The New York Knicks, beautiful NBA Cup champions of December, have drifted toward the toilet. After winning the midseason trophy amid a 23-9 start, they have gone 2-9 in the weeks since. Monday night at Madison Square Garden, a severely undermanned Dallas Mavericks squad racked up 75 first-half points, and the home team, trailing by 28 points, was getting booed vigorously by their own fans. “If we’re playing crappy, boo. If I were in the stands, I’d probably boo too,” said Knicks head coach Mike Brown, who seems to have lost control of a roster that he was orchestrating deftly in the first few months of the season.
Brown is scrambling for answers, but there are suddenly far too many questions. The Knicks have fallen apart on both sides of the floor during this calamitous 11-game stretch, where they have the 28th-ranked defensive rating and 25th-ranked offensive rating. Injuries have been mild: Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson missed a few games with ankle issues, but they’ve struggled with them back in the lineup, too. Yesterday’s 114-97 loss to Dallas was inexplicable: The Knicks enjoyed a rare day with the roster at full health and proceeded to get routed by an offense spearheaded by Naji Marshall and Max Christie.
“Halftime, we usually do the clips and talk about technical X’s-and-O’s and all that crap that coaches do, teams do,” Brown said after the game. “There was nothing to be said at halftime. Except for lock in and do your fucking—excuse me on that—do your job.” Their problems are so widespread as to defy crisp diagnosis.
Karl-Anthony Towns has been a useful scapegoat, simply because his flaws are more conspicuous than his teammates’, but even that doesn’t tell the full story. He doesn’t get up many threes despite being his entire value proposition; he has the worst understanding of the ref’s whistle, on both offense and defense, of any player I’ve ever watched; and he is supine on the court more often than one would like. These are all frustrating traits in a player making a team-high $53 million this season, but they are not a sufficient explanation for the team’s struggles. Brunson and Towns still drive elite offense and survivable defense when they’re both on the floor, and the Knicks play well in Towns-only lineups, too—even better than they do in Brunson-only lineups. (KAT, for his part, said this squad is missing key elements of last year’s, like backup guard Cam Payne, who is a very strange person to focus on during the present dysfunction. Apparently they had significant chemistry!)
Regardless, Towns trade rumors are now circulating in the NBA, according to Steve Popper at Newsday. Though Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo had once been the target, it’s hard to envision an actual package that wouldn’t get outclassed by another team. The Knicks will struggle to find a trade partner with high interest in Towns, and they will struggle to find a trade that would leave them with a workable rotation. Towns’s versatility at the 4 and 5 gave Brown lineup flexibility and allowed them to make do with a roster light on bigs. Moving Towns almost certainly means betting on the health of center Mitchell Robinson, which has been historically been an awful bet.
The Knicks also aren’t flush with assets that could be tossed into a deal and improve their return. Famously, they spent five first-round picks to acquire Mikal Bridges in 2024. In 2026, he is a wing who is slightly worse on both ends than advertised, and has the ability to convert, through sheer cowardice, every would-be layup into a weird 6-foot fadeaway. That trade looks rougher with every middling Bridges performance, and because of its expense, they’re either locked into this build, or headed for some degree of talent downgrade in a trade.
Maybe this is just one of those situations where this group of people can no longer co-exist, and a trade is necessary for purely human reasons. Maybe Brown will either figure out how to get this group to play hard again, or get something out of deep rotation players like rookie wing Mo Diawara. Or maybe he’ll soon be out of his fifth head coaching job in the NBA.
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