that the entrepreneur has had to rebrand from “Forever Next Year” to merchandise like blue-and-orange basketball t-shirts that read “next year is now.”“Finally getting to the finals, for the first time in 27 years,” he said, “people have really been resonating with the ‘Forever Is Now’ slogan.”“We were always saying, there’s always next year,” Silberlust said of the Brooklyn Dodgers favorite phrase that became a one-size-fits-all for the local teams. The finance worker is also a glutton for punishment — making the prospect of beating San Antonio for the Knicks’ first NBA title since 1973 even more savory. He’s aligned himself in the Bermuda Triangle of God-awful fandom, pulling for the Jets and the Mets — two teams completing the trifecta of what’s been an entire young lifetime without a single championship.“It feels like it’s never going to happen.It feels like we’re always going to be saying this.”Silberlust took action on his sports demons in 2025, having his brother Jared build a websi...