Knicks Projected to Maintain Success Next Season

The NBA season officially wrapped up over the weekend when the Oklahoma City Thunder finally did away with the never-say-die Indiana Pacers, who scratched and clawed their way through Game 7 of the NBA Finals even after Tyrese Haliburton tore his Achilles tendon, granting the franchise their first title since relocating from Seattle.

And thus, the offseason is officially on for everyone. The other 28 teams who had to watch the Finals from the couch can finally be compared to the two successful conference finalists, allowing for the earliest 2025-26 season projections to start circulating mere hours after the Thunder accepted the Larry O'Brien trophy.

The playoffs revealed some outstanding flaws built into some of the league's inner-circle contenders, and even more injuries look to account for in the fall. The New York Knicks, for their part, registered as the seventh-ranked team in the NBA in a vote conducted among ESPN's panel of experts, still ranked among the pack after a season to remember.

The Eastern Conference Finalist runners-up looked outclassed by the Pacers, and still found themselves ranked below Indiana, the Cleveland Cavaliers and several western regulars when the writers were tasked with estimating how next season will play out.

Haliburton's injury dampens the Pacers' chances of embarking on the same electric run and returning to the Finals, and similarly drags down the already-hampered Eastern Conference. Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard each suffered similar injuries in prior rounds of these playoffs, hurting the chances of the Boston Celtics or Milwaukee Bucks returning to immediate glory.

Unlike their contemporaries, the damage the Knicks' are tasked with repairing was all self-inflicted. They chose to fire longtime head coach Tom Thibodeau after he led the team to their best finish in 25 years, and have already watched as other teams connect on the kind of big swings they once imagined for themselves.

The Knicks reached the conference finals with a highly talented starting five — albeit one that was outscored during the second half of the season and in the playoffs — and a thin bench. One group or the other, if not both, will need an upgrade to win it all next season," Chris Herring wrote.

The holes within the Knicks' roster and locker room will be a challenge to fill, and they still have to prove that they can hang with the deep Pacers in a big game or the talented Cavaliers in a regular season shootout.