They don’t make ‘em like they used to

We start the week with an ode to an oldie but a goodie.

Good morning, and Happy Labor Day! Summer is unofficially over, which means the kids are nearly back in school and NBA basketball is around the corner. Hallelujah for both. Today, we’ll start the week with my ninth ranked Knick who had not one but two stints with the club over the last 25 seasons. As a reminder, this series is also taking place over on the KFS Pod, with different rankings based on the opinions of the entire KFS faculty. Hope you’re enjoying.

Knicks 25 for 25: No. 9 - Kurt Thomas

Among the 25 players who will find their way onto this here list, Kurt Thomas doesn’t hold the distinction of being the longest tenured Knick, nor is he the player whose first year with the franchise is the most distant. He’s also, somehow, not the oldest. All of those honors go to man you’ll see in this space on Wednesday (hint, hint).

But Thomas does hold one important distinction that I find all too fitting:

Since the start of the 2000-01 season - which is the first year under consideration for these rankings, in case anyone forgot - no one has played more games in a Knick uniform than Kurt Thomas.

His total stands at 439 games, which is 27 ahead of Carmelo Anthony in second place. The closest active Knick is Mitchell Robinson, who trails Kurt by 102 games. After that, Deuce McBride is next among current players on the roster, and he trails Thomas by 203 games. If Jalen Brunson plays here for four more years and stays relatively healthy, he’ll eventually pass KT, but in a league where Luka Doncic can get traded, that’s no guarantee.

In other words, this is a distinction Thomas may hold for a while.

That may not matter to a lot of folks when it comes to these rankings (I voted him higher than any other KFS faculty member, with DJ Zullo’s 11th place vote the only one who was close). If anything, one could even hold the high number of games against him. After all, to whom much is given, much is expected. Thomas got to play in New York longer than anyone else during the relevant time period, and yet doesn’t have a single successful playoff series to show for it¹.

For me though, that robust number of games is a cause for celebration. Allow me to explain…