Ah, the truest sign that time is actually passing, we have another “How Many Wins Will the Knicks have?” prediction thread, a Knickerblogger tradition as valued as never being willing to kick anything to the curb or debating whether the 19th pick was incinerated or not.
So let’s all make our bets as to how many games the Knicks will win in 2022-23!
As is my wont, I will guess high. Thibs will always try to win at all costs, and lots of teams will be trying to tank, but I probably went a bit TOO high last year with my similar Thibs theory, so I will split the baby and say 49 wins.
As part of our all-poll content, I will give you folks the chance to vote in a poll AND make your predictions in the comments to save them for posterity. Hopefully my optimistic prediction will prove too low (like it did in 2020-21).
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90 replies on “The “How Many Wins Will The Knicks Have In 2022-23?” Prediction Thread”
42 for me. No rationale other than I would be happy.
44 or more.
I’m staying true to my 44 win prediction, even after an encouraging preseason that has me thinking they might do even better.
My guess at the East standings:
1. Brooklyn
2. Philadelphia
3. Milwaukee
4. Boston
5. Atlanta
6. Toronto
7. New York
8. Cleveland
9. Miami
10. Chicago
11. Indiana
12. Washington
13. Charlotte
14. Orlando
15. Detroit
The Nets are my pick to win the title.
And Jimmy Butler is my pick to be the disgruntled player who demands a trade. No one ever seems to get disgruntled in Miami, but Jimmy is special.
I was torn between 43 and 44. I settled on 43. I’m optimistic about all 3 of Randle, Brunson, and RJ. That is, I don’t think Randle and RJ will be awful and I think Brunson will be a frontrunner for MIP. That, combined with any development at all from our youngins leaves me comfortable projecting slightly above .500 ball from this team.
Somewhere right around .500 feels right – around 20th in offense and around 10th in defense. Upside above that would be if:
1. Thibs+rim protection can magic up another top-5ish defense, but I’m pretty damn skeptical of the perimeter defensive talent on this roster. Or
2. Brunson can have a dramatic impact on the offense that goes beyond his personal stats but I still think there’s still a few too many low efficiency shots in the starting lineup and too little really high-end talent to get much above mediocre on this side of the ball.
I’ll say they edge slightly above that .500 line to 43 wins because with Thibs behind the wheel I’m confident we’re going to be pushing hard all year even if/when it becomes obvious we have play-in upside while I think some other teams in that range will be consciously going the other way.
Meanwhile this Yankees game is going swimmingly.
Said it a few days ago, and since we’ve not played any real games I see no reason (yet) to change it — 44 wins.
42 for me
47 games. I think the Tank for Wembanyama is going to be strong and any team that isn’t tanking is going to win 3-5 more games than in a regular season.
I could see 8-10 teams with less than 25 wins. We take advantage of that and win 47.
The ragged play of the bench in the preseason was a little concerning, but the strong play of Brunson, RJ, and Mitch was encouraging.
41-44 wins is a reasonable prediction, and anything in that range would fall under the category of “met expectations.” Anything more than that is a pleasant surprise, and anything less than that is a definite failure.
Floor: 32 wins. The spacing is awful, Randle continues his death spiral, RJ just keeps missing. Thibs is fired and they still can’t properly tank because the talent is too evenly distributed throughout the lineup.
Ceiling: 50. Randle bounces back, Brunson is in the all-star discussion and all the young guys take a step.
My pick: I’m going with 43. I think they might be a little under .500 for most of the year and then pick up some more wins late when teams really pivot to tanking.
Not a production, but important news:
The Cam Reddish Experiment continues for at least one more game.
43 wins! I would go higher, but Hartenstein’s rim protection doesn’t look nearly as good as advertised. Anything less than 35 and we’ll have a new regime to kick around.
Sore foot my ass!
Our primary free agent target signed.
A useful free agent signed at a good rate.
Our biggest free agent resigned at a good rate.
Our top young player extended at a good rate.
Spida Mitchell to the Cavs (and fuck Danny Ainge).
After the Knicks’ best summer since 1996 and with a team so deep I can only let optimism flow…
45 wins and a playoffs spot.
“Not a prediction,” I meant. Sorry, sometimes TV feature writing bleeds into sports blog comment writing.
The Knicks will win 43 games this season.
The Grimes out for 2 months announcement feels inevitable
52 Wins.
We got better relatively to most EC teams, lost a bunch of leads and close games due to no PG play, V-Dubb Tankathon, imporoved team chemistry, same coaching consistency, long term contracts and extensions setlled and young talent/player development.
I’m going for 41. I think we’re clearly better, and finally we have a PG after all this time without one. But the east is going to be a lot stronger than last year. I hope we can be on the spots that have to win one to go to the playoffs, because making the play-in and then failing to reach the playoffs while having one of the worst picks in the lottery would be a tough pill to swallow.
I have the Knicks at 42-44… so right at the split. Went with 44-46, as I think there’s more upside than downside.
Assuming we’re biased as a group, we’ll probably be right around the 38.5 o/u line.
I noticed now that as i always fail, this year’s prediction doesn’t give a clue to what’s going to happen. 😛
That’s too much credit. It’ll be day-to-day for 2 months *then* the out for 2 months announcement.
You mean he’ll demand to be reunited with Thibs and DRose? 😉
Could it be the injury that THJ had when he was with the Knicks? Plantar something, i think. First he was out day to day, and then it was for several weeks. And it was on a foot.
41 is probably something of a worst-case scenario. Naturally it’s also my win prediction.
To quote some of the fans on the Macri postgames, #53Wins
I’d be surprised if Cam gets minutes even with Grimes out.
PG: Brunson 36 – Rose 12
SG: Fournier 12 – Rose 12 – IQ 24
SF: RJ 36 – Fournier 12
Give or take a few minutes.
i went 41-43….this has all the makings of a .500 club…
I went with 44 wins. I’m scared about being so optimistic, but I tried to focus on logic. The Knicks clearly have better personnel this year than last. And there is something to be said for continuity and coaching. Miami and Golden State have that and they get better results than you might expect from talent alone. The Knicks now have that too. And they seems to have a team identity as a hard working physical team. But their past history is so bad that the ESPN and Vegas lines both expect them not to improve much over last year. I’m going with the over.
I voted 47-49, but I just drank 3 bottles of 9% IPA with dinner so take that with a grain of salt.
Basketball is back!!!!
Woo Hoo
48 wins and we get to the second round.
“Plantar something”
Plantar fasciitis.
Ugh, I hadn’t thought of that, but unfortunately you may be right.
We should have traded him when we had the chance. (just kidding)
I would have gone with 55 wins, but Cam is probably worth at least minus 10 wins assuming he plays in 10 games. 🙂
Forty-one to 43 for me. It’s a .500 team. Mid-table type teams have good players and are threats to beat almost everyone and threats to go on 5 and 6 game winning streaks, but are also inconsistent and not as good as they are at their best and better teams have better players. Still too much streakiness, still too many mismatched parts, and I think there are going to be more Randle issues.
There’s a chance that RJ takes a big or even massive leap, and a lesser chance that Brunson’s career curve has some more upswinging to do. If those things happen, they’re going to beat my guess — IF Thibs properly manages the Randle issues that will ensue. There are still significant chemistry dangers on this team.
An RJ all-star, Brunson almost all-star, IQ solidly in Tier 5 heading to Tier 4, Mitch moving solidly into Tier 5 is a 45-50 win team. Fingers crossed that’s what happens. Can’t predict it, though.
41 wins. We win play in game before making first-round exit. A cromulent result.
Thibs could go down to nine men. Or he could play Deuce, I suppose, in that funky three guard lineup he used briefly in the preseason.
Cam played one game at the two and one at the three or the four. I thought he’d do better at the latter but he was unimpressive in both situations. I do suspect he’ll get minutes though.
I’m excited for the season to start. We’re not really contenders but I like being the underdog. Here’s hoping we’re a scrappy, hungry team that surpasses expectations.
Been waiting for this thread.
42
The answer to life, the universe and everything.
Give Gleyber a lifetime extension. And Oswaldo too: https://twitter.com/yankeesghost/status/1582497934490275841?s=46&t=scd_BiP0AgQ2fVAOSXH6UA
Noah Vonleh is all-Knickerblogger-300-comment-thread first team
c’mon man, pick a number E…
Forty-one to 43 for me.
i’m going to predict 38 to 48 wins this season…
okay, forty four sounds like the answer…
i gotta imagine after that pre-season our wins over/under has moved up from 38.5 (fuck you very much)…probably at least 39 by now…
the rest of the world will catch up to KnickerBlogger – Knicks, Stats, Humor, Analysis and Life stuff…
embrace the mundane…
What’s the deal with that guy on Cleveland? He does this every time he hits a HR, or was it personal re: Cole?
If Grimes has plantar fasciitis, It sucks. I’ve had it. A lot of people think it’s bone spurs. Yeah, sometimes there’s that too, but it’s the stretching of a band of tissue that runs from your toes to your heal. It gets inflamed.
The best way to describe what It feels like is to imagine someone hammered a large nail into your heel. It is debilitatingly painful.
I went to a podiatrist (a separate funny story, he had Tourette Syndrome and cursed at me for a half hour). Between swear words he explained to me how to deal with it. Basically you need to do heel stretches and wear better shoes.
Following his direction, I was walking again in two days. It can linger and return but with constant care like stretching and massages, he can be back soon.
Runners and fat people are afflicted. I’m not a runner.
I mean, we’d probably be the front runner for his services if he demanded a trade, right?
I don’t know why people call me a pessimist. 44 wins and a trade for jimmy butler’s about as optimistic you can get within reason.
i think 53 was the highest…i didn’t notice, what was the lowest number of winds someone predicted?
i think 53 was the highest…i didn’t notice, what was the lowest number of winds someone predicted?
oh shit, got jimmy fingers and posted twice…i ain’t fucking with that, no thank you…
sorry all…
He’s done it every time he hits a home run since his kid was born a month ago.
what the heck cyber, is it raining over there or something…some lack of sunshine which is causing you to pick so low 🙂
@Hubert-IV:
I predicted yesterday and will repeat that the Knicks are going to be involved in a blockbuster trade. Butler is a good one. I wonder what other top 20 players might become available.
I’m surprised how Rosey everyone is, even E. I’d love to have Butler at a reasonable price.
Plantar Faciitis definitely sounds right.
With Grimes, they will totally discover that a small bone in his foot broke.
I don’t know why I do this to myself. He’ll be back in a week!
Impressed with how tight our grouping is this year. Consensus!
The Naylor thing is confusing. I thought it was a Major League 2 reference, which is a deep cut, but it is a Cleveland movie. At the end of the clip they do the same thing.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=epAkymGtKKE
38-40 wins. The spacing doesn’t work, Randle pouts about being a 2nd/3rd option, RJ doesn’t live up to his extension, and someone important gets hurt in the closing minutes of a blowout when they should have been resting on the bench.
I’m now wondering how I’d flesh out the all-Knickerblogger-300-comment-thread teams. I’m defining this as players we devoted way, way, way too much virtual ink to compared to their eventual NBA relevance. Here’s my stab at it:
First Team
PG: Frank Ntilikina
SG: Langston Galloway
SF: Kevin Knox
PF: Noah Vonleh
C: Cole Aldrich
Second Team
PG: Kadeem Allen
SG: Allonzo Trier
SF: Landry Fields
PF: Chris Copeland
C: Willy Hernangomez
Third Team
PG: Toure Murray
SG: Alexey Shved
SF: Mindaugas Kuzminskas
PF: Maurice Ndour
C: Kyle O’Quinn
Such a good idea. Perfect off-season thread.
Renaldo Balkman could fit in there somewhere I think.
Harden is looking pretty good
We did spend a lot of ink on Julius Randle
I’ll go with a Toney Douglas & Ron Baker in the backourt. Damyean Dotson on the wing. Stretch 4 Luke Kornet, and Earl Barron at center.
Porzingis knocking on the door, too.
Baker was a huge omission on my part, he definitely deserved that third-team spot over Toure Murry.
God, there are so many of these guys…
One thing I’ll say about the current young crop is I don’t see any of them winding up on one of these. They should all have real NBA careers.
One of the downsides of losing the old posts is that my old Unsung Knick History posts were lost, as well, so I basically reposted one about the Knicks’ first Asian-American player in honor of the release of 38 At The Garden.
https://popculturereferences.com/jeremy-lin-38-at-the-garden-wataru-masaka-first-knicks-asian-american-player/
I’ll go 45
If Grimes has Plantar Fasciitis, I’ll cry. That never really goes away. It forced me to stop running eventually.
I’m going to assume it isn’t that until I hear something. Plus, if it was that, he’d probably just get cortisone shots and go back in in a few days.
Oh and my guess is 42-40.
Plenty of NBA players have had Plantar Fasciitis and eventually played through it. It’s just going to affect him for a while until they find a way to alleviate it. Tim Duncan had it, for instance.
Phil Jackson giving a guaranteed two-year contract to Ron Baker is still one of the most hilarious NBA transactions ever
Haha I had completely forgotten that it was a two year contract with a PLAYER option. LOL
So Noble, does that mean you’re on the Deuce Train, too?
Lol, Deuce will be on that list
I didn’t realize Grimes had plantar faciatis. Have they announced that?
Ron Baker had what was effectively an NTC. People forget that. Chris Smith and Thanasis deserve an honorable mention on the KB-comments all-stars.
Langston Galloway is probably Deuce’s 95th percentile outcome
Lakers are 3-21 from three at the half and miraculously still in the game.
It was Mills, not Phil
No, that was just someone’s guess of what the undisclosed issue might be.
Win Prediction
So last year I thought the strength of the team was its depth. I felt that a team that deep could play at a very fast pace, play tough D, and overachieve the way the team had a year earlier. I predicted 48 wins.
They did not play at a fast pace. Without Mitch (and with Kemba), they did not play tough D. Instead of hiding their deficiencies, Thibs almost perversely exposed them. Whatever was going on behind the scenes, the chemistry was appallingly bad.
The team did not overachieve.
Am I so dumb to predict 48 wins again? Yes. It did seem from pre-season that Thibs has learned a bit: while it was only pre-season, the rotation does look like it’s going to be 10 people (when Grimes is healthy), and it looks like they are going to push the pace. JR seems to have learned a bit about making quicker (better?) decisions; if he’s only 80% of the player he was two years ago, he’ll contribute to wins. RJ continues to show flashes; if he can do it for more than 20 games for once, he could have a genuine breakout season. Most of all, Mitch looks absolutely dominant, and rather than becoming lazy because of his fat new contract, looks hungrier and more focused. And of course, we now have AN ACTUAL POINT GUARD. I believe that will have a positive cascading effect on the whole team.
Aside from internal improvements, some external factors will help.
There are also going to be plenty of teams tanking for Wemby.
Many of the teams better than the Knicks are fragile, or overdependent on one player; the Knicks can better handle a player being out.
I think we’re going to see the defensive efficiency we saw toward the end of last season, top 5 in the league. Thibs is gonna Thibs.
So, 45 wins is a safer bet, but I think we’re going to see a few superior teams struggle when they lose a key cog for a few weeks or more. The exceptions should be the Nets, Celtics, and Sixers. I’m not saying we are better than Milwaukee, Atlanta, Cleveland, or Miami, but if one or two of the core players on any of those teams goes down, they are .500 teams, right with us. And you know that’s going to happen.
Who is this ramahawk fellow?
Ramahawk, do you like blues guitarists?
I do, Joe! But it’s just Rama – I had to create a new log in after I committed the sin of trying to delete a post and added something that worked for me. My first band was a blues band, long ago in New York…
Hahahaha. Hey Rama(hawk). I thought you were, uh, somebody else.
This guy was pretty good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmW2ek7WkQ
I wonder if New Orleans will get Wembayana. They can swap picks with the Lakers after all. It would be very Griffin-y
53W
Waiting for the Ultimate Warrior Season.
#e tan e epi tas#
I just like the Brunson addition, 49 wins.
46 wins is my guess.
Bingo! That’s exactly it! 😉
The current player that is a candidate to be on one of the all-Knickerblogger-300-comment-thread teams is Cam, not Deuce. I still believe Deuce is an NBA player. He just needs to shoot better, and he did it in the GLeague, so maybe he can do it in the NBA too.
When it comes to spell casting, the first person that comes to my heart is Dr Amber after he made me a winner of 6 MILLION EUROS with the lottery spell he prepared for me and gave me some numbers to play the lottery game. Everything just changed within a second and I was so happy because I am finally free from poverty. You can reach him by email, amberlottotemple @yahoo . com
Sorry Raven but I wasn’t counting Deuce among the “current young crop” because I don’t think there’s much there. I also think we’ve been at least relatively restrained in discussing him, likely owing to the fact that we actually have some guys people who don’t watch every Knicks game know exist.
If this was 2017 or so, there would be some 300+ comment Deuce threads for sure.
41. Happy that this range won the poll. We might be thinking with our hearts just a bit collectively, but we are an analytical bunch so I’m happy at the consensus
I voted 44-46 range. Put me down for 44 wins.
I’d like to be more optimistic, but there’s a lot of good teams in the east, and a reasonable chance this roster can look significantly different post trade deadline.
Meanwhile the Bulls just announced LaVine is missing their first two games due to “management” of his left knee. That sounds like a bunch of bullshit, he played in the preseason and you’re choosing to “manage” this now?
I feel bad because I think the league would be better if more times were trying to win, but boy, that situation is shaping up to be a cautionary tale of a team going all-in on something less than a contender.
Injuries are tough. But yeah, it’s not looking great.
I think a lot about those Rockets teams that lost T-Mac and Ming and were basically bereft of recognizable NBA talent for years. Mostly because they set the bar for what is possible with good management and no talent.
The Bulls have to be pretty happy their pick is top four protected.
Idk if any of you remember me, I used to be Mike Honcho with the pyramid eye pfp. I’m gonna go on record with 44 wins – my gut feeling is 43 but I think I’m gonna round up one for the Brunson effect of finally having a competent point guard.