Knicks Predicted to Bench Favorite Player

The New York Knicks are going to look very different during the 2025-26 season, because they have a new head coach in Mike Brown, who has a unique vision for the team. He’s already being pressured to get the Knicks over the finish line and get this team to the championship next season, so Brown isn’t taking things slow. He’s making big moves in the offseason and trying new ideas to get these players ready for the big time.

The Knicks have a solid roster, spearheaded by Jalen Brunson, but not all of those stars may be starters during the new season. During the postseason earlier this year, the Knicks lost to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals in what was a crushing series, so chances are Brown will make some surprising moves to shake things up and make sure that doesn’t happen again.

Now, there’s some talk of the possibility of benching one of the Knicks’ most beloved players for the 2025-26 season.

Mike Brown May Bench Favorite New York Knicks Player

Not everyone is going to be happy with Brown’s changes, but hopefully, those changes will result in a championship. In a piece published on Tuesday, July 8, for The Daily Knicks, Atticus O’Brien-Pappalardo discusses Brown’s coaching outlook and says that he might bench a favorite player.

In the piece, he talks about Brown’s introductory press conference and states, “When asked how his view on basketball has changed over the years though, Mike Brown delivered a very interesting answer, hinting at a change in style for the Knicks, which could perhaps involve Josh Hart to the bench.”

Hart on the bench? Say it isn’t so. But, don’t get too heated, because O’Brien-Pappalardo adds that it’s “important to note that Brown did not explicitly say if the lineup would change, or what it could look like.”

O’Brien-Pappalardo notes that when Brown was asked how his view of the game and how it’s evolved over his time coaching, he gave a lengthy response that ended with him saying that the modern game “is about pace and space, that’s where the game is, and like I said, if you can’t evolve, you’re going to get left behind.”

A New Knicks Approach

“That concept would have seemed foreign to fans last season,” O’Brien-Pappalardo adds. “While Tom Thibodeau preached the idea of pace, the Knicks were one of the slowest teams in the league over the last few seasons. Last year they ranked 27th in 3-point volume and rarely optimized their offense to utilize spacing. Instead, Thibodeau often leaned into old-school concepts like defense and rebounding.”

So, to “optimize both space and pace, it would mean shifting Hart to the bench for a shooter like Deuce McBride or even the Knicks’ newest addition, Guerschon Yabusele,” O’Brien-Pappalardo states. In addition, SNY’s Ian Begley previously reported that the Knicks were thinking of taking Yabusele off of the bench in a lineup with Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson.

O’Brien-Pappalardo concludes that such a move would mean swapping “Hart for McBride, a move that Thibodeau never was comfortable making, or even trying for that matter.”

So, it’s possible that the Knicks will use Hart less this season. Frankly, though, Hart can hang with the best players in the NBA, and it would make more sense to make changes while continuing to use him as a starter.