After winning 50 regular season games in 2023/24 for the first time in over a decade, the Knicks came within one win of advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals last spring before injuries caught up to them.
Rather than running it back and seeing if a healthier version of that roster could make a deeper playoff run, the front office took an aggressive approach to the 2024 offseason, parting with five first-round picks in a trade for Mikal Bridges, then sending a pair of starters - Julius Randle and Donte DiVincenzo - and another first-round selection to Minnesota in a blockbuster trade that landed Karl-Anthony Towns in New York.
Those weren't the first major roster moves the Knicks made under president of basketball operations Leon Rose. New York made a nine-figure free agent investment in a pre-All-Star Jalen Brunson in 2022 that was viewed as a risk at the time. There was also a mid-season trade in 2023/24 for OG Anunoby that required the team to give up a pair of former first-round picks -- one was a former No. 3 overall pick (RJ Barrett) and one had just been a Sixth Man of the Year runner-up (Immanuel Quickley).
But the deals for Bridges and Towns represented all-in moves for the Knicks, who had stockpiled extra draft assets over the years, biding their time as they waited for the right opportunity to cash them in. The hope was that adding Bridges and Towns to a core led by Brunson and Anunoby, who both signed long-term contracts in 2024, would be enough to push the club to another level.
And you can make a case that's exactly what happened. The regular season was up and down, as Bridges took some time to adjust to his new team and New York - facing a restrictive hard cap after completing mega-deals - struggled to find effective depth to complement its talented starting lineup. But the Knicks won more games (51) than they had a year earlier, then beat the Pistons in the first round of the playoffs before upsetting the defending champion Celtics in round two.
Yes, Boston lost Jayson Tatum to a season-ending Achilles injury, but the Knicks already had a 2-1 lead and were on their way to winning Game 4 when that injury occurred. Their series victory over the Celtics wasn't a fluke. Unfortunately for the Knicks, their first Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 25 years ended in disappointment, as they couldn't recover from a pair of tough home losses to open the series and fell to the Pacers in six games.
Despite a pretty successful postseason run that included an unexpected second-round win, the Knicks decided a change was necessary after the conference finals loss and parted ways with head coach Tom Thibodeau. It was a somewhat controversial move -- while Thibodeau has faced plenty of criticism for relying too heavily on his top players and not using his bench enough, he helped change the culture in New York, where the club had posted seven consecutive sub-.500 seasons prior to his arrival.
The first order of business for the Knicks this summer is to hire Thibodeau's replacement. After that, they'll have to decide whether the roster needs another facelift or whether they'll move forward with the core they established last summer, betting on that group's ability to take another step forward under a new head coach and perhaps with some tweaks around the edges.
The Knicks' Offseason Plan
The Knicks' head coaching search has been unorthodox so far, to say the least. Rather than compiling the usual list of former NBA head coaches, current assistants, and perhaps some candidates from the college ranks, the Knicks sought permission to speak to at least five head coaches already employed by NBA teams.
Why does Stephen A want to trade KD or giannis to the knicks so badly it doesn’t make sense for them
It’s not worth it to lose anunoby or bridges and why would the bucks take KAT and few picks for Giannis