Midseason Progress Report

How are the Knicks doing midway through a season with massive expectations?

Afternoon everyone. Wasn’t planning on sending this out until tomorrow, but everyone seems to be dolling out their midseason missives today, so I figured I’d send out mine. This will probably wind up serving as Wednesday’s newsletter, but I’ll try to get something out tomorrow morning as well, especially if we get some news on KAT’s thumb. In the event I don’t though, here’s the halftime link for the Philly game, which tips off at 7pm. Also, planning on a subscriber Q & A in the substack app on Thursday sometime between 10:30 and 1:45, so stay tuned for an email.

The link for parent teacher sign ups to discuss today’s progress report will be sent at a later time…

Midseason Progress Report

Image courtesy of KFS reader @Me1YouNothing

When you have a summer like the Knicks just had, it goes without saying that expectations rise. The important question to ask is why.

Yes, fans expect more and the media expects more and you better believe the owner expects more, but none of that really matters¹.

Expectations went up considerably because they had to go up.

Before the Mikal trade, there was always a parachute in case of emergency, both literally (if things went to hell, at least they had their picks) and through peace of mind (don’t worry folks, that superstar trade is just around the corner!). After the Mikal trade, their out clause went right across the river with all those draft choices .

That trade brought them to the final stage of their life cycle as an NBA team. Winning games was an unintended consequence when they tanked for Zion. It was a happy accident in the #WeHere season. The last three years, it was a goal. Now, it’s a mandate.

To use a different thrill-seeking analogy, if winning a title is akin to walking a tightrope, the Bridges trade took away the net. They did it because they felt that move shortened the rope - short enough, they hoped, to walk right into a parade down the canyon of heroes. Still, it was a massive risk on multiple fronts. Not only is a title never guaranteed even if you do everything right, but they couldn’t be sure that the Bridges trade (and the KAT trade that followed it) would give them an honest to goodness shot.

We now have half a season’s worth of evidence to judge whether the sum total of Leon Rose’s decisions - the Bridges & KAT acquisitions most prominent among them - raised New York’s profile enough to count them as a true blue contender. Judging the entire Rose era by this standard has completely warped how we as fans experience and engage with this team, and the comparisons are stark.

Last year, for instance, we got to experience sports bliss not once, but twice. The first time was in January after the Anunoby trade. That was supposed to be the trade before THE trade, but a 12-2 stretch with the new core made us think otherwise. Few sports sensations are better than being a contender ahead of schedule.

And yet, it got better. Once Julius went down, any and all notions of a title went out the window, and yet here were the Knicks, fighting tooth and nail with the best of the NBA. Could they win it all? Probably not, but we didn’t care. We’d never been prouder.

Coming off the recent high of that quasi-magical run, it was going to be very hard for this season to live up to the increased expectations. Wins against bad teams and even mediocre ones would be taken for granted. How they fared against the detritus of the NBA wouldn’t mean nearly as much as how they performed when matched up with the league’s elite. On the flip side of that same coin, almost any loss has been seen as a crisis moment.

To that end, any honest midseason progress report on the Knicks has to start with a mention of three teams that aren’t the Knicks.

Well, two teams and one alien.

Much to the chagrin of the rest of the league, the Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder and Victor Wembanyama all exist. Karl-Anthony Towns said after the second OKC loss that not he’s worried about other teams, and that “we gotta worry about the New York Knicks.” He’s not wrong.

But that also ignores a reality that two teams currently exist without an obvious, meaningfully exploitable weak spot. The Thunder have built the most versatile, impenetrable defense the NBA has seen in years if not decades, and they don’t need to sacrifice an ounce of offense to make it hum. The Celtics have cracked a similar code on the other end, putting five elite offensive players on the floor who are all genuine threats from deep and who can all hold their own on D. And then in San Antonio, the most competent organization in the sport over the last 25 years was just given the biggest head start in modern history when it comes to building a contending roster.

Perhaps New York’s silver lining is that two of those teams are out West and the third may be nearing the end of its peak. Still, their presence is a constant reminder that if the Knicks are going to win it all, they’ll have to do it from a relative position of weakness - maybe not with one hand tied behind their back, but a finger or two at the very least. Barring something unforeseen, they will not be able to field a weakness-free roster as long as Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns are tentpoles.

41 games has been enough to show us that these concerns are warranted, and that’s where we can get into the nuts and bolts of why this has been an uneven opening act, 26 wins be damned.

The theory behind the roster has remained unchanged since the earth-shattering acquisition of Karl-Anthony Towns: defend well enough, and outscore everyone. Both of those conventions have been challenged in different ways.

Let’s start with the offense, which has unquestionably been the brighter spot of the two.