Doesn’t everything feel different, feel better after a championship offseason?
KAT’s annoyed about his contract? That’s a problem for the future. James Dolan says he’ll never spend into the second apron? Maybe Leon Rose can change his mind. Jalen Brunson is on SNL and just, like, playing himself in every skit? He’s earned the right to coast!
I’m used to being fretful and annoyed in the summer. This year has me feeling some kind of way, got me feeling nostalgic for all the guys who tried so hard to deliver for New York in the past but, for one reason or another, just couldn’t quite get to the promised land.
So in that spirit, here’s a list of all the Knicks who most deserved to be part of an orange-and-blue championship run. I docked points from a few guys who won a ring elsewhere, but this is a Knicks-centric view. I want some of those guys to have New York bling.
There’s going to be a little bit of a bias toward 90s-era Knicks and newer. I’m sorry to all the old heads reading this, but most Knicks fans today just don’t have the same personal connection to, say, Kenny Sears that they do to Alec Burks.
In that same vein, this isn’t a list of the best Knicks to never win a title, although quality is a factor. Nor is it a “most beloved” ranking, although that plays a big part.
This is simply an imaginary queue for the retroactive ring table, with me waving my magic Larry O’Brien wand to hand out jewelry to those deemed most worthy.
25. JR Smith
JR Smith wasn’t the best Knick. He wasn’t the longest-tenured. Unlike most fan favorites, he never took The Game seriously, an attitude that will forever taint him in some people’s minds.
But for everyone else, JR Smith’s antics were decidedly memorable, the way a game of Russian roulette can’t be forgotten. The dude would be out partying until 4 AM, then come back and drill game-winners – or go 3-for-15 in back-to-back playoff games.
Yeah, he probably doesn’t really deserve to be on this list, even with his Sixth Man of the Year award. But all his foibles, all his eccentricities, perfectly encapsulated what being a Knicks fan felt like for the long decades between championships. There were highs (quite highs, if you catch my drift), there were lows (unbelievable, depressing lows), there were pipes. But always, there were memories.
Eh, forget it. Use this as a stand-in for your own personal favorite, instead.
24. Chris Childs
Chris Childs was the polar opposite of Smith, a hard-nosed role player who never minded doing the dirty work and embedded himself in the community. Childs was a fantastic interviewee who worked with several local charities and youth organizations while steadying the Knicks’ bench units.
A crucial part of the late-90s Knicks teams, Childs’ biggest on-court moment involved punching Kobe Bryant in the face. I don’t personally espouse violence, and Childs has since expressed his remorse. But honestly? At the time, it sure felt right, and it earned him the undying love of the fanbase.
23. Tyson Chandler
Chandler was the heart and soul of the Carmelo Anthony/Amar’e Stoudemire/JR Smith Knicks squad of the early 2010s. Arriving fresh off winning a championship with Dallas, Chandler refused to accept the Knicks’ lackadaisical defensive attitude. He won Defensive Player of the Year for single-handedly boosting the Knicks from the 21st-best defense in 2011 to the fifth-best unit in 2012. He even led the league in field goal percentage that season and made an All-NBA team!
It’s hard to overstate how refreshing it was to watch a Knicks team that didn’t suck on defense. New York has had plenty of scorers over the years, but they’ve almost never been competitive on the other end. They were bottom-10 the previous seven years before Chandler’s arrival and never better than 18th in the first six years after he left.
For being the sole source of stability in an uneven, ultimately disappointing era, Chandler deserves a ring.
22. Nate Robinson
Robinson may not have done a ton of winning, but he at least made following the Knicks fun for a while. From blocking Yao Ming to putting on his “Krypto-Nate” outfit to defeat Dwight Howard in the dunk contest (one of three such victories), Robinson did his best to make New York fans smile.
His gregarious attitude and ceiling-scraping highlights (which looked even cooler given that he was shorter than your average Manhattanite!) were rare bright spots in a dark time of Knicks history.
21. Kurt Thomas
“Crazy Eyes” was a beloved locker room presence, stalwart tough guy, and general good luck charm for the best non-championship Knicks teams, playing on both the 1999 Finals squad and the 54-win 2013 Knicks who made it to the second round.
He was far more than a cheerleader, averaging double-digit points for five seasons and starting for most of his Knicks tenure. Unfortunately, like a lot of Knicks moments from the 2000s, the Thomas story ended in depressing fashion. He jump-started a winning streak by courageously playing through a broken foot, then was released a few weeks later after damaging his tootsies further and needing surgery. He retired shortly thereafter.
If for no other reason, Thomas deserves a ring to assuage the guilt many Knicks fans feel regarding his end.
20. Jeremy Lin
What is your favorite memory?
Maybe it’s the birth of a child or a wedding day. Maybe it’s a wild night out with friends, or winning your seventh-grade soccer championship. Whatever it is, it’s lasted a whole lot longer in your mind than it did in reality, right? But that doesn’t change how it still makes you feel.
Linsanity was like that. Those 35 games may have been the most memorable thing to happen to the Knicks between 2000 and 2025.
It’ll sound like a fever dream to the youngest readers. I lived it, and I still can’t quite comprehend what happened. Here’s what I do know: more than Carmelo Anthony’s return, more than Amar’e Stoudemire, more than anyone to that point this century, Jeremy Lin made the Knicks must-watch TV.
He sonned Kobe Bryant and beat the Lakers on national TV. He hit a game-winner against Toronto. For a magical few weeks, the Harvard grad came from nowhere to average 25 points and nine assists per game while shooting 51% from the field. He even took the cover of TIME magazine!
Sure, the peak was shorter-lived than the average housefly. But this wasn’t a moment shared only by New York fans; it was a full-blown global phenomenon that turned Jeremy Lin into a household name overnight, the rare Knicks headline related purely to on-court success.
It won’t make sense to future basketball historians, but Lin will always have a special place in Knicks lore.
19. Stephon Marbury
Marbury remains a divisive figure in Knicks fandom. He didn’t lead the team to any postseason success, and his effort level waxed and waned. By the end of his time in New York, which coincided with the ugly Isiah Thomas/Larry Brown era, he was widely despised.
But history has softened memory’s sharpest edges. Marbury joining the Knicks was a real event, something that juiced the adrenaline of every New Yorker for an entire summer. He was a local guy, a flawed and deeply human player who found tremendous success by bringing the sexy stylings of Brooklyn streetball to the league.
At his best, his unique brand of play was unstoppable and beautiful. That’s how I prefer to remember him.
18. Jamal Crawford
Crawford was sort of Marbury-lite without all the baggage, a filthy sleight-of-hand artist with the rock and a masterful shotmaker who excelled in the Knicks’ most meaningless era.
Crawford went on to become a three-time Sixth Man of the Year winner, all with other teams that were better able to highlight his strengths and mitigate his weaknesses. Unlike with Marbury or some other Knicks scorers, it never felt like Crawford was cheating the game. He played with a contagious joy even amidst a whole truckload of losing.
Every Crawford crossover, every silky jumper flitting through the net with the faintest of ripples, took me away from the scoreboard’s harsh reality to a distant, sunny basketball beach. I’ll always appreciate him for those brief moments of respite.
17. Bill Cartwright
Okay, this is admittedly a weird one. Cartwright went to the hated Bulls and won three championships. Does he really deserve a spot on this list?
If you don’t think so, that’s fine. But Cartwright had a long and shockingly productive career in New York before he ever teamed up with Michael Jordan. Despite two seasons lost to injury, Cartwright still tallied 537 games with New York, averaging 16.8 points, 7.1 rebounds, and a block per game. He was the best or second-best player on several Knicks playoff squads, and even led them in scoring as the rare rookie All-Star.
Patrick Ewing’s emergence made Cartwright expendable, but he was a borderline star for New York for nearly a decade. He deserves recognition as such.
16. Julius Randle
Some (perhaps most) of you are holding your noses right now. The Randle era ended with him becoming public enemy number one in New York, thumbs-downing the crowd and talking about how mentally taxing it was playing for the Knicks. Repeated playoff failures hurt his legacy, too.
And yet, along with coach Tom Thibodeau, Randle ushered in an era of competitive New York basketball for the first time in nearly a decade. At the start of his tenure, he was beloved in the boroughs. He made three All-Star teams and two All-NBA teams in the blue and orange. Aiming for mediocrity isn’t a noble goal, but the downstream effects are enormous. If the Knicks don’t reach a bare minimum of competency, does Jalen Brunson sign there? Does the team have the pieces needed for the Karl-Anthony Towns move?
Randle will never be a hero to New Yorkers. But he deserves a hypothetical ring for his role in helping the Knicks procure a real one.
15. Kristaps Porzingis
Porzingis went from being booed on draft night (“Who is this guy?”) to becoming an instant Knicks icon despite a short three-year stint with the franchise.
It’s hard to overstate how dang cool young Porzingis was. The unicorn drained threes and swatted shots with equal aplomb. He combined the perimeter skills of a guard with genuine rim protection and enormous size, a truly unique combination even today.
It culminated in Porzingis’ third season, in which he seemed destined for superstardom. He averaged 22.7 points per game, shot 40% from three on huge volume (for the time), and blocked 2.4 shots per game. Put another way, the Knicks were 22-26 with Porzingis and fighting for a playoff spot despite little supporting talent; when he hurt his foot, they went 7-27 without him.
The Porzingis era ended ignominiously with Phil Jackson running a frustrated Porzingis out of town, but we’ll never forget how it started.
14. Michael Ray Richardson
Sugar is one of the Knicks’ biggest what-ifs.
Drafted fourth overall (just two spots before Larry Bird), Michael Ray Richardson looked like a future superstar. He made the All-Star team in his second, third, and fourth seasons and garnered two All-Defensive First Team nods. He became just the third player in NBA history to lead the league in both assists and steals.
But New York’s wild nightlife scene brought out the worst in Richardson, whose continual drug use eventually got him banned from the NBA. He was erratic and increasingly unreliable, and the Knicks teams around him were filled with fellow partiers.
In a different universe, Michael Ray Richardson is the Knicks’ Magic Johnson. In this one, he’s a cautionary tale.
13. Harry Gallatin
See below:
12. Richie Guerin
Look, you and I didn’t watch Gallatin and Guerin excel for the New York Knickerbockers of the 1950s and 60s. Perhaps your grandfather did. Gallatin was a physical, try-hard board-cleaner who made six All-Star games for New York; he led the two Finals-losing teams of 1952 and 1953. Guerin was a former Marine who led the Knicks in assists five seasons in a row while racking up way-down-ballot MVP votes. He averaged 29.5 points per game in the 1962 season.
Gallatin and Guerin are here to represent the Nat Cliftons and Dick McGuires and Carl Brauns and other Knick stalwarts of the distant past. I wish I knew you better. I wish I could give you all the rings you undoubtedly deserve.
Today’s heroes stand on their shoulders, after all.
11. Tom Thibodeau
With the benefit of hindsight, we know hiring Mike Brown was clearly the right decision. But that doesn’t make firing Tom Thibodeau any easier to swallow.
After a long stint as the defensive maestro under Jeff Van Gundy, Thibodeau returned to the Knicks in 2020 and immediately brought order and toughness to the league’s laughingstock. The Knicks got better almost every year under Thibodeau’s tutelage, culminating in an Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 2024-25.
Could he have won a championship last season? Probably not. Brown’s flexible coaching style and ability to get his best out of the bench were major factors in the Knicks' championship run.
But we don’t know that for sure, and New York would never have been in a position to succeed in the first place without Thibodeau.
10. Jeff Van Gundy
If you’ve been wondering about the lack of big names on this list, buckle in. But before we get to the Patrick Ewings and John Starks of the world, it’s worth saving a spot for the tiny, balding, be-suited coach who came close enough to the mountaintop to see the snow.
JVG started as an assistant under Stu Jackson and outlasted the Pat Riley and Don Nelson eras before taking the keys himself in 1996. He demanded sweat and blood. If you didn’t need two showers after the game, you weren’t gonna make it in his rotation.
It’s hard to overstate what that 1999 Finals run (half of which came without the injured Ewing!) meant to New Yorkers. There’s a reason why so many mainstays from that team are on this list, and JVG is beloved to this day.
9. Anthony Mason
Mason was the avatar of those 90s Knicks teams. Tough, physical, intense, and a little scary. It’s easy to romanticize a player like that, especially one who brought far more to the court than just muscle.
Mason could pass, dribble, and shoot, and he was instant offense off the bench for the Knicks, winning Sixth Man of the Year in 1995. Other Knicks may have had longer or more successful careers, but nobody quite married production and aura like Mase. To impressionable kids growing up in the 1990s, he was a legend in ways the stats could never truly capture.
8. Latrell Sprewell
Sprewell became a Knick under inauspicious circumstances, having served a season-long suspension and three months of house arrest for choking his Golden State coach, PJ Carlesimo, and injuring two people in a high-speed car accident.
Desperate to unload him, the Golden State Warriors shipped him to New York in 1999 for an aging John Starks, Chris Mills, and Terry Cummings. At the time, it felt like a massive price to pay, but Sprewell responded by playing a critical bench role in the Knicks’ 1999 Finals run. He scored 24+ points in four of the five Finals games, including a 35-point outburst in a losing Game 5 effort. And remember, the Knicks routinely had scores in the 60s and 70s in that series! Only Sprewell and Allan Houston averaged even double digits for the Finals.
Sprewell started almost every game for New York over the next four seasons, earning an All-Star nod and the devotion of fans who loved his attitude, burrowing drives to the rim, and tough shot-making.
7. Amar’e Stoudemire
“The Knicks are back!” Stoudemire famously declared in 2010, and it sure felt like it then. Years of flirting with and getting denied by big-name stars in free agency had made the Knicks a laughingstock (how many times have we used that phrase in this article?), but Stoudemire set the city on fire.
He started that season like an MVP candidate, averaging 26/9/3 on an array of high-flying dunks and silky face-up post moves before the team traded for Carmelo Anthony.
Unfortunately, the move for Anthony gutted much of the team’s depth, and the Knicks never made it past the second round in the Stoudemire/Anthony era. Injuries and an awkward partnership with his co-star torpedoed Stoudemire’s impact after that first year, and his tenure ended in a whimper.
But for one season, at least, STAT was the reason the Knicks mattered both on and off the court. He chose the Knicks when everyone else wanted him. That means something.
6. Charles Oakley
You can point to his defense, his absurd rebounding, and his underrated passing, but none of that is why Oakley still resonates so hard with Knicks fans.
Oak’s appeal was simple: he took no sh*t. Not from Charles Barkley, not from Alonzo Mourning, not from Shaquille O’Neal, not even from Knicks owner James Dolan. As a fan, you always want a team that represents your city, that represents you. At his best, Oakley was what all Knicks fans wanted to be.
His vocal support for current iterations of the team (even amid his differences with Dolan) has further endeared him to a younger generation of fans.
5. Carmelo Anthony
Anthony’s tenure now is regarded with mixed feelings. There’s a better understanding of how much the team sacrificed to trade for him when it seems pretty clear they could have signed him as a free agent in the offseason, and the Knicks never had the postseason success they hoped for with him.
But Anthony held up his end of the bargain and then some. He was a capital-S superstar joining the team most desperate for that kind of wattage. He came in third in MVP voting one year and made the All-Star game every full season he played in New York. He even led the league in scoring one season.
A brutally effective post game perfectly complemented Melo’s silky turnaround jumper. For a time, he was regarded as the NBA’s best pure bucket-getter. He dropped 62 at the Garden, and he led the Knicks to their first playoff series victory in over a decade.
Melo’s swag was undeniable, too. The headband became a signature, and his three-fingers-to-the-dome celly became a playground staple. For a bulky guy, his game was buttery, a sight to behold.
And Melo loved New York, loved being a Knick. He could have left in free agency for a better basketball situation, but chose to remain. He embraced the fashion scene, showing up in outfits both beautiful and ridiculous with equal confidence. Anthony’s humanitarian side also shone, as he worked to address child hunger, mental health services for the underprivileged, and much more.
Anthony wasn’t just a New York Knick. He was a New Yorker.
4. Allan Houston
Houston possessed the purest-looking jumper in the game, and he rode that sweet J right up to the brink of winning a championship.
On a team characterized by snarling bruisers, he was the perfectly counterbalanced elegance. The rare player (and even rarer Knick) who seemed to perform better when the lights were brightest, Houston’s series-winning bank shot against the hated Heat in 1999 clinched the NBA’s second-ever eight-over-one first-round upset, a moment that electrifies Knicks fans to this day.
Although a high-paying contract and injuries ruined the end of his tenure, Houston’s attitude was as classy as his jumper, and he eventually made his way back to the team’s front office. He’s been there for nearly 20 years, forever in NBA terms, and may well be there 20 more.
3. Bernard King
Bernard King has a real claim to being the best player the Knicks employed in the modern (post-1979) era. A second-place MVP finish in 1984 led to a remarkable playoff run in which he averaged an insane 43 points per game in a bitterly contested five-game series against the Detroit Pistons, then averaged nearly 30 while pushing the eventual champion Celtics to seven games. No less than Larry Bird called King “the greatest scorer I’ve ever seen.”
King had one of the most effective jumpers of any era. Every player has a spot, the place they go when they need a bucket. King had 22 of them.
King’s following season is one of the league’s saddest stories. He was torching the league’s record books in 1984-85, scoring 32.9 points per game (on 53% shooting from the field!), before a gruesome knee injury resulted in a torn ACL, torn meniscus, and a broken femur. He played just six more games for the Knicks.
King never played on a team with the right supporting cast, which is a shame. Not only was he an electrifying talent, but he was born and raised in Brooklyn, and he loved playing for the Knicks. When King was hot, no one could stop him. And he was almost always molten.
2. John Starks
It’s hard to love perfection.
It’s easy to admire. You can visit the Louvre and feel your jaw drop at the talent and work ethic on display, the discipline and creativity needed to create art at the highest levels.
But perfection is an unattainable alien. You love things because they’re flawed, because they’re human. At the end of the day, I’m not trading my kid’s janky-ass drawing of a woefully miscolored parrot for any Renaissance masterpiece.
So it is with Knicks fans and John Starks.
To be clear, unlike my child’s drawing, Starks was objectively good. Over his eight-year New York tenure, he transitioned gracefully from All-Star starter to a sage Sixth Man of the Year winner, pairing tough shotmaking with tougher defense.
He dunked on the hated Michael Jordan. He headbutted the even-more-hated Reggie Miller. Hell, he was only even on the team because he tried to dunk on Patrick Ewing in practice and got hurt. (At the time, teams couldn’t release badly injured players, so Starks stayed and was able to prove he deserved a roster spot.)
Starks was a true underdog, an undrafted player who nearly bounced out of the league. He willed himself into relevance and never lost that edge of desperation, that sense that the rug could be pulled out from under him at any moment. He had the sort of confidence that comes from knowing that losing confidence is a death knell. While that attitude led to plenty of misses, it resulted in a whole lot of memorable makes, too.
It’s a cruel twist of fate that Starks, who delivered for the Knicks on both ends time and again, is best known for a devastating 2-for-18 shooting performance in Game 7 of the Finals against Houston. Shooters shoot, even when the shot isn’t falling. Unfortunately, it never fell that night.
But the city didn’t reject Starks for his failure. Instead, after a brief period of shocked anger, the fanbase mourned with the clearly tormented Starks. After all, how can you hate someone who left everything on the floor all the time? It’s easy to imagine things going differently in today’s social media age, but at the time (and perhaps this is just age talking), the relationship between star and fan was surprisingly tender.
Starks remains a favorite to this day, drawing roars from Madison Square Garden whenever his face appears on the Jumbotron.
1. Patrick Ewing
People talk so much about Patrick Ewing’s losing that they forget how much damn winning he did.
Fifteen seasons he played for New York. Thirteen times, his team made the playoffs. Eleven times, they made the second round. That’s 11 times he won at least one playoff series.
Four times in the Eastern Conference Finals, and although he tore his Achilles and couldn’t play in 1999, his Knicks did make two Finals appearances. That’s a hell of a postseason resume.
He won a million awards, finished top-five in MVP voting six times while averaging 21 and 10, and set every franchise record that matters. Ewing needs no prolonged introduction. He was the Knicks for a decade and a half. Who else could top this list?
It’s a basketball crime that he never received any jewelry. Let’s fix that.
Add us as a preferred source on Google