The Knicks, the Watercolor Painter, and the World’s Most-Popular Artist

There’s a pretty wild story unfolding about one of the world’s most-followed artists, the New York Knicks, and an up-and-coming painter. At the center of this controversy are two Knicks paintings that are far too similar to ignore, so I’m going to do my best to document what we know so far. The Knicks Commission Gavin Snider had only been a full-time artist for about 10 months when the New York Knicks hired him to create a painting ahead of the 2026 NBA Finals. After a tight turnaround, Gavin delivered and his painting was shared on the Knicks’ social media pages. Shortly afterwards, Devon Rodriguez shared an oil painting that depicted a nearly identical composition with many of the same characters and details in it… right down to the jersey numbers in the foreground. According to Gavin, the overlap went far beyond the general idea of painting Knicks fans in New York, stating that his painting used 67 different reference photos, including screenshots from Instagram Reels and Google…