The common sense and dollars and cents agree with ownership on the 2025-26 Knicks: This year is the year for the best team constructed in the franchise\u2019s recent history.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been at least 25 years \u2014 dating back to the Knicks\u2019 failed 1999 NBA Finals run \u2014 since Madison Square Garden has housed as stacked, as complete, of a basketball team as the one tasked with an NBA Finals or bust mandate from above.<\/p>\n
Because it\u2019s hard to find a star with as many weapons at his disposal as Jalen Brunson, the all-world guard whose boom-or-bust task is striking the right balance between scoring and distributing.<\/p>\n
The Knicks have given Brunson a six-time All-Star co-captain in Karl-Anthony Towns. They\u2019ve given him his friends from Villanova, including one who cost five draft picks plus a $150 million extension. They\u2019ve given him two of the most impactful two-way wings in the sport, a Defensive Player of the Year candidate off the bench, plus a second unit \u2014 with trade deadline acquisitions \u2014 stretching 10 to 11 real rotation players deep.<\/p>\n
Leon Rose and his front office did that.<\/p>\n
They identified a less rigid, more collaborative and modern head coach (albeit a backup option). They maximized limited roster-building resources. They drafted Mohamed Diawara, re-signed Landry Shamet, and swapped Guerschon Yabusele out for Jose Alvarado and Jeremy Sochan.<\/p>\n
The Knicks have gotten tougher. They\u2019ve gotten deeper. They\u2019re more talented at all five positions than possibly any team in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
Which means they are out of excuses. This team has to win \u2014 and win big \u2014 or else the front office will return to the questions they had as the Knicks spiraled out of control, losing nine of an 11-game stretch before finally getting their act together ahead of the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
Or, as James Dolan said in a Jan. 5 interview on WFAN: \u201cI\u2019d say we want to get to the Finals and we should win the Finals. This is sports, anything can happen. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely have to do. Winning the Finals, we should do.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Knicks don\u2019t. If they don\u2019t at least make it to the Finals, you can bet they will return to the Giannis Antetokounmpo discourse. To the discourse that deems the roster as currently constructed unworthy of ownership\u2019s championship mandate.<\/p>\n
Yet it\u2019ll be hard to break these Knicks up if they run the table in the East and make the Finals for the first time in more than a quarter century.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook how far we got with our group last year and look at who was playing and who wasn\u2019t,\u201d Dolan continued. \u201cWe\u2019re going into the second half of the season, Josh [Hart] is still out and Landry [Shamet] is coming back. We got depth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe stay healthy, we\u2019ll go into the playoffs in much better condition than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Knicks have $201 million in guaranteed player salaries for the 2026-27 NBA season. The second apron is only expected to increase by 7% to $223 million, which will leave the Knicks just $22 million in space before encroaching over into restricted territory.<\/p>\n
That $201 million payroll for 2026-27 does not include Jose Alvarado, who \u2014 as someone with career earnings of less than $12 million \u2014 can decline his $4.5 million player option for next season to sign a more lucrative deal elsewhere (or in New York). It doesn\u2019t include Mitchell Robinson, who will be an unrestricted free agent seeking a pay raise, potentially north of $20 million annually alone. It doesn\u2019t include Shamet, Jordan Clarkson or Jeremy Sochan, all in New York on one-year deals. Nor does it include Mohamed Diawara, Ariel Hukporti or Kevin McCullar Jr., each of whom will enter restricted free agency this summer.<\/p>\n
The payroll for next season includes only Brunson, Towns, Bridges, Hart and OG Anunoby plus Miles McBride, who will be eligible for a contract extension, Pacome Dadiet and Tyler Kolek. The Knicks will need to go into the second apron to build a complete roster, let alone re-sign Robinson. They will be under even more pressure to trade a piece of their core in hopes of improving their roster elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Or they can double down. They can bite the bullet associated with the second apron because the taste of victory could far outweigh the bitter tax bill at the end of a season.<\/p>\n
This Knicks team has the goods. They\u2019ve got stars on both ends of the floor, proper spacing, a deep bench and a coach prioritizing a free-flowing style of basketball.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to turn the goods into hardware. Into results. Into this franchise\u2019s most successful season of the century. This team is constructed to run the wide-open Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n
If it doesn\u2019t, the second apron will force the front office to answer questions the roster couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The common sense and dollars and cents agree with ownership on the 2025-26 Knicks: This year is the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,46,1409,288,563,304,6,3220,1136,191,3810,3806,297,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-603625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-celtics","10":"tag-eastern-conference","11":"tag-jalen-brunson","12":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","13":"tag-knicks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-championship","16":"tag-new-york","17":"tag-new-york-knicks","18":"tag-newyork","19":"tag-newyorkknicks","20":"tag-pistons","21":"tag-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116071716840147120","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}