Let me start off with the disclaimer: I am a lifelong, diehard, bleed-orange-and-blue New York Knicks fan.
So, sure, I’m biased. No doubt about it.
But I like to think I know hoops. And what I know is this: Draymond Green’s take that the Knicks are the new 2020-21 Atlanta Hawks or 2018-19 Portland Trail Blazers is pretty wrong.
The Knicks lost to a feisty, young, deep Indiana Pacers team not because the team was flawed, but because the injury bug bit hard. OG Anunoby got hurt. Jalen Brunson wasn’t 100 percent. Josh Hart got hurt in Game 6. Bojan Bogdanovic and Mitchell Robinson both had season-ending injuries. We can’t forget about Julius Randle’s devastating season-ender, either.
Draymond Green compares the Knicks’ ‘fluke’ run to the Hawks and Blazers
“It'll be probably another 15 years of misery and we'll all sit around and laugh at Knicks fans with their delusion.”
(🎥 @TheVolumeSports / h/t @NBA_NewYork )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) May 10, 2024
And this rugged, tough team — the one that reminded us all of the mid-1990s squad that went to the NBA Finals — somehow went seven games with the Pacers despite basically playing a seven-man rotation.
Besides healing up, there’s a lot to love about the offseason (with the caveat that there are many ways to screw this up). The Knicks have a plethora of first-rounders to offer in a trade. Should they choose to go over the tax apron to re-sign Anunoby (they should) and breakout stud Isaiah Hartenstein (they should, although some team might throw more than the Knicks can offer at him), the franchise presumably can.
Should they go after a disgruntled star this offseason should one be available? I say no. The dream for so many of us is to bring in another Villanova star in Mikal Bridges, a perfect fit on a team in need of some more scoring and defense from the wing even if Anunoby stays.
Go get Mikal Bridges with those Knicks assets, and have one parade next year in the city, and another around the Villanova campus.
— Ian O'Connor (@Ian_OConnor) May 19, 2024
I just cover them!
Mikal Bridges would round the Knicks out very well, and the Nets could badly use those draft picks they’d get with him.
May prioritize a big, but I’d absolutely call Brooklyn. https://t.co/3hsnkKj0I7
— Jon Alba (@JonAlba) May 20, 2024
Yes, I’m aware this could all go badly if the front office takes a wrong turn. The thing Green is right about is the Hawks and Blazers never figured it out after their respective runs. But maybe the Knicks have learned from those teams that sometimes the best moves are made by painting in the corners, not blowing up the core.
That’s why, when I was walking in my Manhattan neighborhood on Sunday after the Game 7 loss, I saw fans in Knicks jerseys everywhere with their heads held high. Maybe they were imaging a world in which injury luck went the other way, or like me, they were calculating what’s next in the offseason.
Because the future is extremely bright. Finally.
