{"id":331825,"date":"2026-08-28T13:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T13:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/331825\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T13:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T13:54:14","slug":"can-the-knicks-go-back-to-back-these-are-new-yorks-biggest-obstacles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/331825\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Knicks go back-to-back? These are New York\u2019s biggest obstacles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2012 edition<\/a> of the famed Madden game was graced by Peyton Hillis. He earned that honor after a season where he rushed for 1,177 yards and 11 touchdowns. What followed was a season where he missed six games, he ran for less than half as many yards (587), and only found the end zone three times. In fact, after his double-digit touchdown season, he only found pay dirt six more times for the rest of his career.<\/p>\n

This is just one example of what is known as \u201cThe Madden Curse.\u201d<\/a> A phenomenon where NFL players are destined for a terrible season (and, in the case of Hillis, a terrible career) whenever they are bestowed with the privilege of being on the cover of the sport\u2019s most popular game.<\/p>\n

Why am I bringing this up? The NBA has something of a curse of its own brewing. You\u2019ve likely heard some variation of this stat: there has not been a back-to-back champion since 2018. We\u2019ve had eight brand new teams hoist the Larry O\u2019Brien Trophy in the last eight years. Even more damning, no reigning champion has even made it back to the NBA Finals in their title defense.<\/p>\n

The reason for this is mainly due to the introduction of aprons making it hard to maintain your core for very long, but that\u2019s besides the point. Right now, the New York Knicks are the top dogs in the association, staring down the brutal Curse of a Champion. But do they have what it takes to end this nonsense once and for all?<\/p>\n

The Knicks do have quite a bit of continuity. Eleven of their 13 top players in total minutes played from last year are back. However, one of the two guys missing from that group is Mitchell Robinson \u2013 the second-best offensive rebounder in the NBA (Steven Adams is the king of the crop) and the heart and soul of a team that has finished top-six in the advanced version of that stat in four of the last five years. And the other loss was his heir apparent: Ariel Hukporti.<\/p>\n

Their big addition is Andre Drummond \u2013 a veteran journeyman who is also known as a chairman of the boards. He should be able to mitigate some of the loss felt by Robinson. And offensively, their perfectly-fine tuned machine should keep running smoothly.<\/p>\n

The East has become more challenging. Both Robinson and Hukporti went to contenders, and the Boston Celtics, Philadelphia 76ers, Indiana Pacers, Toronto Raptors, and Cleveland Cavaliers all made trades in the last six months that should (theoretically) improve their teams. The San Antonio Spurs \u2013 the final boss for the Knicks this past postseason \u2013 are another year older and more battle-tested. The Oklahoma City Thunder are still a looming giant, and, for their sake, hopefully the injury gods aren\u2019t so cruel this go around. The Los Angeles Lakers are re-tooled and frisky<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Can The New York Knicks Go Back-To-Back?<\/p>\n

The big question for me is how much of last title run was real. According to Spotrac, the Knicks had the second-fewest dollars lost due to injury last season. Their postseason strength of schedule wasn\u2019t exactly a Murderers\u2019 Row, either. Before the Spurs (2nd in net rating), they beat the Atlanta Hawks, 76ers, and Cavaliers, who ranked 12th, 18th, and 9th in net rating, respectively.<\/p>\n

These points aren\u2019t intended to dismiss the scope of their accomplishments. All past champions have benefitted from luck in some form or the other, but that doesn\u2019t change the fact that luck played a part, and that luck isn\u2019t something you can consistently bank on.<\/p>\n

Even more than that, the Knicks unlocked were in a special kind of flow state for the final 16 games of the postseason \u2013 winning 15 of those contests by an average margin of victory of 17.1. Their ball movement and variance in attack points was exquisite, while their defense moved together like five puppets on a string in harmonious fashion.<\/p>\n

Did the Knicks crack the code and find basketball nirvana? Is this just who they are now? Or was this just lightning in a bottle \u2013 brought upon by a perfect confluence of factors?<\/p>\n

On FanDuel<\/a>, the Knicks currently have the third-highest odds (best odds in the Eastern Conference) of winning the 2027 NBA Championship at +900 (an implied probability of 10%). I\u2019m personally bullish on the Toronto Raptors and think they have the best blend of two-way balance on their roster of any East team, but even with that view, I still think they are only slightly better than the Knicks. And to me, I\u2019d say that the oddsmakers are right to rank them as a top tier Eastern Conference team.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, it\u2019ll come down to how well they can overcome the loss of Robinson, how much their continuity gives them an edge over the teams playing with new toys, how much of their postseason success carries over to next year, and if they can get another relatively clean bill of health.<\/p>\n

If those storylines end up falling in their favor, I certainly wouldn\u2019t be shocked to see the Knicks repeat as champions and put an end to this dreaded curse once and for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2012 edition of the famed Madden game was graced by Peyton Hillis. He earned that honor after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-331825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}