Knicks’ Championship Bid Puts Spotlight on Stars’ Legacies

The New York Knicks franchise has a lot to prove entering next month's 2025-26 NBA season.

Their contending expectations would be viewed as a burden to others, but the franchise has begged to be considered among the league's elites for decades. Their breakthrough from a playoff regular into recent Eastern Conference Finalists was a signal that their current core can threaten some of the league's upper-crest championship-hopefuls when it counts, indicating that Jalen Brunson can be the man on a tier-one unit for a front office keen on building around him.

The team as a whole has plenty to prove outside of their organization's status and potential, though; the players, many of which spent last spring attempting to dispel negative narratives surrounding their reputations, still have plenty to gain from clinching a career-making championship.

SNY's Ian Begley broke down all of the individual in-house factors motivating the Knicks, naming the chip on their shoulders as one of the main reasons why New York is set up to win their first NBA title in over half a century.

Everyone, especially those at the top of the roster's depth chart, have a lot riding on the promising situation that management's put them in. Brunson, the lead option, has crawled from second round pick to rotational guard to star scorer, and now sits as one of the league's premier scoring guards.

"Despite All-NBA honors and postseason domination, Brunson is constantly dismissed in top player conversations and is still having to cement his eliteness like a plucky underdog," Begley wrote.

Brunson's largely considered one of the star players best positioned for their first career chip entering the fall, accomplished enough as a clutch-time scorer to inspire belief in his persona while accumulating a strong enough playoff resume after leading the Knicks to seven postseason series in his three seasons in New York.

His co-star, Karl-Anthony Towns, similarly sits on the Hall of Fame's precipice with plenty of room left to fully convince voters. A less convincing playoff riser than Brunson, he, alongside fellow newcomer Mikal Bridges, look to lock into proving their worth to the team in the season of expectations.

"Like every Towns year of the past five seasons, he looked shaky defensively in the postseason and some still questioned whether a team could win with him," Begley wrote. "Mikal Bridges is tied to the pick price it took to acquire him, a value only deemed fair once he’s helped deliver a championship."