Mike Brown is committed to pulling different levers inside the New York Knicks rotation. And his dedication officially extends beyond just comfortable victories. He is now rolling out experimental lineups when it matters—an admirable mission the Knicks no longer have the margin for error to float.
Fewer than 15 games into the season, the “it’s still early” caveats technically apply. Go ahead and randomly throw out Pacome Dadiet in the first quarter of an NBA Cup game, as Brown did against the Indiana Pacers. Definitely try playing Tyler Kolek and Jalen Brunson together as part of an ultra-small unit in which Deuce McBride or Landry Shamet is the nominal power forward, as the Knicks also did Friday.
Yet, while the “it’s still early” trope applies in many individual and micro respects, the bigger picture is different. History, in fact, suggests the Knicks’ current record reveals more about them than many think, and would like to believe.
The Knicks are officially trying to disprove history
In an excellent research piece for Nylon Calculus, current analytics researcher for the Charlotte Hornets Krishna Narsu previously found that NBA team records start to become telltale after just eight games. Meanwhile, a more recent deep dive from Shaz Ally on his Substack finds that win-loss records become nearly 50 percent indicative by 12 games, while reaching a 70 percent signal by 24 games.
Exceptions to every rule exist. That doesn’t mean this Knicks team is going to be one.
New York was 5-3 at the eight-game mark last year, with a 5.6 net rating. That put the team on a 51-to-52-win pace, and left it fifth in the Eastern Conference. The Knicks ultimately ended up finishing with 53 wins, a 6.4 net rating, and third in the East.
That doesn’t make this a hard-and-fast rule. New York itself proved that. The Knicks were on pace last year for 54 to 55 wins at the 12-game mark. That’s a reasonable approximation for where they ended up. But at the 24-game mark, an historically stronger signal, they were 17-7—a 58-win pace. They clearly fell off that trajectory.
This is all to say: We can’t chalk up their 6-6 start purely to variance. Even if they outperform it by five victories, that’d leave them with 46 wins—which wasn’t good enough to secure home-court advantage entering the playoffs.
Mike Brown may need to change his approach
This brings us back to Mike Brown’s tinkering. Yours truly generally loves it. Give me more Jalen Brunson-Tyler Kolek minutes to ratchet up the ball-handling and playmaking dynamism in a given lineup. Hold the Dadiet minutes though, please and thank you.
Still, while Brown has the right idea, the Knicks aren’t currently winning enough to justify it. Unless he is prepared to punt on a top-four seed for the sake of information gathering, he has to approach games with more urgency.
Doing so isn’t tantamount to playing Brunson with Thibodeauian volume. It doesn’t prohibit Brown from pulling the plug on Bridges or Hart if they’re missing or avoiding shots, and defenses are guarding them like it. But it does entail coaching to win games immediately rather than prioritizing what could happen if things go according to plan later.
Brown and company needn’t raise the alarm right now. To be sure, they absolutely could. It would be justified. But last year’s Knicks hit one peak, plunged to rock bottom, then found another gear when it mattered most. They have earned the benefit of the doubt—to a point.
Last year’s title team found something magical. Though lightning can strike the same place twice, counting on its recurrence isn’t viable. Eventually, Brown and the Knicks will reach a point at which they can’t experiment in the name of the future, and instead must cater to the moment(s) in front of them.
They might even be at that point already.
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