'Every team has to go through a little chaos': How...

THE ONLY PERSON to place such audacious standards on the 2025-26 New York Knicks was owner James Dolan, whose midseason words rose above objective and well into expectation. "I'd say we want to get to the Finals, and we should win the Finals," Dolan said on New York's WFAN radio in January, comments that came in the middle of a 2-9 stretch. "This is sports; anything can happen. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely have to do. Winning the Finals, we should do." Around the league, Dolan's declaration generated a collective yawn. This roster? These stars? This coach? Winning the NBA Finals?! Yes, these Knicks, who after breaking down in back-to-back playoff runs, were finally ready to merge their new-school build with an old-school playoff path and earn universal respect. Jalen Brunson, the 6-foot-2 guard who couldn't be the centerpiece of an NBA champion, is validated. Center Karl-Anthony Towns, who was acquired in a blockbuster trade and considered too soft to anchor a front line, is justified. Coach Mike Brown, fired four times and often overlooked in his own profession, is verified. Destiny reigned over the Knicks following a season clouded with doubt, even as they checked off the benchmark nearly all contenders have in common: a modernized top-five offense, a top-10 defense and an ability to morph on the fly while maintaining space for their point guard to rise in late-game occasions. It culminated in a five-game NBA Finals win over the rising San Antonio Spurs, as the Knicks won their first title in 53 years. But replacing the headstrong Tom Thibodeau with the easy-going Brown was supposed to backfire. Investing in Brunson as their foundation was supposed to fail. The Knicks were supposed to crumble when things got tough. The Spurs, meanwhile, looked dominant. Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards congratulated them early in the fourth quarter of a closeout game in the conference semifinals. They had Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the back-to-back MVP, so exhausted in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals that he mustered only two shots with the series in the balance in the final quarter. But San Antonio finally faced an opponent it couldn't outlast. In fact, the Knicks have spent years building their collective endurance. By the time the Finals tipped off, it had become a full-blown superpower. KNICKS PRESIDENT LEON Rose is a man of few words but many actions. He has rarely sat in front of the media to answer questions, take credit or explain organizational thinking. The closest thing to accountability regarding Thibodeau's firing last June was Dolan's radio interview six months later. No one was sure about Rose's passion for this team until he broke down in tears as the clock wound down in Cleveland, with the Knicks clinching the Eastern Conference title for the first time since 1999. Rose's team-building style is in direct contrast to recent champions, especially the Knicks' vanquished opponent in San Antonio, which built through the draft, quietly assembling before sprouting up loudly over the past four months. Oklahoma City, the exalted 2025 champions hailed as the blueprint, built through the draft. The Boston Celtics, the 2024 champions, built through the draft. Today's NBA is set up for contenders to be constructed that way, but Rose didn't have such patience. Reserves Mitchell Robinson and Miles McBride are the only draft-night players in the Knicks' rotation. Josh Hart had been on three teams before joining his college teammate Brunson in February 2023. OG Anunoby had been in trade rumors for years when he played for the Toronto Raptors, but Rose and the Knicks acquired the coveted wing in December 2023. New York earned the 2-seed that season but was ousted in the conference semifinals. It showed it was getting closer to realizing its potential, however. The next two trades helped the Knicks make their final push. Adding Towns for an ill-fitting Julius Randle always looked like a steal, and even though Rose surrendered multiple draft picks to acquire Mikal Bridges from the crosstown Nets, Bridges has shown his value, even if he hasn't been a star. Though the roster construction was to be admired, it never felt as though the Knicks deserved the Dolan-induced pressure of getting to the Finals, even with the Boston Celtics (Jayson Tatum) and Indiana Pacers (Tyrese Haliburton) losing their superstars to Achilles injuries during the 2025 playoffs. Something was bound to keep the Knicks from their stated goal -- a missed finger-roll, a block-strip-block-block, or a visiting star making Madison Square Garden his home was surely on the horizon. Short-term failures and long-term meltdowns weren't far from the psyche of Knicks supporters. But the failures of the past couple of years weren't marks of an underachieving, overhyped franchise -- just one that needed to be hardened by a few more postseason calluses. The new-school build was juxtaposed by an o

'Every team has to go through a little chaos': How...

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