After winning a title for the first time in 53 years, the New York Knicks came into the 2026-27 regular season primed to experience a classic championship hangover. Their championship-winning roster was flush with players who had chips, of some kind, on their shoulders; fans and pundits shared concerns that after reaching the league's pinnacle of team success, those same players would simply not be as desperate or hungry to get it done again.
The NBA's last eight champions failed to repeat the next season. The Knicks are obviously hoping to break that trend, but might actually be in a legitimately unique position to get it done. They returned their entire playoff rotation outside of center Mitchell Robinson. And the members of their starting lineup range from 29 to 31 years old, in the midst of their athletic primes.
New York, however, didn’t do much as a team to quell many of the concerns about their hunger at the very start of their title defense. Looking toward the rest of the season, these Knicks already have the kinds of players on their roster they're going to need to stay adequately hungry until the playoffs. Andre Drummond, Dalton Knecht, and even James Wiseman, to varying degrees, are players who are fighting to show all 30 NBA teams not to write them off. They're all the exact type of player that can help charge the rest of the Knicks up, even amid the day-to-day drain of the NBA's regular season.
Knicks have at least three new players with "chips" on their shoulders
New York lost their first three games to the Philadelphia 76ers, Boston Celtics, and Orlando Magic. Head coach Mike Brown said on opening night that it looked like his players were running in mud.
During their blowout at Madison Square Garden of the Chicago Bulls, though, the Knicks were able to give new two-way player Dalton Knecht a spin. The 25-year-old scored 10 points in 16 minutes of playing time, also pulling down seven rebounds in his first real opportunity to show the Los Angeles Lakers — the team that selected him in the first round of the 2024 NBA Draft — that they made a mistake cutting him at the end of the 2026 offseason.
Free agency addition Andre Drummond, the front office's replacement for Robinson, went into the offseason feeling like he had proven that contracts for the veteran's minimum rate were beneath him. The market, however, showed him otherwise. Even though the 33-year-old has had a lengthy NBA career to be proud of, he's still battling against what he feels are leaguewide misconceptions regarding his worth.
Like Knecht and Drummond, James Wiseman wasn't part of New York's championship roster. The big man, however, also has plenty to prove regarding his own standing as an NBA player. Wiseman was set to continue his career abroad before the Knicks' need for a center opened up a stateside opportunity for several centers. The 25-year-old earned it for himself during training camp.
The Knicks are likely not hoping to be relying on Knecht, Drummond, or Wiseman in high-leverage situations. The trio of role players can certainly help them approach the rest of the regular season, which leads up to bigger moments, with the intensity the team was missing to start the year.
Jose Alvarado helped keep players in Brown's rotation humble last season. Jordan Clarkson's transformation happened, in part, as a result of that very process. If New York's newest contributors keep getting chances on the court, they may very well join their predecessors by inspiring new evolutions of Knicks who prove integral come playoff time.
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