Projecting Jalen Brunson, Knicks Stars' Ceilings and Floors for 2024-25 NBA Season
There are a lot of ways in which the 2024-25 NBA season could be a special one for the New York Knicks.
There's also a chance it will never live up to the hype.
This roster is one of the deepest in basketball. It also might be a touch light in star power if its best players can't maximize their impact.
To examine what could go right or wrong for the Knicks this season, we'll lay out the best- and worst-case scenarios for three of their most important players.
Mikal Bridges
Ceiling: Bridges paces the league in minutes, ramps up his shooting rates and earns his first ever All-Star invitation.
Bridges' defense and reliability should make him an instant favorite of coach Tom Thibodeau, which could send Bridges' minutes average skyrocketing. If he performs like the missing piece the Knicks placed a massive bet on him becoming, he might prove impossible to take off the floor.
If he fits as well as New York thinks he can, he could raise the defense to an elite level while choosing his offensive spots and making a serious push for a 50/40/90 shooting slash. The Knicks could be good enough that it's obvious they need multiple All-Stars, and a defensively dominant, offensively efficient Bridges can get the nod.
Floor: His numbers don't approach star levels, his efficiency is good not great and Knicks fans keep asking why he cost so much.
The Knicks might have too many scorers for Bridges' point production to take off, but they may not have the creators needed to boost his efficiency. If he's a mid-to-high-teens scorer with non-elite shooting rates, then he isn't a star. He also probably isn't moving the needle to the point New York might need to crash the championship race.
If he's a support player on a second-tier (at best) contender, the Knicks could get skewered for sacrificing that many assets to get a 27-year-old non-star.
Jalen Brunson
Ceiling: Brunson steers the 'Bockers to a top-two seed and himself to the franchise's first MVP award since 1970.
Last season came awfully close to Brunson's best-case scenario, as the Knicks were the East's No. 2 seed, and he was the fifth-placed finisher in MVP voting.
Still, there might be another level he and this team can reach. Chasing down the Celtics is asking a ton, but if New York is closer to Boston than it is to the East's No. 3 seed, that will still count as another step forward. And if Brunson makes that happen as a solo star, he could have the stats, the storyline and the spotlight needed to become the first Knick crowned as MVP in more than 50 years.
Floor: Brunson is good and so are the Knicks, but neither is anywhere close to great.
Barring a major injury, Brunson isn't at risk of major backtracking, but sustaining his production from last season isn't a given. For that matter, neither is New York's standing as the East's second-best team. The Knicks have major question marks at center, the East has other star-studded rosters and there are scenarios in which both Brunson and New York are more good than great.
A healthy Brunson is probably an All-Star for the foreseeable future, but he could get squeezed off of the All-NBA rosters and excluded from any MVP conversations.
Julius Randle
Ceiling: Randle earns an All-Star nod and an All-NBA roster spot while solidifying the Knicks as Boston's biggest threat in the East.
Randle has had some rough patches over his tenure with the team, but he has also earned All-Star selections in three of the past four seasons. He also made a pair of All-NBA teams and could've been in the conversation for a third last season if not for the shoulder injury that cut short his campaign.
If he can post similar numbers on a Knicks team that improves its winning percentage, then he might be lock to earn both accolades again.
Floor: Randle looks out of place in this offense, the Knicks don't climb the conference ladder and his name makes heavy rotation on the rumor mill.
Randle's inconsistent outside shooting sometimes gums things up on offense. So, too, can his tendency to be overly deliberate with the basketball. If he isn't operating within the flow of this attack—which would otherwise be machine-like given the chemistry of the 'Nova Knicks—then he probably isn't helping this team much, even if his counting categories remain roughly the same.
If his fit looks questionable, New York might have to rethink its future with him, since he has the option of reaching free agency next offseason. If it's clear the Knicks need more to contend, there could be trade buzz brewing around Randle.