Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart helped deliver something Knicks fans had waited 53 years to see, but ESPN still isn’t viewing them quite as highly heading into next season.
In the latest release of ESPN’s NBA Rank 2026, which projects the top 100 players for the 2026-27 season, both Knicks starters took noticeable hits compared with where they landed a year ago. Bridges dropped from 48th to 61st, while Hart slid from 69th to 89th. Together, they fell 33 spots.
The rankings were unveiled Tuesday as ESPN rolled out players No. 51-100, and the numbers made one thing clear: the network is not especially bullish on either New York starter. That’s a sharp turn for two players who were part of a championship team and, in the process, became part of Knicks history.
Hart is entering his 10th NBA season and will turn 32 late in the regular season, on March 6. He’s not old enough for age to be the obvious explanation here, especially after posting a career-best 41.3% mark from three in 2025-26.
His production dipped from 2024-25, but that came with a lighter load under Mike Brown. Hart played more than seven fewer minutes per game than he did the season before, after often being pushed hard by Tom Thibodeau.
Bridges, meanwhile, still looks like the kind of player who can hold value even if he’s not the high-usage scorer he was with the Brooklyn Nets. He struggled through some scoring duds early in last season’s playoff run against the Atlanta Hawks, but he became important during the title push. New York’s current iron man has settled in as an efficient scorer, and his corner shooting remains close to automatic.
ESPN’s list is built to spark arguments, and this one should do exactly that. Seeing Bridges and Hart tumble that far after ending the Knicks’ drought feels jarring. But both players are champions now, and that’s the part that will stick in New York far longer than any ranking ever will.
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