Knicks Looking Like Conference Favorites, Championship Questionable

The New York Knicks' odds for taking over the east haven't been this overwhelmingly positive in a very long time.

They're once again led by one of the NBA's premier scorers in Jalen Brunson, who's at long last found the deep supporting cast to provide the Knicks' ravenous fan base with the real chance at winning that they've long fantasized about. His team gave New York a taste of that winning formula in last season's playoffs when they trooped all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals by swatting several key conference players aside, and only built on next year's odds with an active offseason of adding.

League-wide support seems to be in favor of the new-look serious Knicks, evidenced in an ESPN survey conducted in commemorating this recent, seemingly-endless offseason finally nearing an end. The voting pool determined that they have the second-best odds of asserting themselves atop the conference, granting them seven votes to lead all but the Cleveland Cavaliers with nine.

Those two, along with the Milwaukee Bucks, Orlando Magic and Atlanta Hawks, were each recognized by ESPN's contributors, a testament to the eastern crop that remains ready for the taking. "I think those guys fit together really well now," one East executive said of Orlando. "And I don't have as much faith as everyone else does in Cleveland and New York."

That representation severely faltered upon the very next question, though, when league insiders suddenly pulled their support from the plucky, largely-hypothetical eastern contenders.

All 20 votes went to either the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Denver Nuggets, the homes to the two most recent MVPs in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, respectively, who've each gotten the chance to hoist a Finals MVP trophy for their postseason efforts.

"While no one was picked to win the title out of the East, virtually everyone struggled to come up with a team they felt good enough about to come out of the conference," Tim Bontemps wrote. "For some, it was because they felt the Knicks and Cavs were evenly matched. Some went with New York because of its toughness and depth, while others went with Cleveland because of its perceived higher top-end talent and better defensive versatility led by reigning DPOY Evan Mobley."

"But the perceived issues with both of those top contenders is what led to several others to tap either the Hawks, Bucks or Magic as their choice."