Going to Knicks games have led me to many questions, observations, and trains of thought that I would never otherwise have had. 

For instance, I grew curious about jersey numbers. Did players get to choose their own numbers? I looked it up, and the answer is yes, within certain guidelines and restrictions. Interesting. 

Then, at a game in Madison Square Garden where the Knicks played the Denver Nuggets, I saw that Nuggets player Christian Braun’s jersey number was zero. The fact that players could choose the number zero for their jersey absolutely astonished me.

First of all, I was surprised that zero was considered a “number” for the purposes of basketball jerseys. This policy actually demonstrates an extraordinarily sophisticated understanding of numbers. 

The fact is, humankind was very slow to recognize the idea that zero could be a number. How could nothing be something?

The concept of zero required a radical shift from counting concrete things to manipulating abstract symbols. While ancient traders could easily grasp owing someone three coins or having five goats, they didn’t have the concept of “zero coins” or starting from “zero.” This mental hurdle explains why many civilizations, such the Romans with their elaborate numerical system, never developed a symbol for zero. And when we teach numbers to little kids, we start with 1, not with 0. Zero comes later!

So I felt like a child or an ancient Roman when I said to my husband Jamie, “Zero isn’t a real number, it’s nothing. How can zero be a jersey number?”

Not only that, given that players (and people generally) are often very superstitious, being identified as “zero” or “nothing” struck me as something many people would consider unlucky. 

But despite my reservations, I learned that many players choose to wear the number zero, for various reasons.

For instance, it’s unusual—that’s why some players prefer it. Others choose it because it also looks like the letter “O,” which can be significant for them. Some use it to signal “I’ll show you!” to people who said they’d never amount to anything. Apparently Christian Braun chose zero because that was the number he wore in high school. He couldn’t use the number he wore in college, #2, because the Nuggets had retired #2. (I don’t know why he chose zero in high school.)

Because I was new to the game of basketball, I noticed this peculiarity and was curious about it. My husband Jamie, who has followed basketball his whole life, had never noticed anything unusual about the choice of zero for a jersey.