The Knicks are heading into the new season with something rare in the NBA: a championship core that is still largely intact, yet somehow not sitting at the top of the title board.
That alone puts them in unusual company. Last June, New York became the eighth different NBA champion in eight years, a stretch of parity unlike anything the league has seen.
And even with nearly the entire group back - everyone except Mitchell Robinson - the Knicks are not being treated like the team to beat. Their odds trail Oklahoma City’s and San Antonio’s, and they sit alongside Philadelphia.
That skepticism may not hold up for long. The last seven champions all showed a few recurring traits, and New York checks enough of those boxes to look like a strong candidate to do something the league has struggled to see: repeat.
For starters, the pattern says the Knicks should be in the playoffs and probably win at least one round. Six of the previous seven champions advanced in the postseason the year after their title, with the 2021 Lakers the only exception after their Bubble championship.
Of the six who did get through, five were stopped in the second round; only the Thunder made it all the way to the Western finals. New York has now won at least one playoff series in four straight postseasons, and a fifth feels like a reasonable expectation.
Stability is part of the reason. The last seven champions mostly kept the same key minutes leaders from one season to the next, and the changes were usually small.
Five of them made just two changes to the top players in minutes after winning the title, and none made more than two. The Knicks should be in the same lane unless injuries intervene, with the starting five likely to remain the team’s biggest minute drivers.
There’s also a hidden edge in how last season played out. Mike Brown’s deeper bench helped New York cut down the workload on most of its core, even though the team played one more playoff game than it had two years earlier.
Jalen Brunson’s combined regular-season and postseason minutes rose 10% from 2025 to 2026, but the rest of the starters saw real drops: Mikal Bridges by 12%, Karl-Anthony Towns by 8%, OG Anunoby by 18% and Josh Hart by 26%. The champs are coming off the shortest offseason in the league, but their bodies may be fresher than they were a year ago.
The travel break may have helped too. After winning in Memphis on April 1, the Knicks flew back to New York and then barely got on a plane over the next seven weeks.
Up 2-0 in the conference finals, they had flown only three times total in that span, all to Atlanta. In the final two rounds, they made one trip to Cleveland and two to San Antonio.
It’s fair to wonder whether all those miles they didn’t log could matter later.
What really separates New York from the last seven champions, though, is the level it reached in last spring’s postseason. The Knicks were more dominant against their opponents than any of the previous seven title teams were against theirs. Game after game, they kept pushing the standard higher with record-setting point differentials over various stretches, and that kind of run leaves a mark on everyone involved, including the teams trying to catch them.
The teams that ended the previous champions’ title defenses were all serious threats of their own. The Raptors and Bucks were both knocked out by a Celtics team that had been a heavyweight for nearly a decade.
The Lakers were beaten by a Suns team that reached the Finals and jumped out to a 2-0 lead there. The Warriors fell to an old Lakers group.
The Nuggets ran into a Timberwolves team on the rise. The Celtics were eliminated by the Knicks, and the Thunder got their first real taste of a Spurs team that looks built to stay.
So who fills that role now? The Cavaliers have a case, but last season was their best without LeBron James since 1993 and they still finished eight wins short of the title. Peyton Watson is an interesting young player, but not eight playoff wins interesting.
The 76ers won the offseason, but that doesn’t automatically translate to a championship. Joel Embiid couldn’t defend anyone on the Knicks last spring - not Towns, not Brunson, not Anunoby, nobody. And no matter how strong LeBron James and Jaylen Brown are, neither one is a center.
The Pistons didn’t make a meaningful addition, and Jalen Duren remains unsigned. The Pacers may be the most dangerous of the bunch after knocking out the Knicks in 2024 and 2025 and getting Tyrese Haliburton back from his Achilles tear. Still, even with Ivica Zubac in the mix, the question remains whether that group has the kind of ceiling that changes everything.
For now, New York has something else going for it: the most difficult player in the league to deal with in late-and-close moments. Brunson has become that kind of problem.
His game shifts with whatever the defense gives him. Crowd him and he slips by.
Back off and he’ll bury the pull-up 3.
That’s the kind of player teams hate to face when the game tightens. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander could use that lesson against San Antonio if he leans on scoring instead of fouls.
Jayson Tatum, despite being 6'8", took 200 more 3s than Brunson in 2025, his last full season, and will either have to turn that number around in a big way after the Brown trade or keep leaning even harder into that shot volume. Great players usually give something away in big moments.
Brunson doesn’t. If he hasn’t decided what he’s doing, the defense is already late.
That’s why the Knicks look built for another run. They’re experienced without being worn out.
They’ve been conditioned by years of deep playoff work, but when they finally broke through, most of their key players were actually in better shape than before. Madison Square Garden nearly shook itself apart when they won it all last year.
If they do it again, the ceiling might not survive.
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Jalen Brunsons offseason has been a quiet source of concern for Knicks fans ever since he had wrist surgery after the 2026 playoffs, because any lingering issue with their point guard would loom large with a title defense on the horizon. The good news is that Brunson has now offered a reassuring update, one that matters as much for the mood around the team as it does for the lineup itself.
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James Wiseman and Drew Eubanks are in the mix on training-camp deals, but neither has locked down a standard roster spot yet. With no agreement or trade in place, the Knicks still have time to add another big if they decide the depth chart needs more certainty before opening night. [Read more 🡒]