Anunoby\u2019s tricky elbow limits the ceiling of the 2023-24 Knicks, but they still get the No. 2 seed with 53 wins. They go into the postseason with the dangerous starting five that ran through the NBA in January and use that for a five-game series victory over the Sixers. It still costs them Mitchell Robinson due to Embiid antics and Bojan Bogdanovic, as the injury bug is probably inevitable, but it saves them mileage.<\/p>\n
That saved mileage comes in handy against Indiana in the second round. The first two games go the same way, with the Knicks going up 2-0, but one key thing doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
We all know what changed that series for the worse late in Game 2. In this timeline, it doesn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
Anunoby averaged a staggering 41.6 minutes a game in the first seven games of the postseason due to the injuries and his importance, which likely caused the soft-tissue injury that essentially ended his season. By wrapping up the Philly game a night early due to Randle\u2019s presence, there\u2019s less mileage. His presence also likely reduces his minutes total as a result.<\/p>\n
With Anunoby healthy, the Knicks survive a crazy Game 3 in Indianapolis that originally went much different. After losing Game 4, they come home and take the series in five at MSG to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 24 years.<\/p>\n
You might be asking, \u201cWhy does a man who has been known for being a playoff dropper change this series so dramatically?\u201d Presence and gravity are half the battle. It\u2019s less attention focused on Brunson as the only offensive threat. It\u2019s less workload on Anunoby because of how thin the roster got, forcing the team to use Precious Achiuwa way more than they wanted. Even if Randle likely underperforms again, it\u2019s enough to push the Knicks to the long-awaited battle with the Celtics.<\/p>\n
That series isn\u2019t the easiest to predict. Some are insistent that the January 2024 Knicks could\u2019ve defeated the seemingly unstoppable C\u2019s who steamrolled injured competition the entire postseason, but I find it unlikely for a few reasons. That team was not as well equipped to defend the Jays as the following year\u2019s incarnation of the Knicks, plus the injuries don\u2019t exactly go away.<\/p>\n
Robinson and Bogdanovic, at this point, are still out. The overuse of Anunoby and Josh Hart may still lead to their hamstring and abdominal ailments. Even if Randle, Brunson, and Donte DiVincenzo remained upright, it\u2019s unlikely that they have enough to topple the eventual champions, losing in six games but giving themselves renewed optimism going forward.<\/p>\n
The start of the offseason still plays out the exact same. The Knicks fiscally cannot afford to keep Isaiah Hartenstein, losing him through no fault of their own. They still massively extend Anunoby and trade a haul for Mikal Bridges, knowing full well that to beat the Celtics, they need a second premier wing defender. The real question lies with what they do after.<\/p>\n
We all know that they pulled the trigger on longtime target Karl-Anthony Towns in September, and the fact that Leon Rose and company badly wanted him the entire time means it\u2019s entirely possible it still happens even without Randle\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s have some fun here. Let\u2019s say that the Knicks elect to wing it with the center depth, banking on an eventual return by Robinson down the road, and go into the 2024-25 season with a center rotation of Jericho Sims, Precious Achiuwa, and Ariel Hukporti. Maybe you could replace Achiuwa with known target Goga Bitadze if they ponied up more than they were willing to, but the main narrative here was no Towns on the team. Randle receives the same three-year, $100 million extension that he got post-trade and is banked in for the long haul.<\/p>\n
A lineup of Brunson-Bridges-Anunoby-Randle-Achiuwa is certainly an interesting one, and with Tom Thibodeau\u2019s known reluctance to play small ball, Randle at the 5 is just not happening. That rough center depth hurts the Knicks greatly over the coming weeks and months, forcing them to be a little less patient with Robinson\u2019s recovery. Instead of debuting on February 28, he\u2019s back on January 15, which helps them in the short term, but leads to a reduced postseason presence due to fatigue.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to project the inner workings of a regular season with injuries and workload from an entirely different roster, so the Knicks still win 50 games and end up playing the Detroit Pistons in the first round. Should be simple, right?<\/p>\n
Wrong. Remember back to that series and who the keys were for the Knicks. Cam Payne won them Game 1, and though he\u2019ll probably still get signed, does he play with the added backcourt depth on the roster with DiVincenzo? What about KAT, who\u2019s late-game heroics won Game 4? Do the Knicks win either of those?<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a very realistic chance that this iteration of the Knicks somehow loses to the feisty Pistons, but I\u2019ll default to a gritty, seven-game series that leaves them ripe for the picking by the defending champions in Round 2. By this point, Robinson has been worked extensively due to the lack of Towns and is severely diminished, if not completely out due to injury.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t remember it as much as the heroics of Bridges, but Robinson was +13 and +19 in the two major comebacks. If he can\u2019t be as impactful as he was<\/a> with fresher legs, and Randle struggles in the postseason, the Knicks don\u2019t win either of those games. I think they\u2019d still put up a fight, but these small marginal things are enough to swing a series against a supremely talented Celtics team, with the Knicks bowing out in six games for the second consecutive year.<\/p>\n The frustration of losing to a rival in consecutive seasons might\u2019ve even trumped the frustration in real life of beating the team you specifically designed yourself to beat before losing to a different team like Indiana. In this scenario, not only is Tom Thibodeau fired, but the roster is likely remade after it\u2019s made clear that the grand experiment to specifically take out Boston failed.<\/p>\n Mike Brown is still likely to be hired as head coach due to the timing of the firing in May 2025, but it might not have been as simple as running back the same framework for Towns as it was the prior offseason. As we know, the biggest motivation behind trading Towns wasn\u2019t his personal ability, but the massive second apron concerns.<\/p>\n In this timeline, instead of Jimmy Butler going to the Warriors from Miami in a midseason blockbuster, it was Towns going to team up with Chef Curry in the Bay Area for 2024-25. They were the only other known team<\/a> to moderately pursue the All-NBA big man, so their aggressive front office goes all-in to finally give Curry the pick-and-pop partner he\u2019s dreamed of.<\/p>\n So the options for the Knicks to remake their roster going into 2025-26 were limited. That was until the Bucks called them regarding the desire of Giannis Antetokounmpo to play in the bright lights of New York. In real life, the Knicks weren\u2019t very motivated to get something done because of their belief in a new core, but after multiple years of a Brunson\/Randle pairing, Rose and company have seen enough.<\/p>\n
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