Good morning! We start today with a hearty congratulations to Carmelo Anthony on his Hall of Fame induction Saturday night.
As you might expect, Melo shouted out his time in New York during the speech, saying his “soul will always echo 33rd and 7th,” and that he is, of course, Once a Knick, Always a Knick.
I’ll have much more on Melo next week when (spoiler alert) we get to the final few spots on this list. For today though, we turn to two players whose careers in New York didn’t quite live up to what Anthony was able to achieve, but whose time here is worthy of recognition regardless…
Depending on which betting site you look at, the 2025-26 New York Knicks have somewhere between 7-to-1 and 9-to-1 odds of winning the NBA championship.
It’s the second year in a row they’ll have odds below 10-to-1, which is the first time that’s happened in a quarter century. Judging by how close they made it last year, the short odds are warranted.
Even with this recent uptick in success and the expectations that come with it, tried and true fans won’t easily forget the lean years that led up to this point. Carmelo Anthony’s Hall-of-Fame induction this weekend certainly stirred up a mix of emotions for those who recall that era, but regardless of how you felt about the early 2010’s, it’s hard to deny that they were Shangri-La compared to what came immediately before and immediately after. Those memories scarred for life, to the point that even a Knicks championship isn’t likely to eliminate them.
But remembering what was is different than wondering what might have been. The former sticks around even after a team gets good, but the latter tends to dissipate, washed away by the notion of “well, it all got us to here, so what’s the point in pondering?”
Indeed, if Kristaps Porzingis never crumples over in a heap on February 6, 2018, there’s certainly a possibility Jalen Brunson never becomes a Knick, just like if Amar’e Stoudemire’s knees don’t give out, New York might never have had the chance to draft KP in the first place.
And while many fans would have given up their first born in exchange for what Leon Rose has turned the franchise into, it’s OK to acknowledge that the multiverse contains other realities where the Knicks are contenders and Jalen Brunson is nowhere to be found.
Are those realities plentiful? I wouldn’t bet on it. But as I was sitting back this weekend and reflecting on the No. 6 & 7 ranked players on my list, it was hard not to wonder about how things might have gone differently if injury luck went their way.