New York Knicks governor James Dolan invited a glimmer of spotlight when he fired his head coach after the team's best season in 25 years. Dolan returned to WFAN on January 5, helping The Carton Show get off to another hot start by fielding questions about both the Knicks and Rangers from Craig Carton and Chris McMonigle. The duo asked the about the Knicks' internal playoff expectations coming off of an NBA Cup win, with Dolan responding that the team wants to make the NBA Finals and quickly correcting himself to say they "absolutely" need to make it. That's a clear mandate.
Dolan's expectations are clear: an NBA Finals berth
The Knicks were in a tough situation when they felt like they needed to make a coaching change after an Eastern Conference Finals berth. They ended up making the move, clearly feeling it was necessary, and bringing in Mike Brown to coach the team for the foreseeable future.
Whether it was fair to Brown or not, the bar had been set the season before: the Conference Finals. By making the third round of the NBA Playoffs for the first time since 2000, Thibodeau's Knicks set a baseline expectation for a finish in the final four.
While other team governors may have taken the opportunity to say something comedic and divert attention away from such lofty expectations getting anywhere near their new head coach, Dolan leaned into it.
Brown has spoken throughout the season about how Dolan pays him a great deal of money to deal with championship expectations and pressure from outside forces, such as the media and fanbase. Dolan got his money's worth with Carton and McMonigle, telling the pair of co-hosts that the team not only wants to get to the NBA Finals, but should win it once there.
"We want to get to the Finals...and we should win the Finals. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely got to do," Dolan declared on WFAN's airwaves.
While he did Brown the favor of not demanding the Knicks come out on top of all 30 NBA franchises this season, he did effectively require them being one of the final two standing. It was a refreshingly direct statement from Dolan, who has received plenty of negative press in recent decades about interfering in team activities. Carton went as far as to praise him during the interview for ostensibly learning patience in his role running several professional sports organizations.
While the Knicks might not actually fire Brown in the case that this team fails to make the NBA Finals, it was interesting to hear Dolan address the elephant-sized expectations directly. He not only co-signed them, but made sure to clarify and double down on wanting to make the Finals. That was nothing, if not honest.