It’s OK to Be Excited about the Knicks
As New York preps for its first In-Season Tournament knockout game, we can appreciate how far this team has come in recent years.
The ownership reign of James L. Dolan hasn’t made anything easy for New York Knicks fans. Since he became executive chairman of the team on May 16, 2001, the franchise has lost more regular season games (1,049) than any other NBA team while simultaneously posting the league’s second-fewest playoff wins (14) — ahead of only the Michael Jordan-led Charlotte Hornets.
Within this context, Knicks supporters can be forgiven for either of two attitudes: A desperate sense of exuberance at the slightest taste of success, or a deep state of pessimism towards the team’s future as long as Dolan owns it.
This year’s Knicks, however, might turn both of those dispositions around on their heads.
As New York gets set to face the Milwaukee Bucks in the quarterfinals of the NBA’s inaugural In-Season Tournament on Tuesday night, the team carries a 12-7 record and the league’s fifth-best net rating. Although The Messenger’s NBA forecast model still considers the Knicks heavy underdogs to win the tournament with a 14% chance, that number would rise to around 35% if they knock off Milwaukee. More importantly, a win in the knockout round would solidify just how much progress New York has recently made in shedding its long-held losing reputation.
Somewhat surprisingly, the past few years have seen a real resurgence at the Garden. After going a combined 184-374 (the league’s worst record) with zero playoff appearances under a mix of coaches — Mike Woodson, Derek Fisher, Kurt Rambis, Jeff Hornacek, David Fizdale and Mike Miller — from 2013-14 through 2019-20, New York is on pace for its third winning season, and third playoff appearance, in four seasons under Tom Thibodeau. And while Thibs usually wears out his welcome within a few years of turning a new team around, his Knicks are currently closing in on their high-water mark for success right now.
At least, that’s according to the Elo ratings — a measure that tracks each team’s performance over time based on wins and losses, point margins, home-court advantage and strength of schedule. The only two stretches where New York had a better Elo rating under Thibodeau than its current 1605 mark were after winning nine straight last March, and following the team’s decisive playoff victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in April.
In fact, by Elo this is the best the Knicks have been through the first 19 games of any season since 2012-13, and the second-best since 1995-96. It’s all part of this newfound period of mostly solid basketball for the franchise — a true rarity in the years since 1999, when the Knicks made their most recent run to the NBA Finals.
The ‘99 playoff run remains a benchmark for the franchise. For two decades now, it has served as a reminder of both how good New York used to be… and how far it has typically fallen short of that standard since.
That was an iconic team, between 36-year-old franchise legend Patrick Ewing — who scored 17.3 PPG despite his career starting to slow down (he also missed the Finals with an injury) — and a cadre of younger stars (Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell, Larry Johnson, Marcus Camby, etc.) who were supposed to carry the torch for the team’s future. Coming at the tail end of a decade in which New York had the NBA’s eighth-most regular season wins and third-most playoff victories, that 1999 Finals squad was supposed to mark the continuation of that success, not a peak from which the franchise has mostly declined ever since.
It would take far too many words here to detail all the missteps that caused the Knicks’ subsequent downfall under the guidance of Scott Layden, Isiah Thomas, Steve Mills, Phil Jackson (improbably enough) and others. The common factor for all of New York’s general managers during that span is that they worked for Dolan. Dolan’s meddling with the Knicks — and famously not the NHL’s New York Rangers, whom he also owns (and who have actually been quite successful thanks to his hands-off approach) — makes him a fixture across “worst NBA owners” lists. And, in the NBA perhaps more than other sports, poor ownership can set a franchise up for years of failure if it hampers the team’s ability to sign high-impact free agents and/or retain drafted superstars.
But despite everything they have working against them, the current Knicks have achieved a measure of stability and progress in recent seasons.
Jalen Brunson, a free-agent pickup from the summer of 2022, has been everything New York could have asked for and then some. He is currently on pace to be the Knicks’ first 10+ Wins Above Replacement player since Stephon Marbury in 2004-05. Mitchell Robinson and Julius Randle, both of whom predated Brunson in New York by a few years, already rank sixth and seventh, respectively, on the Knicks’ WAR leaderboard since 2000. Immanuel Quickley, the No. 25 pick in the 2020 draft, has been a complete steal while developing into one of the league’s best two-way guards, and RJ Barrett (No. 3 overall in 2019) seems to finally be turning a corner early this season. Relatively recent pickups Josh Hart (+2.3) and Donte DiVincenzo (+1.5) both carry good Estimated RAPTOR ratings so far. The component pieces of the Knicks’ roster are working well together.
Plus, barring some kind of disaster that doesn’t see him finish the season — which, never say never — Thibodeau is tracking to become the first Knicks head coach to last four full seasons in the Big Apple since Jeff Van Gundy in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. That’s a major testament to how well he’s weathered the ups and downs of the job, given that Dolan has tended to fire Van Gundy’s other successors after an average of only 1.6 years apiece.
Now, the next item on the Knicks’ revival checklist might just be a deep run in the In-Season Tournament. The team already gave the MSG crowd a night to remember in the group stage of the tourney, when it mounted a 21-point comeback against the longtime rival Miami Heat to bolster its chances of advancing to the knockout round.
No, this midseason tourney is not the “real” playoffs, no matter how much Adam Silver wants it to have a similar energy. But the Knicks do have this tournament’s equivalent of a Game 7 coming up with the Bucks on Tuesday — and with a victory, they would play for the Eastern Conference’s half of the bracket and a spot in the championship.
For a team that hasn’t won an actual NBA title in more than 50 years and still holds up a lopsided Finals loss as a franchise signpost, success in the inaugural In-Season Tournament actually means something. And it might even be a prelude to greater success down the line — something generations of Knicks fans must relearn how to celebrate.
Filed under: NBA
Restacked to bring this back to the TL after the deadline. LGK!!!!