Good morning! It’s been a few slow news days in Knicks land (other than the latest round of Pacome Dadiet trade reports), so let’s take today to look into one of my favorite preseason topics: individual awards.
This upcoming season will be the 80th year of Knicks basketball. Shout out to anyone who has been around for each of the previous 79 (hi Ray).
Even if you are one of the rare folks who have been rooting for the team since the days of Frank Mangiapane and Frido Frey, one thing you haven’t seen is a whole lot of individual Knick award winners. Granted, many of the current NBA awards haven’t been around since the league’s inception, but the number of recipients is still a little on the low side for a soon-to-be-octogenarian.
Here are the 13 honorees for the seven individual awards:
MVP: Willis Reed, 1970
Defensive Player of the Year: Tyson Chandler, 2012
Rookie of the Year: Willis Reed, 1965; Patrick Ewing, 1986; Mark Jackson, 1988
6th Man of the Year: Anthony Mason, 1995; John Starks, 1997; J.R. Smith, 2013
Most Improved Player: Julius Randle, 2021
Clutch Player of the Year: Jalen Brunson, 2025
Coach of the Year: Red Holzman, 1970; Pat Riley, 1993; Tom Thibodeau, 2021
On the bright side, the Knicks do have a defending champion for one of these belts, and Jalen Brunson is the co-favorite to take home the Jerry West Clutch Player of the Year award once more. Courtesy of our friends at Fanatics Sportsbook, he currently has 10-to-1 betting odds along with Anthony Edwards and just above a host of recognizable names:
While Jalen’s win was an outstanding achievement and it would be very cool for him to take home the trophy again, I don’t quite look at this one on the same level as some of the others, mostly because it’s a very new award, but also because it’s largely determined by how many close games a team happens to be in.
Also, if we’re keeping it a buck, will we even remember 2025 as the most “clutch” season from Jalen Brunson? Was it all that different from either of the previous two years? It might just be my perception, but I felt like the 2023-24 season contained at least as many if not more huge buckets from the Captain.
That’s not the case for some of these other awards though. I’ll always remember Julius rising from the ashes of the decrepit ‘19-20 Knicks to win Most Improved, just like I’ll always remember JR’s 6th Man campaign in ‘12-13, just like I know fans older than myself still recall Mark Jackson’s incredibly promising rookie year. Whether you’re 19 or 99, you surely know that 1970 is the only time a Knick has ever captured the league’s most coveted individual prize, in part because it was the same year they won their first ever title.
Can history repeat itself now? Let’s start looking at the Knicks who will vie for individual awards by examining the race for Most Valuable Player…