The Knicks Should Savor Their Season, Then Do Nothing

It’s only been three days since the Knicks were eliminated from the NBA playoffs by Tyrese Halliburton and the hated Indiana Pacers for the second consecutive season, but I’m already having a difficult time staying too angry about it. Sure, it was difficult to watch the Knicks, who made it deeper into the postseason than they have this century, lay an egg in game six in Indianapolis, with their stars Jalen Brunson and (especially) Karl-Anthony Towns turning in their worst games of the postseason. (I caught myself thinking, “Man, I hope Timothée makes it out of there in one piece.”) To get as close as the Knicks made it, only to fall short, will always sting.

But then again, I remember the age of Michael Doleac and Bruno Sundov and the horrors of the Isiah Thomas era too vividly to have my soul crushed by a loss in the Eastern Conference Finals. I have been a Knicks fan my entire adult life, and this — with a beloved star like Brunson, multiple NBA All-Stars, a starting five loaded with talent and a Garden that’s rocking like it hasn’t since the Jeremy Lin fortnight — is as good as I have ever had it. Winning a championship remains the ultimate goal. But if you can’t find at least a little bit of pleasure in what the Knicks did this season, either you just got here, or you are simply incapable of joy. Remember, the Knicks were so bad, so recently, that they weren’t even invited to the COVID bubble in Orlando. Now, just five years later, they’re two games from the Finals? And you’re upset? C’mon.

That said: To paraphrase George Carlin’s famous quote about cocaine, the problem with winning is all it does is make you want more winning. No one is satisfied by simply reaching the conference finals, and considering the expense the Knicks paid to get here — they used almost all their draft assets, to the point that they currently only have one first-round draft pick of their own for the rest of this decade — and how rarely these opportunities present themselves, the only goal moving forward has to be winning that first title since 1973. Even with the loss to Indiana, the Knicks are one of the few teams who can still reasonably consider themselves legitimate title contenders. But they’ve got some questions to answer first. Here are the big ones.

Is Thibs coming back? If so, for how long?

The Knicks’ unlikely playoff run (it was basically impossible to find a pundit who gave them a chance against the Celtics) almost certainly saved coach Tom Thibodeau’s job. Thibs, the grumbly NBA veteran, is obsessed with unfettered grit and has an almost pathological resistance to giving any of his stars a rest. He finally found the right setting and the right star (Brunson) to enact his idiosyncratic vision. But historically, Thibs has ended up wearing out his welcome at each of his stops, and had the Knicks not made the Eastern Finals, it might have happened this year too. There are still concerns. Thibs’ legendary stubbornness may have ground down his stars this year — something Mikal Bridges even said out loud at one point — and you can certainly make an argument that another coach might have been more willing to pull some different strategic rabbits out of the hat in the postseason. There is a sense that the Knicks could benefit, at some point, from fresh eyes. It’s tough to see the Knicks firing Thibs in the offseason — both team president Leon Rose and Brunson say he has their full support — but if next season starts slowly, there’s no question who will take the fall for it.

Is KAT a championship player?

Karl-Anthony Towns was a third-team All-NBA player this year. He averaged 24.4 points and a career-high 12.8 rebounds per game. He opened up the offense, took untold pressure off Brunson ,and single-handedly won Game Three of the Eastern Conference Finals. He’s a really good player! But it is also reasonable to wonder: Is this really the guy the Knicks are going to win a title behind? KAT’s defensive limitations were in abundance against the Pacers, and he had a real bad habit of disappearing in the middle of games; it’s telling that there were all sorts of anonymous quotes after the Knicks were eliminated expressing “frustration with Towns’ defensive habits” and his inability to “grasp the importance of the matter.” He was also downright terrible in the Knicks’ elimination game. KAT’s talent is undeniable. But the whispers around the NBA that, in the end, you just can’t win with him only got louder this year, and by the end of the playoffs, they were deafening.

Can they make another big move?

The general consensus was that after last offseason, when the Knicks traded a boatload of draft picks for Bridges, as well as Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo for Towns, they were done making dramatic changes: Those were their championship moves. That may still be true. But if so, the Knicks have to be kicking themselves that they didn’t wait a year for Giannis Antetokounmpo to hit the trade market, as he is likely to do this offseason. They could still make a play for Giannis—Yahoo’s Tom Haberstroh tried, not all that convincingly, to construct a Towns trade for him — but the more likely (while still unlikely) move could be finding a new home for Bridges, who never quite fit in this year.

Can they take advantage of a suddenly depleted Eastern Conference?

The Achilles injury to Boston’s Jayson Tatum, which will likely keep him out all of next season, changes the entire architecture of the Eastern Conference. This will be a lost year for the Celtics, who are likely to say goodbye to some combination of Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holliday, Al Horford and maybe even Jaylen Brown. The Cavaliers, the best regular season team in the conference this year, have had two straight playoff flameouts in a row and are running into cap space issues. The 76ers are falling apart, the Pistons don’t look ready yet, the Bucks may be blowing it all up and the Magic still can’t score. Is it possible the best two teams in this conference, the teams most likely to meet in the Eastern Conference Finals next year, are once again the Knicks and the Pacers? Maybe this is the exact wrong time to make some big huge move. Which brings us to…

Is the right play just to sit tight?

This season felt so long, with so many twists and turns, that one can forget it was the first go-around for this incarnation of the Knicks. Bridges and Towns just got here! It takes time for teams to figure themselves out, to grow, to gel and work together: It took the Celtics a half decade of disappointments before they finally broke through. Both teams in the Finals, Indiana and overwhelming favorite Oklahoma City, had to take their lumps as their rosters meshed. Isn’t the smart play for the Knicks just to settle down, let everybody have a full offseason and training camp together, and give it some time? The Knicks have five (maybe six if you count Mitchell Robinson) All-Star caliber players who are all very much in their prime right now, but they have only all played together one season. The old Knicks would freak out and start making big trades. The new Knicks should be — and, I think, are — smarter than that. Leon Rose and company spent years building up to this point, compiling assets, building the best Knicks team of the century. It also happens to be one that just came two games from the NBA Finals; doesn’t it seem reasonable that another year of marination might just get them those extra two games? The Knicks were patient during the recent years of failure about building themselves up to the team they are now. It would be prudent, during this age of success, to remain so.