Well, this was certainly a different kind of draft-night moment. At 7:51 p.m. Adam Silver, the NBA’s commissioner, walked to the podium at Barclays Center. This is when some of the best YouTube moments of all have been born: the hometown team makes a pick, the hometown fans take a moment to absorb that pick.

And have a full-throated meltdown.

Jeff Lageman to Kristaps Porzingis, you could practically set your watch by it.

Not this time. All day, it felt like Knicks fans were delivering a communal version of the Jedi mind trick, aiming it at the Knicks’ corporate offices, making sure Scott Perry and Steve Mills were warned: don’t screw this up. Not this pick. Not this player.

Not this time.

And so, at 7:51, as Silver announced, “With the third pick in the draft…”

(And the hum became a buzz…)

“…the New York Knicks select RJ Barrett…”

Thunder.

“I’m ready to go,” Barrett would say.

And he wasn’t alone, isn’t alone. Rare is the time when there is this manner of consensus around here, and rarer still such an instant spark between player and fan base. The Knicks fans in attendance, and those tuned in, had already seen Zion Williamson — object of their affections for so long — get picked No. 1 by New Orleans, but they have had a month now to accept that as fundamental reality.

And a month to realize that Barrett, if he isn’t as flashy as Zion, if he doesn’t have the electric force field surrounding him that Zion does, is an awfully good player. And an awfully good anchor to a fresh foundation. And owns one trait Knicks fans, at this point in time, may well value over anything else.

“I’m glad that the city wants me here as much as I want to be here,” Barrett said.

Note-perfect, that was. For everyone. To everyone.

“The young man really wanted to be here,” Perry said. “That excited us.”

It is an important selling point. If it seems antithetical for New York as a whole, and specifically as a basketball city, to have to sell itself — to practically reinvent itself — as a place where high-end athletes want to come, that is also a reality the Knicks have had to adopt, and accept.

Years of relentless losing will do that. But so does the fact the last player in whom the Knicks, and their fans, had invested so much time, so much hope, so much of their basketball souls, abandoned them. Kristaps Porzingis’ departure during the winter was a blow in many ways, but the thing that stung more than anything was this:

He didn’t want to be here.

He really didn’t want to be here.

He wasn’t bashful about letting the Knicks know that, either, and as much as anything else it is why he is in Dallas right now. We’ll be fair here: there have been plenty of things about the Knicks these past few years that could feed disillusionment. There are plenty of fair complaints Porzingis — or anyone else — could compile if they truly wanted to seek exile from Madison Square Garden.

Doesn’t make it any easier to hear.

So it has been a symphony of sweet music listening to the kids — first Zion, then Ja Morant, lately and decisively Barrett — talk about how much playing in New York would mean to them. We want to hear that. We need to hear that. We need to believe that our sense of importance in the basketball firmament is more than just a dusty old relic — or, worse, a complete lie.

We need to know that we remain The City Game.

That was the underlying emotion at Barclays Center, and throughout greater New York, where the Knicks still rule supreme, despite all of their foibles, all their failures. The fans were happy. The player was happy. The minute it all became official — 7:51 p.m. — was a moment to savor, and there have been way too few of those in recent years.

And that was before Barrett gave them this to chew on:

“I’m ready for this,” he said. “I’m ready to embrace the city, embrace the team.”

On this night, there was no shortage of volunteers to embrace him back. The road back to owning the city remains a long one for the Knicks. They secured the first few bricks Thursday night.

“Yo!” he said, to no one and to everyone, “I’m a Knick!”

Yes. It was a good night. A terrific moment. And a very nice place to start.