Watching Jalen Brunson celebrate the Knicks championship, many focused on his hard work, tenacity, and class. Some pointed to the moment he sought out the opposing coach before celebrating. Others focused on the years of dedication required to reach the pinnacle of his profession.

The moment that struck me was different.

It was the embrace with his father.

In that instant, I was reminded of the old saying that we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us.

His father had his own NBA career. He provided guidance, opportunity, wisdom, and undoubtedly a few hard lessons along the way. Jalen still had to do the work himself. Nothing was handed to him. But he did not start from zero. He started from a foundation built by someone who came before him.

That is how progress works.

Such a simple statement, yet such a profound truth.

I used to think to myself that if you do not know how to build a car, you should not drive one. I gave up on that thinking long ago. It is perfectly fine that I have no idea how to fix the carburetor on my car, if it even still has one.

The accumulated learning of those who came before us is enormous. We build upon it every day. Sometimes we learn from their successes. Sometimes we learn from their mistakes. And if we’re lucky, we make a few mistakes of our own that future generations can learn from.

The key is that the process never stops.

As Woody Allen once quipped, “It’s like a shark. If he stops moving, he’s dead.”

We cannot simply rest on the laurels or the easier lives those before us helped create. We can admire their sacrifices. We can laugh about the stories of outhouses and walking to school through blizzards. Every generation seems to have its own version of hardship.

But progress does not mean the work is done.

Our challenges are simply different.

Previous generations built railroads, highways, factories, electrical grids, and computers. They created the foundation upon which we live today. We benefit from countless innovations that we neither invented nor fully understand.

And not all of that building was monumental.

My father was a janitor.

He didn’t build railroads or invent computers. He swept floors, picked coal and did work many people overlook. Yet his efforts helped provide the foundation upon which I built my own life.

Progress is not reserved for the famous. Most of it is built by ordinary people doing ordinary jobs extraordinarily well.

Respect it. Build on it.

That is not a weakness. That is civilization.

The responsibility of each generation is not to start over. It is to build upon what already exists.

Today, one of those opportunities is artificial intelligence.

Will it be revolutionary? Almost certainly.

Should we fear it? No more than previous generations feared electricity, automobiles, calculators, or the internet.

Embrace it. Learn it. Work with it.

Those who came before us did not endure their challenges so we could become comfortable and stop growing. They handed us a foundation and a responsibility.

Our responsibility is the same as theirs: to leave behind something stronger than what we inherited.

That is what I saw in that embrace between father and son. Not just a championship. Not just a victory fifty-four years in the making for Knicks fans.

I saw one generation passing something to the next.

And I was reminded that the greatest tribute we can pay to those who came before us is not merely to admire what they built.

It is to keep building.