How to follow the New York Knicks when there are Finals expectations
It’s not easy, but it’s worth it
The New York Knicks are pretty good. Have been five years now, long enough for the once-freakish to feel like the new normal. But no heart that’s been broken ever loves the same way after — and that’s a good thing. Scars are healthier than bleeding.
A lotta you are too young to have lived through a season where the Knicks are favorites to reach the Finals. Increasingly, you lot are the new normal. The only Knicks fans ever to see them win a championship are all now 65 and older. You have to be 40-plus to recall the last time they were legit favorites to win the East. The parallels between then and now provide a framework for how to approach this season. Here, then, the wisdom of the aged: what to track when tracking a New York Knicks title contender.
The national press paradox
There’s this weird doublethink I’ve seen in a lot of NBA writing this offseason, wherein a writer breezily acknowledges the Knicks as an Eastern contender before ignoring them utterly to focus on the Cavaliers, the Magic, the Pistons and the Hawks.
Girl.
Okay, the Achilles tears suffered by Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton have warped the expected equilibrium of the East this season. As a Marxist/New Historicist whose personal primordial ooze is all patterns and precedent, those injuries have left me all Major Tom, adrift and alone in a whole lotta nowhere. If those two were healthy, the East’s top-four would seem fairly set, with maybe the only question which if any were susceptible to an Orlando overthrow, a Cleveland coup, a Detroit de-throning or an Atlanta . . . well, you get the idea.
So yes, assuming the Celtics and Pacers regress (we’ll come back to this point later), there wil be multiple openings for the finest final four east of the Mississippi. And yet . . . who cares? Last year the Knicks won two playoff series, as many as the Cavs have won in the seven seasons since LeBron James took his talents to South Cali. As many as the Hawks have won in nine years. The Magic haven’t won a playoff series for 15; the Pistons have gone even longer. Suddenly one of them is going to win at least 12 playoff games next spring? Puh-leeze.
If the Knicks win the East – especially if they then lose in the Finals – we’re gonna be overrun with “They only got there ‘cuz no Tatum/Hali” bad-faith takes, the same tripe we would’ve heard in ‘94 had they fallen short. If this year’s Knicks do, the trolling will be off the charts. Don’t let it get to you. You know how rare it is for this team to warrant this level of hype. Own it. They’re really pretty good!
Structural similarities
The Knicks entered the ‘94 season having been eliminated the year prior in six games in the ECF despite having the homecourt advantage. That year prior had been the franchise’s best in decades, winning the division for just the second time in 23 years. Last year’s Knicks were eliminated in six in the ECF despite holding homecourt advantage. Still, it was the best Knicks team in over a decade; should they win the Atlantic this season, it’ll be just their second division title in 32 years.
In 1994 the Knicks’ best player was probably overrated, at least by franchise standards, just as their best player today probably is. Walt Frazier may be the only person alive qualified to judge who the greatest Knick ever is, and even he – the same man who says it’s Ewing – says if Willis Reed hadn’t retired early due to injuries there'd be no debate; it’d be Reed, hands down. Heading into ‘94, Ewing’s Knicks had lost four of the six series they’d been in, never winning a single seven-game series. That’s not meant as a slander. But when you measure that against a two-time Finals MVP who provided the emotional high point in franchise history and a living legend who put up 36 and 19 dimes in the biggest game in franchise history, one of these things is not like the others.
When I say Brunson’s probably overrated, I speak as the guilty party. I’ve written that he’s the “best” Knick playoff hope of my lifetime, which in one sense is just patently dumb. Ewing was a two-way terror who was so good for so long his reign ran from before The Simpsons was ever a show until after it’d been on TV more than a decade and clearly jumped the shark. Brunson has had three great years here. Period. One of those things is not like the other.
Again, it’s just hard for me to turn my back to parallels and precedents, even as much as I adore Brunson. After Bernard King or Carmelo Anthony’s first few years here, how many fans could have predicted where those timelines were headed? It’s more accurate to say I trust Brunson more than any other leading Knick I’ve seen. In the clutchest of moments, I expected Ewing to turn the ball over or miss a big free throw. I expected Melo to force up a shot or pass it to someone unqualified to shoot. In those same spots, I expect Brunson to deliver, via the dish or the swish. He tends to.
Change or die
The ‘94 Knicks were a mostly seamless transition from the ‘93 Knicks, the only exceptions being two new veterans (Derek Harper and Anthony Bonner) and a second-year player promoted to the rotation (Hubert Davis). Bonner played almost every game, starting nearly half; Harper succeeded Doc Rivers as the starting point guard after Doc suffered a season-ending injury; Davis found himself at one of the greatest, most dramatic what-if moments in NBA history.
(If Pippen isn’t called for the foul, and the Bulls go on to win that series and the title without Jordan, how is MJ’s legacy impacted? Would he still have returned in 1995 if Chicago won without him in ‘94? How would MJ vs. LeBron be framed today if the Bulls had won one without Black Jesus?)
This year’s Knicks feature the same top-seven as last year. They, too, have added a couple veterans and hope one of their young players earns a promotion to a bigger role. Jordan Clarkson and Guerschon Yabusele seem pretty natural fits, depth-wise. Could Ariel Hukporti, Tyler Kolek or another young Knick find their way into new coach Mike Brown’s rotation? If they were fouled on a close-out three late in a swing game, would they make their free throws? Inquiring minds want to know.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
When Jordan retired in 1993, the news was not unanimously welcomed by Knicks fans. Captain Ahab hearing Moby Dick decided to call it quits doesn’t quiet the fire in Ahab’s belly any. You chase that white whale long enough, the only endgame you’re interested in is the one at the business end of the harpoon you stick in his carcass.
Plus, with MJ gone allllll the pressure shifted to New York. If they won the East, it’d be seen as a given, the direct result of Jordan’s absence. If they didn’t? The only thing worse than losing to Jordan again would’ve been losing to anybody else.
The East ended up being really weird that year. The number-one seed? Atlanta, who’d won a middling 38-43 games the four years prior; the Hawks doubled-down on the weird, trading their franchise legend and best player midseason, Dominique Wilkins, for Danny Manning, a player they promptly lost in free agency. (If you’re keeping score at home, the 2025-26 Hawks have won 36-43 games the past four years, and are frequently mentioned as a team that could look to move its best player sooner than later in Trae Young. Symmetry!)
By 1994, Cleveland had been a pseudo-contender for years, joining the Knicks as the consensus biggest beneficiaries of Jordan’s retirement, and yet a year after being swept by MJ’s Bulls in the ECF they were swept by the MJ-less Bulls in the first round. Those MJ-less Bulls finished just two games behind the Hawks and Knicks for the best record in the East. Indiana was the plucky, pugilistic Midwest wannabes who’d given the big-city ballers all they wanted in ‘93’s opening round and were looking to knock the Knicks off their f***ing perch in ‘94.
Could history be repeating? Detroit now is Indiana then, having fought a valiant first-round fight last spring and fancying 2026 as the year they take the next step, hopefully right on New York’s face. I could see next year’s Pacers or Celtics exceeding expectations the way the Bulls did back in the day; everyone seems certain they’ll regress, but those are proud, well-run organizations. Both seemed in a mad rush to deplete their frontcourts, in particular, but would you be surprised if either goes 43-39 and is giving the Knicks hell in round one? Guess where all the pressure would be? Keep Boston and Indiana as far away as possible, I say.
The weirdness of the ‘94 standings should give one pause before assuming the Knicks, Cavs or anybody else are shoe-ins for anything in ‘26. Cleveland is already down two starters come opening night, with Max Strus out the first few months after foot surgery and Darius Garland recovering from offseason surgery on a big toe that wreaked havoc with the Cavs in the playoffs.
And though Tom Thibodeau was fired over three months ago, the potential of the Thibs tax looms: last year’s Knicks were only the 10th team in NBA history to have five players play 35-plus minutes a game, followed by 18 playoff games where four played even more minutes (Karl-Anthony Towns’ average held at 35.5). There’s likely to be turmoil atop the East; the more there is, the greater the capacity for chaos everywhere else.
In retrospect, 1994 is a dream year in franchise history. That’s not how it was portrayed or processed in real time. Anthony Mason was suspended indefinitely with two games left in the regular season, after he publicly questioned both Riley benching him for Charles Smith and the coach’s definition of “offense.” John Starks had knee surgery in mid-March. The Knicks nearly blew 2-0 and 3-2 series leads against the Bulls, nearly blew a 2-0 lead in the ECF against the Pacers before falling behind 2-3, then blew a 3-2 lead in the Finals. The highs of that run were heavenly but brief; the lows were overwhelming.
Riley used to say, “There’s winning, and then there’s misery.” In 1994, it was hard sometimes knowing the difference. Too many of us were entirely focused on title or bust. Don’t be.
Enjoy the joy before you! I don’t look back on the ‘90s and lament all the gruesome, season-ending defeats – and there were many! (The Charles Smith Game; Houston Game 7; the Ewing Game 7 finger-roll; P.J. Brown; Avery Johnson). What I do remember: Ewing’s baseline fadeaways splashing. Him racing over from the weakside to swat a shot into the fourth row. Starks curling around a screen, so small but so springy exploding behind the arc for a 3-point try. Harper’s deft hands. Davis’ sweet stroke. Mason’s inner shine. Oakley’s rugged roots.
The 2026 Knicks probably won’t win a championship. But they’ll likely feature more of Brunson cooking the league like it’s his job – which it is – but also like his passion – which it is. KAT is the most gifted scoring big the franchise has seen since Bob McAdoo. Josh Hart is beloved. OG Anunoby, too. Mikal Bridges could be, someday. Mitchell Robinson is a closeted franchise legend. Clarkson will have ignoramuses claiming Deuce is surplus to needs before we hit Christmas. If you, like me, were a big fan of Precious Achiuwa, you’ll likely be worshipping Yabusele by the playoffs.
I’ve never really written much about the ‘94 Finals, or the ‘99 Finals, really. They were too much; I was younger and unhealthily invested in the Knicks. Not like now, when I’m middle-aged and got it all figured out, man! It’s like a relationship that ended just awfully, and for a while all you remember is how it ended. And then, after enough time, even those memories erode, and what’s left, what endures, is all that matters, really.
The 2026 Knicks may be stressful to watch in 2026. But assuming against all hope there’s still a Knicks in 2056, you may look back and wish you’d surrendered to joy when you had the chance. Now’s as good a time and place as any. Enjoy, comrades.
