The 2024-25 New York Knicks’ season is officially over following their Game 6 loss to the Finals-bound Indiana Pacers. They will now enter the offseason having learned a ton about themselves, much of it frustrating, even more of it alarming.
For many, the biggest takeaway of all will be that it’s time to move on from head coach Tom Thibodeau. Really, though, there is a more important and uncomfortable lesson to be learned: Thibodeau is a problem. He is not the problem.
The problem is really a series of missteps culminating in what the Knicks are now: a team built in the image of winning it all that isn’t good enough to win it all, without any clear or accessible path forward that will bring them meaningfully closer to winning it all.
The Knicks went all-in on a wildly flawed roster
Last offseason will go down as New York’s cardinal sin. The front office surrendered control of seven first-round picks, one first-round swap, Julus Randle, and Donte DiVincenzo in exchange for Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Bridges’ arrival stings more than anything in hindsight. He has received too much criticism for his role in the Knicks’ failings, but giving up five first-rounders and one swap for someone who will likely never make an All-Star Game is an overpay—a display of aggression that only pans out if you’re close enough to view him as the finishing piece. He wasn’t.
Similar logic applies to the Towns acquisition.. The opportunity cost—Randle, DiVincenzo, and what became the No. 17 pick in this June’s draft—is more reasonable. But Towns has three years and $171.2 million left on his contract, an average of about 33.5 percent of the salary cap each year. That type of money in the Era of Aprons is reserved for players capable of being no worse than certified and reliable No. 2 options on contenders.
Towns isn’t that player. He is a human roller coaster. Even during the height of his first-option powers on the Brookly Nets, Bridges was never that player. Both have been miscast as potential solutions to the second-in-command problem, either because the Knicks misjudged who they are, or simply because of the cost(s) associated with getting them.
New York’s greatest strength isn’t strong enough
Born out of last summer was a statistically elite regular-season offense (fifth overall) that never truly felt elite. The Knicks do not shoot enough threes. They don’t have enough secondary creation. As the Pacers series showed, they do not have enough on-ball decision-makers to pitch in alongside Jalen Brunson against high-pressure defenses.
And of course, these Knicks do not have enough overall depth. They stretch seven players deep on their best nights, and it seldom feels like everyone and everything comes together at the same time.
It all amounts to a terminally fragile ecosystem, and the nonexistent margin for error that comes with it. In New York’s case, these ingrained issues are exacerbated further by the lack of synergy inside the starting five. The team’s problems are complicated even further by the total disconnect between Brunson and Towns, its most important offensive players.
These two do not augment each other. Brunson has repeatedly looked more comfortable beside bigs who set harder screens, and draw more defenders toward them rolling to the basket. Towns’ best moments in the conference finals came independent of Brunson, inside bench-mob lineups that had no choice but to get him the ball. It says a lot that Brunson assisted on fewer than 10 percent of Towns’ made baskets for the series.
You can’t hope to contend for a title, not really, when your two biggest stars don’t complement one another’s strengths, while also compounding one another’s weaknesses at the defensive end.
The Knicks may be stuck
Thibodeau is not blameless. Not even close. It took him too long to move away from the starting five, and to lean into the secondary Towns lineups. The plan to have the Knicks keep setting high ball screens in Game 6 despite pressure that saw three Pacers bodies enter the action remains baffling after the fact.
Still, you cannot have watched this team, thoroughly and honestly, and come away thinking a coaching change will fix everything. It will address some things. Especially on offense. But the Knicks, as currently constructed, are not a contender.
Worse than that, the changes required to become one feel out of reach. They have no up-and-coming blue-chip prospects on the roster. They will have no more than the mini mid-level exception, worth $5.7 million, to spend in free agency. And they have no outright first-round picks to include in trade packages.
Maybe there’s a multi-team deal construction that lets New York parlay Towns’ salary slot into two or three rotation players, at least one of whom needs to be a dependable second ball-handler. But his contract will scare away plenty of teams. Even if it doesn’t, he may not have the value on his own to bring back a return that materially upgrades the rotation. This same thing goes for Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Mitchell Robinson.
Short of a star James Harden-ing his way to the Big Apple, the Knicks may be stuck—unable to do much else other than fire the head coach who’s among their biggest issues but far from primarily responsible for their undoing.