The New York Knicks are 20-8 to start Mike Brown’s tenure. They can take their show on the road, where they’re 10-4, but have a great homecourt advantage. They’re 14-2 at home and have won eight of their last ten, which sounds as hot as reasonably possible but somehow excludes their NBA Cup Championship win. With some potential trades around the margins on the way, the team’s roster looks close to set for NBA title contention and is gelling as the season progresses. Despite rumors of big-name trades, this Knicks team really only needs one thing to win a championship: to stay healthy.
Key to Knicks’ title chances lies in their availability
There’s a saying often used in relation to sports regarding availability, and its importance as an ability. That saying has become beyond cliché as 2026 approaches, but is quite relevant when it comes to New York’s chances of truly competing for the NBA Championship trophy.
The Knicks came into the season having recently found out that Josh Hart would be playing the entirety of the season with a splint on the notably swollen ring finger on his shooting hand. The team has had several players miss time already, from rising MVP candidate Jalen Brunson to key reserve Landry Shamet. Shamet and Deuce McBride, who were both potentially on track for career years, remain sidelined.
The playoffs in all sports, to some degree, are a war of atrition. Which teams made it there healthy? Which teams made it out of the first round healthy? Those questions continue on all the way up to the NBA Finals, where we’ve seen unfortunate injuries to players like Tyrese Haliburton and Kevin Durant swing the most important series of the season.
It’s imperative to the Knicks’ title chances that they get to the playoffs healthy. To some degree, that’s out of their control. There are some ways in which it is, and the team has shown thus far that they both recognize those and care about them.
For example, Mitchell Robinson not playing both legs of a back-to-back in their schedule is a small, potentially annoying to some fans, but necessary sacrifice to make throughout the course of the season.
The same fans that might be upset about Robinson missing games that he was healthy enough to play in likely remember his incredible performances in first round series against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Philadelphia 76ers.
These Knicks have a real shot at an NBA Championship. Within reason, they should continue to make the regular season sacrifices necessary to ensure that those chances remain as high as possible heading into the key months of April, May, and June.