In his annual projecting of five NBA teams who’ll finish below their projected win total, The Athletic’s John Hollinger included the New York Knicks. The line he used has them winning 53.5 games this season. Hollinger thinks they’ll win fewer.
He’s wrong. In like five different ways. Lemme show you, alternating his reasons with the appropriate counterargument. For free.
Hollinger: “The Knicks won 51 games last season with a coach (Tom Thibodeau) who is renowned for his willingness to totally disregard
any bigger-picture ramifications in pursuit of wins in the here and now. And we’re saying, after replacing him, that they’ll win more regular-season games this season? The logic doesn’t compute .“
Clever girl, Johnnie! But sophisms don’t fly here at P&T. It’s true, Thibs loves winning the way we all wish somebody loved us — unconditionally, with total abandon. And yes, that led him to play five starters 35+ minutes per game, only the 10th time that’s happened in league history. But while dying in the name of love gets us right in the feels, a far greater love indeed is living for the one you love. Most coaches get fired for losing. Thibs got canned ‘cuz his winning is Pyrrhic.
Mike Brown’s got two 5o-win seasons and two 60-win seasons under his belt as a head coach. He just led the Sacramento Kings, who are if Groundhog Day were about Fredo Corleone, to their best two years in 20. He isn’t any less driven to win than Thibodeau. Only now when the Knicks are up 25 with four minutes left in a game, he’s not gonna leave ‘em in another three and a half minutes. Ideally, Brown translates into winning smarter, not harder — or less.
Hollinger: “Yes, the Knicks’ top seven players are good and the East is weak, but New York was also mostly healthy last season (Mitchell Robinson being the main exception); the five starters missed a total of 40 games.”
First, can we not just gloss over the first two truths he rushes past? The Knicks’ top seven players are good. They were last season when none of them Towns arrived like five minutes before training camp and had never played with Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, OG Anunoby or Mikal Bridges; Bridges had college experience with Brunson and Hart but no professional history with any of them. They were new to each other and still managed to win 51 games learning on the job.
And need I remind you — stop me if you’ve heard this one — the Knicks went 0-10 a year ago against the league’s three winningest teams. One of those teams doesn’t exist anymore, in Boston, so that’s 2-4 wins the Knicks figure to add this time around. It’s difficult to sweep a really good team 4-0 two years in a row, so if for no other reason than probability it’s safe to say the Knicks don’t lose every game they play against Cleveland this season (winning on opening night would take care of it!). And the Thunder . . . are still really gosh darn good. The Knicks could definitely lose both games against OKC again. Still, they should pick up a decent haul by improving their record against the Celtics and Cavs.
Orlando should be better, and possibly Detroit. The Knicks were 3-1 last year against the Magic, 1-3 against the Pistons. I don’t see them losing much ground there. Who else in the East are we talking about? The Bucks? The 76ers? The Hawks? New York went 7-0 against the first two, 3-2 against Team Trae. You see them dropping from 10-2 to 6-6 against them? Since when is Myles Turner Bill Russell? Since when do the Sixers know what they’re doing? Mr. Young’s carriage turned into a pumpkin four years and he hasn’t been back to the big-time since. The top of the East isn’t going to beat the Knicks up any. As for the bottom half, the less said the better.
And while Jordan Clarkson, Guerschon Yabusele and whoever emerges from the Malison Brogthews/Mattdry Shayan royal rumble for the last two veteran minimum spots aren’t ceiling raisers, many of them are in fact pro basketball players. Hollinger’s right that the Knicks are unlikely to enjoy the good health they did a year ago. He neglects that they’re also better built to withstand the inevitable bumps and bruises — within reason, natch.
“Meanwhile, any upside of this roster already seems pretty much locked in, right? All the key players are either in their prime or turning the corner out of it, except reserve guard Miles McBride. There are no notable young players waiting in the wings, and New York has no assets left (or space below the collective bargaining agreement’s second-apron payroll threshold, for that matter) to acquire more.”
12 months ago, most of the Knicks had never played together. Now they have. Boston and Cleveland weren’t just two of the league’s most talented teams a year ago; most of their key players had already played hundreds of games together. The Knicks were equally talented, but nowhere near as experienced. You remember your early days of lovemaking? You learned anything since? I’m willing to bet you have. Willing to bet the Knicks have, too. The roster is better than last year, they’re more familiar with one another and they shared winning and losing deep in the playoffs as a family. They’re working from a stronger starting point.
“As a secondary consideration, the depth situation beyond the top eight players looks somewhat dire, particularly at forward. The Knicks are forced by their second-apron situation to keep only 14 players and may need to backstop the last two roster spots with late second-round picks who normally would be on two-way contracts. Pacôme Dadiet and Tyler Kolek don’t exactly seem primed to take the league by storm either. Should injuries hit, this could slide downhill fast.”
You can make the case philosophically for why the Knicks should be full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes chasing a title when they’re closer than they’ve been since the 1990s. You can just as easily claim they can’t afford to overlook developing a youthful vanguard, given every rotation player besides Miles McBride was born in the 1990s and none besides Deuce come cheap. What you can’t argue is that their last two roster spots going to players who in the past might not have received them, and who might be now more for reasons of finances and flexibility than pure merit, is exclusively a Knicks thing. It’s growing increasingly common under the new CBA.
Jake Fisher wrote in The Stein Line that the Warriors “are planning to have No. 56 overall pick Will Richard on the Opening Night roster in part because Richard’s first NBA contract would put the minimum possible strain on Golden State’s tax bill. Cleveland had agents abuzz before the draft because the Cavaliers had gotten the word out that whoever they drafted at No. 49 was likely to be signed … and then they backed it up by doing exactly that with second-round selection Tyrese Proctor of Duke.”
It sucks that teams feel pushed to prioritize anything other than talent when rounding out their roster. But if it’s happening across the board, it’s not likely to hurt the Knicks more than it is any other team, especially given their added depth this year.
“Maybe I’m too pessimistic; the Knicks’ roster is strong at the top, and the East is a soft puddle. But go back to the big picture: Transitioning from Thibodeau to Mike Brown wasn’t a move made for the sake of increasing the regular-season win total. I suspect the results will also reflect that.”
The hiring of Mike Brown was the Knicks coming out of the closet as Veruca Salt. Under Thibodeau, their regular-season successes came at the expense of ultimate playoff glories. Now, they want it all, and they want it now. There’s reasons to doubt; there always are. But there are just as many if not more reasons to think the best is yet to come.
