Whether by luck or design, probably a little bit of both, the Knicks are exactly where they need to be. Steve Van Gungy was right: Adam Silver and the NBA gave the Knicks a break scheduling 65% of their games at home through the first 40% of the season. Because of this Knicks have established some young stars going forward - KP Tim even Kanter and potentially Frank.
Now it is time to pay the piper. Beginning with tonight's game against the Bulls, the Knicks play 16 of the next 20 games on the road. While most here are wringing their hands over yet another road loss, at the risk of being flamed, I am actually rejoicing. If the Knicks continue to lose on the road and after the Bull's game it seems they will, the Knicks should find themselves right in middle of the lottery again. This will allow the Knicks to address their biggest weakness - small forward.
They are too good to get Doncic or Porter but imagine this team with with Mikal Bridges or Kevin Knox. If the Knicks can get a Bridges in the upcoming draft I firmly believe they will be good enough to beat any team in the East including Cleveland provided of course Bridges's talents translate to the NBA. Crazy you say but I think the Knicks are a legitimate small forward away from being a championship contender. In 2018 when the Knicks have added Briges and are laying waste to the rest of the NBA, no one will remember some meaningless loss to the Bulls in 2017.
We're at that painful inflection point toeing the line between:
- being good enough to continue competing balls out hard to bring a winning culture back to MSG, attract other free agents that want to win, gain meaningful playoff experience for our core players, and keep player spirits high
- being bad enough to accept our ceiling for the season and rather embrace the lottery as an asset to fill our SF talent gap and aim to increase our odds for a high lottery pick
It's a tough call.
It's tough to even judge this team without THJ
I think you make too big a deal out of the order of the games. It evens out eventually to every team. The only exception would be if the GM and President decided that player values were inflated and sold high when the team was around .550. It's not easy to do that because fans would be upset though. You'd have to be willing to tolerate temporary fan frustration.
