The quick read
- The Knicks won the 2026 title, beating the Spurs 4-1 in the Finals, and their starting five is back intact.
- Mitchell Robinson left for Boston, so Andre Drummond is the new backup center.
- Our call: around 54 wins, the No. 1 seed in the East, and a real shot at a repeat.
Banner night is here. The New York Knicks open the season at Madison Square Garden against Philadelphia on Oct. 20, and the first thing that happens is a championship banner going up for the first time since 1973.
New York didn’t blow anything up after winning it all. The same five guys who started the Finals are back, and Mike Brown is back for his second year. That’s the good news. The thing to watch is the second unit, which lost its best rebounder and rim protector. Let’s look at our Knicks preview to see what to expect this season.
Last season: 53 wins and a title
Last season by the numbers
- 53-29 Record, 3rd in the East
- +6.5 Net rating, 5th in the NBA
- 119.8 Offensive rating, 3rd in the NBA
- 113.3 Defensive rating, 7th in the NBA
- 30-10 At home (23-19 on the road)
- 37.3% From three, on 38.2 tries a game
Ratings are points scored and allowed per 100 possessions. Net rating is the difference. Source: Basketball-Reference.
The regular season was good, not great. The Knicks went 53-29 and finished third in the East. They had the third-best offense in the league and a top-ten defense, and they played slow, 27th in pace. A rough patch in January, when Jalen Brunson rolled his right ankle, made them look beatable for a few weeks.
Then the playoffs started and they flipped a switch. They beat Atlanta in six, swept Philadelphia, swept Cleveland, and beat San Antonio 4-1 in the Finals. That’s 16-3 in the playoffs. They closed it out with a 94-90 win in San Antonio on June 13, and Brunson, who scored 32 that night, was named Finals MVP.
Here’s what a coach notices: the Knicks were the only team that scored more efficiently in the playoffs than in the regular season. Usually defenses tighten up in April and May and offenses get worse. Theirs got better. OG Anunoby was a big reason. His shooting efficiency in that run was the best in playoff history among players with at least 150 shots.
Knicks Preview: The roster
Starters: Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns.
| Player | G | MIN | PTS | REB | AST | FG% | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jalen Brunson | 74 | 35.0 | 26.0 | 3.3 | 6.8 | 46.7 | 36.9 |
| Karl-Anthony Towns | 75 | 31.0 | 20.1 | 11.9 | 3.0 | 50.1 | 36.8 |
| OG Anunoby | 67 | 33.2 | 16.7 | 5.2 | 2.2 | 48.4 | 38.6 |
| Mikal Bridges | 82 | 32.8 | 14.4 | 3.8 | 3.7 | 49.0 | 37.1 |
| Josh Hart | 66 | 30.2 | 12.0 | 7.4 | 4.8 | 50.8 | 41.3 |
This group started 36 regular-season games together and went 25-11, and it was the playoff lineup too. Brunson runs everything. Towns pulls the other team’s center out to the three-point line. Bridges never missed a game. Anunoby guards the other team’s best wing. Hart does the dirty work, grabbing 7.4 rebounds a game as a guard, and he was the best three-point shooter of the five at 41.3%.
Bench: Miles McBride, Landry Shamet, Jordan Clarkson, Jose Alvarado, Mohamed Diawara, Andre Drummond, Tyler Kolek, Pacome Dadiet.
| Player | G | MIN | PTS | REB | AST | FG% | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miles McBride | 41 | 26.3 | 12.0 | 2.4 | 2.6 | 42.3 | 41.3 |
| Landry Shamet | 51 | 23.0 | 9.3 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 43.7 | 39.2 |
| Jordan Clarkson | 72 | 17.8 | 8.6 | 1.8 | 1.3 | 45.1 | 32.7 |
| Jose Alvarado | 28 | 16.9 | 6.6 | 2.0 | 3.8 | 41.4 | 33.0 |
| Tyler Kolek | 62 | 11.7 | 4.4 | 1.6 | 2.7 | 43.5 | 38.6 |
| Mohamed Diawara | 69 | 9.2 | 3.6 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 42.3 | 36.9 |
The last spots were still being settled in the final week of camp, with James Wiseman and Bruce Brown in the mix.
One note on health: Hart sat out the last preseason game with a sore right ankle. Brown doesn’t expect it to keep him out of the opener.
What changed: roster and coaching
Almost nine of every ten minutes are back. The players who left played about 2,300 of last season’s minutes, around 12% of the total. The five starters alone played 60%.
The big loss is Mitchell Robinson. He played 1,175 of those minutes and grabbed 8.8 rebounds a game in under 20 minutes a night. He signed with Boston for three years and $47.4 million. Ownership didn’t want to go over the league’s second tax apron, so he walked. Robinson was the backup center who changed games on the offensive glass and protected the rim when Towns sat. Drummond, signed on a one-year minimum deal from Philadelphia, takes that job. Drummond is a terrific rebounder, but he isn’t the same kind of defender, and that’s the biggest question mark on this team.
They kept the bench together. Shamet (four years), Alvarado (three years), Diawara (four years) and Clarkson (one year) all re-signed. Keep an eye on Diawara. NBA.com picked him as a breakout candidate, and a young forward with size is exactly what this rotation needs.
The draft was a trade-down night. New York picked three players (Cameron Carr at 24, Bruce Thornton at 31 and Nick Martinelli at 55) and traded all three the same night for future second-round picks, cash and players who will develop overseas. That’s a team saying, “Our rotation is set. We’re not handing minutes to rookies.”
On the bench: Mike Brown is back for year two. Last season was his first in New York after Tom Thibodeau was let go, and he won a title with it. Continuity matters: the players already know his system, so camp was about sharpening, not learning. In the front office, senior executive Gersson Rosas left in August. President Leon Rose is still in charge.
Coach’s prediction
Same starting five, same coach, one big hole at backup center. In the regular season, that’s a 54-win team.
Coach’s whiteboard
The betting line sits at 52.5 wins, the highest in the East, and ESPN’s expert panel picked the Knicks to win the conference. We agree.
The starting five is the best in the East, it’s healthy, and the players know each other. Brunson is in his prime. The pieces fit. What could slow them down is the regular-season grind: champions often coast through November, and without Robinson, Towns will have to play big minutes against the bigger frontcourts.
Our pick: 54-28, first in the East, and a return trip to the Finals. Repeating is hard (nobody has done it in nine years), but if any team in the East is going to stop them, it’ll have to beat a group that already proved it can win four rounds.
Watch for: Diawara’s minutes, how Drummond holds up on defense, and whether Brown keeps the starters’ minutes down so they’re fresh in May.
