For the longest time, the popular belief has been that if the New York Knicks fall short of their lofty aspirations during this year's playoff run, Karl-Anthony Towns would be treated as the biggest scapegoat and, presumably, shopped by Leon Rose and company in the offseason.
However, a recent report by Sam Amick suggests that someone else would very likely usurp the All-Star as the first name to be sent to the chopping block in such a nightmare scenario.
In a recent piece published by The Athletic, the Senior NBA Writer revealed that coach Mike Brown's seat will be scorching hot if New York fails to adhere to owner James Dolan's championship-round-or-bust mandate.
Surprisingly, he would also unveil that "even that might not be good enough" to help the veteran headman last more than one year with the franchise.
Simply put, Brown's tenure in the Big Apple has been quite a polarizing one thus far.
Though he may have surpassed Hall of Famer Pat Riley for most wins in a debut campaign with the Knicks (53), from fans and analysts to former players, faith in him being the answer to guiding New York to its first title since 1973 has been and continues to be exceptionally low.
Seeing them struggle this much against the objectively inferior Hawks, with home-court advantage on their side right out of the gates, certainly doesn't diminish these aforementioned beliefs.
Should they fail to live up to expectations, Brown is starting to look like the obvious fall guy.
Easier for Knicks to move on from coach than trade struggling studs
While the exciting course of action in the event of playoff failure would be to look to strike a blockbuster trade for, say, a Giannis Antetokounmpo, the most realistic and easy-to-achieve route would simply be to part ways with the one running this underwhelming show on the sidelines.
In order for the Knicks to make a splashy trade for a game-changing star, they'd need some combination of high-quality future draft assets and expendable in-demand star power.
Due to the 2024 deal that landed them Mikal Bridges from the Nets, they are already fresh out of the former. If they fizzle out of the postseason before a Finals berth, it would likely mean they'd be viewed as being short in the latter department as well.
The two most frequently discussed players in terms of possible outbound trade options are Towns and Bridges, both of whom have seen their stock plummet tremendously here in 2025-26.
If the Knicks flounder during this year's playoff run, be it just or not, both will almost certainly be tabbed as major reasons why, meaning any offers they'd net in return for their services would almost certainly be astronomically less than what they'd covet.
All things considered, it only makes sense to hear that simply firing Brown, who wasn't even one of the club's top coaching targets last summer anyway, would be a highly realistic and much easier decision to make if they underperform this postseason.
Add us as a preferred source on Google