The 2025-26 NBA season is here! We’re rolling out our previews — examining the biggest questions, best- and worst-case scenarios, and win projections for all 30 franchises — from the still-rebuilding teams to the true title contenders.
2024-25 finish
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Record: 51-31 (lost to the Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals)
Offseason moves
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Additions: Guerschon Yabusele, Jordan Clarkson
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Subtractions: Precious Achiuwa, P.J. Tucker
(Stefan Milic/Yahoo Sports Illustration)
The Big Question: Can Mike Brown improve these Knicks?
The Knicks pulled off somewhat of a stunning upset, ousting the defending champion Boston Celtics in a six-game second-round playoff series. They ran into their ceiling a round later, losing to the fifth-seeded Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference finals. They defied expectations, only to fall short of them.
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It is a weird situation. On the one hand, nobody figured them for the league’s final four, not with two 60-win teams plying their trade in the East. On the other, they got there and had a real chance to make the Finals. For that, the Knicks decided to part ways with Tom Thibodeau, the coach who got them there.
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There is no doubt that over the course of Thibodeau’s tenure the Knicks overachieved. They reached the playoffs in four of his five seasons on the bench, winning four playoff series — more than the franchise’s 13 other coaches this century combined. And their best player, Jalen Brunson, is a 6-foot-2 point guard.
Brunson also happens to be one hell of a player. He averaged 26 points (49/38/82 shooting splits) and 7.3 assists per game at the helm of a top-five offense, garnering MVP votes for a second straight season. He was incredible in the playoffs, making clutch play after clutch play. How much longer he can maintain this pace as an undersized superstar remains to be seen, but at 29 years old he is squarely in his prime.
He is also bolstered by one of the league’s best playoff rotations, featuring Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Mitchell Robinson. The additions of Guerschon Yabusele and Jordan Clarkson make the Knicks deeper. With Jayson Tatum and Tyrese Haliburton sidelined for the Celtics and Pacers, respectively, New York has as clear a view of the NBA Finals as it has had since 1999.
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The Knicks saw a chance and took it. Kind of. Upon firing Thibodeau, the Knicks sought interviews with a handful of employed coaches, all of whom turned them down. In the end, they landed on Mike Brown.
Brown is a good coach. He took what he learned offensively as an assistant for the 2022 NBA champion Golden State Warriors and applied it to the Sacramento Kings, ending the franchise’s 17-year playoff drought. They thought they were better than they were, too, and fired him in the middle of last season.
[Get more Knicks news: New York team feed]
That’s the thing. Sometimes it isn’t the coach. Sometimes it is the personnel. And the Knicks have not had the personnel to reach the Finals. They have what some might consider a fatal flaw — the defense of Brunson and Towns. Neither is a stopper. Not close to it. Only they have to be on the floor together. And together they submitted a middling defense last year. Can Brown scheme around two defensive issues?
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More likely, Brown will lean into his team’s incredible offensive prowess, using more Brunson-Towns pick-and-rolls and movement in the offense, hoping to squeeze more from what was already a top-five outfit.
With Tatum and Haliburton out of the picture and the East’s last two champions in a gap year, the path to the Finals is open for the Knicks. They think they have the personnel now, but do they have the coach?
Best-case scenario
Brown coaches the Knicks up as one of the league’s elite offenses and finds a way to field a serviceable defense, perhaps benefitting from the presence of Robinson, who missed a good chunk of last season with an injury. Brunson maintains as one of the league’s elite playmakers. Towns, who has reached the finals of both conferences the last two years, carries that confidence into this season. Bridges and Anunoby find some consistency as reliable two-way performers, and the Knicks are the class of the East.
If everything falls apart
Brunson steps back from the MVP race. He and Towns cannot scrape together a top-10 defense. Bridges and Anunoby are as inconsistent as ever. Yabusele and Clarkson are not playoff difference-makers. Brown is no better than Thibodeau. The Knicks slam their heads against a sub-Finals ceiling once again, even in a watered-down Eastern Conference, and the outlook for the 2026-27 season is no better. Maybe they take another crack at trying to trade for Giannis Antetokounmpo, but do they have the assets to get him?
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2025-26 schedule
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Season opener: Oct. 22 vs. Cleveland
Who else but the Knicks are capable of winning 55 games in the East? The Cleveland Cavaliers? Somebody has to win games, and the road could not be clearer for New York. Take the over.
More season previews
East: Atlanta Hawks • Boston Celtics • Brooklyn Nets • Charlotte Hornets • Chicago Bulls • Cleveland Cavaliers • Detroit Pistons • Indiana Pacers • Miami Heat • Milwaukee Bucks • New York Knicks • Orlando Magic • Philadelphia 76ers • Toronto Raptors • Washington Wizards
West: Dallas Mavericks • Denver Nuggets • Golden State Warriors • Houston Rockets • LA Clippers • Los Angeles Lakers • Memphis Grizzlies • Minnesota Timberwolves • New Orleans Pelicans • Oklahoma City Thunder • Phoenix Suns • Portland Trail Blazers • Sacramento Kings • San Antonio Spurs • Utah Jazz
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