An MRI has officially confirmed what everyone already knew: Damian Lillard has suffered a torn left Achilles. It is an injury that not only ends his season, but alters the rest of his career. It is also a moment, a setback, that should serve as a sobering reality check for the New York Knicks, and every other NBA contender.
Soon-to-be 35-year-old small point guards are at an inherent disadvantage, even when healthy. This injury puts Dame into a potentially insurmountable situation. He is not Kevin Durant, a near-seven-footer who can get his shot off over anyone. He needs to dribble and create and leverage speed to maintain the fullest breadth of impact. The player who returns, which likely won't happen before the 2026-27 campaign, will almost assuredly be a fractionalized version of the one from this past season, let alone a few years ago.
This is first and foremost a time to empathize with Lillard, and to appreciate all that he's done. But it is also a time, because it must be, to reflect on the Milwaukee Bucks. Their trajectory as currently constructed was already touch-and-go. It is now obliterated, the kind of devastating blow that doesn't just force gap years and recalibrations, but ends with teardowns—with superstar pillars and cultural touchstones wearing another jersey, pursuing the ring their current team is no longer fit to chase.
In this very moment, the brunt of the fallout will be felt by Milwaukee, and its future or lack thereof with Giannis Antetokounmpo. Zooming out, though, the Bucks can act as a cautionary tale for the Knicks as they attempt to navigate the toughest part of their present window: progress, and sustainability.
NBA championship windows are getting shorter
Nobody believed that the Bucks’ timeline with an aging Lillard and 30-year-old Antetokounmpo was open-ended. But their window was certainly supposed to last longer than it did. When you consider Dame and Giannis appeared in just three playoff games together, it’s fair to wonder whether said window ever really opened.
This is an extreme extension of the fast pace at which championship timelines move. Even if you believe your team is set up to run the tables for years to come, the end is, in all likelihood, nearer than you think.
For every squad that finagles an extended timeline (Boston)l, or figures out how to reorient multiple times around the same core (Golden State), there is the Kevin Durant-, Kyrie Irving-, and James Harden-era Brooklyn Nets. Or the current iteration of the Phoenix Suns. Or the Kawhi Leonard- and Paul George-led Los Angeles Clippers. Or pretty much every version of the Philadelphia 76ers since 2021.
This list goes on, and is uncomfortably long. Injuries blow up futures. So do trade demands. Or impending free agencies. And the ability to rank among the league’s few exceptions is even harder now, in the era of salary-cap aprons, and all the restrictions they place upon teams working within them.
The Knicks are all-in on now
The Knicks themselves are already feeling the squeeze of this era. They remade their roster over the past year-and-a-half or so. And in doing so, they find themselves in a situation similar to that of Milwaukee.
Jalen Brunson has armed them with a real-life superhero, emerging as the type of star who can be the best player on a championship contender. After biding their time, the Knicks have acted accordingly: with urgency.
Since the very end of 2023, they have traded RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Julius Randle, Donte DiVincenzo, and control over seven first-round picks to surround Brunson with OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns. Questions remain about the makeup of their roster as they navigate the NBA playoff crucible, but this core was assembled with the intention of maximizing the here and now, and with little regard for what comes next.
Yes, the Knicks have team control over their most important names. And their road to sustainability gets even easier if Bridges signs what would still be a pretty franchise-friendly extension this summer.
Still, the best-case scenario requires New York to work within extreme financial constraints. It projects to be $3.8 million over the first apron this offseason, according to Spotrac. That number is somewhat fungible if the Knicks ditch P.J. Tucker's non-guaranteed salary, but it doesn't include (potentially) bringing back guys like Landry Shamet or Cameron Payne.
Whatever New York does, it will be hard-pressed to access more than the $5.7 million taxpayer mid-level exception. This isn't a resource that typically bags a difference-maker. Just ask the Denver Nuggets, who gave it to Reggie Jackson in 2023, and then to Dario Saric in 2024.
Trades are still on the table, but they're hard to make. The Knicks' players with impactful standalone value are arguably indispensable, and it is difficult to sweeten packages using Mitchell Robinson's expiring salary when you can't include a single outright first-rounder.
It will only get harder for the Knicks from here
Improving and deepening the roster will only get harder as New York gets more expensive. Ducking the second apron next year is in play, but not so much moving forward. At that point, the Knicks are not just up against lofty luxury-tax bills, and a shallow asset pool. They will have to reconcile the prospect of not being able to aggregate salaries in trades, no longer having access to a mid-level exception, and limited in who they can even sign off the midseason buyout market, among other things.
The Bucks have been feeling a similar squeeze for a while. They needed to hit home-runs on the minimum contract market. For as delicate as they are now, they'd be worse off if they never stumbled into Malik Beasley last year, or Gary Trent Jr. and Taurean Prince this season.
New York seems immune to this fate at first glance. It is deeper with top-end talent, and no one from the starting five is older than 30. But these guys play a lot, and injuries happen. Fans hold their breath with every Jalen Brunson rolled ankle for a reason. There is no prospective title window without him.
But this isn't solely about injuries derailing hopes. It's actually about everything else. The Knicks may be barely good enough now, with scant few tools to get much better in the near or long term. It is this same scarcity of options that led the Bucks to decide they needed Kyle Kuzma.
So while the gut reaction to coming up short this year, whenever it happens, may be to give this exact group another year, they must also juggle the importance of continuity with the reality of urgency. It will be an underlying current in everything they consider, whether it's contracts and extensions, the fate of head coach Tom Thibodeau, or prospective trades.
Championship windows in the NBA open and close faster arguably than ever before. The Knicks do not appear in danger of disappearing overnight, but they're not immune to that acceleration, either. That is cause for both appreciating the run they might make now, and understanding that much like the Bucks, they don't have the luxury of treating the ending to each season as anything other than a wholesale referendum on their immediate and long-term prospects.
Dan Favale is a Senior NBA Contributor for FanSided and National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.