Knicks Morning News (2026.09.02)

Great post, swifty. You have definitely been the most prolific poster on the glass-half-full side of things (and sadly, among the most mocked), and I’m as happy for you as I am for anyone on this blog.

I definitely lost a lot of faith in the championship window after the KAT and Mikal trades. And honestly, while I was glad that Leon (or Dolan, whatever) moved on from Thibs, and thought that the Hali and Tatum injuries gave us a clear 1-year opening, the mix of players didn’t seem strong or deep or balanced enough to get over the top without A LOT of good fortune. And I wasn’t sold on retread Brown, putting me in skeptical “show-me” mode all season long. Then when we went on that 2-9 skid in January while Dolan was throwing down his finals ultimatum and Yabu was still stinking up the court, it just seemed like a championship just wasn’t in the cards, especially with Detroit and Boston looking down on us in the standings. And when we went down 2-1 to that shitty Atlanta team, even though I never thought we would lose that series, things seemed pretty bleak. Then Brunson limped off the court in the third quarter of game 4 and all seemed lost.

But from that point on, it was as if all of our collective pain, frustration, anxiety, had finally broken through with the basketball gods. Mike Brown and KAT finally clicked. Mikal broke out of his funk. OG was playing like a 2-way superstar. We destroy the Hawks. And still, I wasn’t a believer. OG pulls his hammy in game 2 vs. the Sixers and I got flashbacks to the 2024 Pacers debacle. But it’s only a minor tweak and we destroyed Philly without him. Then Game 1 vs. the Cavs happens and seeing that live made me a true believer. You could just tell that the team was on a mission.

And the last reckoning with the demons of the past 53 years came at halftime of game 4 vs. the Spurs, who seemed to finally have figured out how to beat us and had all the momentum back, making a hard-fought 7-game series with home court lost an almost certainty. But OG made the greatest single play in Knicks history, and then Brunson had the greatest close-out performance since Clyde’s masterpiece 56 years ago. But unlike that game, we only had 10 seconds to breathe before the final buzzer sounded. And when OG flung the ball into the rafters, I knew that nothing would ever be the same for me as a Knicks fan. I could finally do what we did yesterday with near total joy, only tainted by the memory of those who didn’t survive to celebrate with us.

It will always hurt to lose, and when those losses are rooted in bad management or Dolan’s meddling. But I am finally in sports fan paradise.

The Celts were able to find and develop both Kornet and Queta on minimum make-good deals, and both guy made good while contributing to contending teams. I suppose that Leon is going to try to do the same thing.

Sorry, comparing Brunson to Kobe is a bridge too far for me. The Dirk comparison seems much more apropos, especially given the one-way nature of their respective games.

And mentioning Brunson in the same breath as Michael Jordan is blasphemy. I you replaced Brunson with prime Jordan on this team, we would have gone 16-0 with every game being a blowout.

One further connection with Dirk is that Cuban broke up the championship core and let Tyson Chandler walk. Hopefully it will turn out better for us than it did for them. Another parallel is that the Mavs beat a young, inexperienced OKC team with Durant, Westbrook, and Harden, and got blown out by that same team the following year.

The Spurs are going to be a very tough out this year, as is OKC. My early money is on one of those two highly-motivated teams to coast over whoever comes out of the East.

Ballmer is going to fight this tooth and nail. I’m guessing that either there is a settlement before it goes to arbitration or that it will actually be put in the hands of the arbitrator. Ballmer has money to throw away on a potential legal loss, so it would probably be smart for Silver to meet somewhere in the middle.