The New York Knicks keep coming close to a championship but don’t quite get there. While that’s okay from some franchises who are just happy to be in the running, that’s not acceptable for the Knicks. So, the team has brought on a new head coach in Mike Brown and are trying to perfect their lineup going into the 2025-26 season.
Last season, the Knicks were so close to getting to the championship but fell short to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals. Now, Brown is here to make sure that doesn’t happen again. He’s an offensive-minded coach who is big on details, so he’s just the kind of guy who can take a team that’s already good, even very good, and make it great.
While Brown will be changing a lot for the Knicks in 2025, there’s one thing that’s going to stand out as perhaps the biggest change.
While Brown will be changing a lot for the Knicks in 2025, there’s one thing that’s going to stand out as perhaps the biggest change.
Mike Brown’s Inaugural Season With the Knicks
In a July 3 feature for Daily Knicks, Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo says that there’s going to be a big change for the Knicks in 2025, in that the team will play faster.
Playing fast is a good thing in most sports and especially in basketball. The Knicks know first-hand how important it is to have a fast-paced offense, because they fell to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference, who is one of the fastest-paced teams in the NBA. Imagine have that boost of extra speed on the Knicks’ side and what it could do to revolutionize their games.
“The Knicks, led by All-NBA superstar guard Jalen Brunson, have been one of the slowest offensive teams in the league over the last few seasons,” O’Brien-Pappalardo states. “That seems poised to change under Brown, who has led fast-paced, dynamic offenses during his time as a head coach with the Sacramento Kings and as an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors.”
So, looking at how Brown has worked with his previous teams and how he has improved them, it seems that he’s really going to get the offensive in New York moving fast.
New York Needs Improvement in This Area
The Knicks could use that help, too, as O’Brien-Pappalardo notes that according pbpstats.com, New York “had the third-slowest offense in the league in terms of average seconds per offensive possession. According to league tracking data, for the last three seasons, the years since Brunson joined the Knicks, they have averaged 15.6 seconds per possession, the longest of any team in the league.”
New Knicks player Guerschon Yabusele had some words about the Knicks. Speaking with European basketball site Skweek, he talked about signing with the Knicks and said he was impressed with what the Knicks were like as opponents when he has faced them in the past.
“I feel like their team, it really match[es] my DNA,” he said. “I would say, to fight, to play hard, to kind of be like the underdogs, to go and fight every night,” the former Philadelphia 76er said. “I was looking at them like ‘oh my God, this team plays good together. They’re a good team…”
