The New York Knicks have yet to break all the way through and win an NBA Championship. But their series win over the Atlanta Hawks left them standing alone as the only team in the league to have won a playoff series in four-straight seasons.
The wins against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Pistons, and Atlanta Hawks won't make a golden Larry O'Brien trophy magically appear in the display cases at Madison Square Garden. In the era of the spooky second apron, and its plethora of penalties for overspending teams, though?
New York's unique ability to sustainably churn out winning rosters should be a major sign of hope regarding their front office's chance of continuing to put out contenders.
Knicks' previously-questionable methods mostly keep aging well
While Leon Rose and William Wesley's front office has certainly erred in their six years making basketball decisions for the Knicks, they've also been the only group to add a superstar in free agency so far this decade.
They traded a young prospect they inherited in RJ Barrett, and another they drafted in the late first round in Immanuel Quickley, for OG Anunoby.
After drafting four rookies to make the salary work under the first apron, those moves left them able to acquire both Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns in the same offseason with their remaining draft capital. They made the Eastern Conference Finals in that group's first season.
The coaching change ahead of this season was unorthodox, and received plenty of criticism. Could those critiques end up aging the same way that all of the criticisms of the four-year, $104 million contract the team signed Brunson to in 2022 did?
As questionable as their methods have clearly been over time, the results speak for themselves. They haven't broken all the way through, but no other team has been one of the final eight teams standing in each of the last four seasons.
Discussions of their mistep with regard to sending five first-round picks for Bridges simply must include the context that, even though he contributed inconsistently, he was on the court for literally every single one of their wins since he was acquired.
Towns' historically-dominant performance against Atlanta could be an outlier: the product of the Knicks' size advantage over the Hawks. It could also be the start of something special. New York has up to seven games to continue proving it against the Philadelphia 76ers in Round 2.
The Knicks' front office built a sustainable winner without tanking
While the Oklahoma City Thunder certainly wouldn't trade their 2025 title win for a fourth consecutive victory in Round 1, the accomplishment by New York stands out as impressive because no other team in the league has been able to do it.
And while other teams have had the benefit of being able to tank, the Knicks have gargantuan expectations looming over them every season. It would be antithetical to the spirit of both the building and city in general for the basketball team playing at MSG to lose on purpose.
Even the Thunder, early on in their process of constructing the eventually-elite roster that would go on to win it all, prioritized draft position to optimize their chances of adding more needle-moving talent. That helped them land players like Chet Holmgren, who proved essential as part of their MVP's supporting cast on their road to a title.
The Knicks didn't have that benefit. That's even more reason for hope that this core of executives, coaches, and players can make this work to its fullest extent.
Add us as a preferred source on Google