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The New York Knicks had the most successful season in recent franchise history last year, led by Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, and a top-tier starting lineup. However, now with a new head coach, the team struggled in preseason, as the Tom Thibodeau-era issues have persisted in the first few months of Mike Brown’s tenure. Most recently, both Brunson and Towns have expressed concerns with the team heading into the season. While many fans and people in the media have questioned how Brown will design the Knicks’ offense, the team’s stars are now starting to ask those questions themselves. Towns said the team is ‘still figuring it out‘, and on his podcast, Roommates Show, with co-star Josh Hart, Brunson himself expressed reservations about how New York will begin the season. “I think we have a long way to go to be back to where we want to be. And I actually like that because it’s like a new focus for us,” Brunson said on his show. “We’re not jumping back into where we were last year, it’s like a whole new journey.” Heading into the 2025-26 NBA season, the Knicks have some of the best odds to win the title. But even after making the Conference Finals last year, the questions on how Brown will do as a Thibodeau replacement continue as their season opener approaches. Jalen Brunson Said Team Is In For Change Brunson is the unequivocal leader of the Knicks, but as seen last season, his usage numbers were a big cause of their downfall. New York ranked near the bottom of the league with Brunson as the star and Thibodeau as the coach, and though Brown vowed to change that, the trend continued in the preseason. Though they finished the preseason 4-1, the Knicks showed little enthusiasm for their play in the team’s exhibition games. Even after their successful run last year, Brunson believes it will be a tough task to repeat that this season, as he feels they are starting things over from the beginning. “It’s really easy to be like, ‘Alright, let’s get back to the conference finals. That’s our goal,'” Brunson added. “No, our goal is to get better every single day. Especially with this new regime, these new schemes, this new everything. It’s like a whole reset.” Hart agreed with Brunson, as well as Towns’ sentiment, that with the coaching change, things will be different this season across the whole organization. His position in the starting lineup has been put into question, but the rebounding wing said he feels confident the Knicks will find a rhythm as the season evolves. “Obviosuly (things change) when you have a change in coaches,” Hart said. “Excited to see how that works out, and then to see the strides we make offensively and defensively… We want game 82 to look totally different than game one. I think that’s gonna be the beauty of having so many different pieces.” Brunson and Hart’s comments on their podcast come shortly after Towns also said he had questions on how the team’s scheme would look to begin the year, adding to the list of players unsure of what the 2025-26 Knicks will look like. Knicks Lineup For Opener Against Cavaliers Regardless of the star’s lingering questions about the team, New York begins the season against the Cleveland Cavaliers, a potential preview of the Eastern Conference Finals. While both teams expect to compete for a title, the campaign for the Knicks hasn’t gotten off to the best start, as they will have multiple star players out to begin the year. New York has ruled out Hart and Mitchell Robinson for the game, while OG Anunoby remains probable, and Towns is questionable. Hart, Robinson, and Towns all missed time in the preseason, and Anunoby suffered a minor ankle injury in training camp, but he expects to suit up. Hart is dealing with back spasms, and that is compounded by a finger injury, one in which he expects to have surgery on after the season, set to play the entire year with a splint. For Robinson, the Knicks are taking his health concerns from last year into consideration, as Brown said the center is resting for ‘workload management’. “Really, it’s load management,” Brown said about Robinson. “He missed a lot of games last year so we want to be cautious going forward with him. That’s about the extent of it right there.” The ‘questionable’ tag on Towns could be a cause for greater concern, as he is dealing with a lingering quad injury, but the team has stayed quiet on his status for the game against Cleveland. Without at least two, and potentially four, of the Knicks’ top contributors from last season isn’t a good omen to begin the year, but the health concerns are just an added worry for the team, as they will continue to find a groove under Brown.
