New York Knicks: How to build a championship roster

How do the New York Knicks start building a championship caliber roster?

While it might seem crazy to talk about the New York Knicks‘ championship aspirations – following their sixth straight season with a winning percentage lower than .400 – every rebuild starts somewhere. Remember, before the Warriors were the darlings of the NBA, they were the Warriors, a franchise that had won one playoff series in 21 years.

The path toward greatness starts with the right mindset.

A lot of people don’t know this but Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra’s father, Jon, is one of the greatest marketing executives in sports. He helped grow the revenue streams for the Blazers, Kings and Nets. He was so smart that he was asked to consult teams on player personnel decisions.

He wrote a book I highly recommend called “Marketing Outrageously”. In the book he describes his guiding principle to achieving unthinkable results. He simply asks himself the same question everyday: what is it going to take to win a championship this year?

For the Knicks, the answer to that question is multi-faceted. They need to acquire at least two star players, a true point guard and a stretch big. That is a long list, practically a new starting five. While the Knicks have tons of cap space this offseason, they can’t buy all that in free agency, especially in this class. They also don’t have the assets to fill most of these needs via trade.

While it’s not possible to completely build a championship team this offseason, the hard work must begin. In this article, I examine how the Knicks can answer the question: how can we win a championship in 2021-22?