Yes. That’s exactly how the Villanova Knicks guys won their college championships, got drafted, became stars despite low draft positions and won at almost every level except for an NBA championship at this time. Contrary to popular belief, I believe the Thunders are a much easier team to beat. I watched too much sports to not have learned a few things or two. Teams with injured key players usually don’t do too well. The injury bug is mental as it is human nature. The root cause is actually pretty startling. Imagine you work super hard for something while you watch someone else relaxing on the bench and will collect a championship while you toll. Your mind might just subconsciously give up a little bit. That small difference at high levels essentially is what wins or loses championships. Team chemistry is like bonus points or extra credit. If you score 50, 60 all the time, the extra credit probably won’t make you an A student. You might pass the class but won’t get well-off from it. The Knicks are probably a 87/100 team in relative rankings of solely going by roster strength. The Knicks do not have any ”near GOAT plus players.” Almost every star on the team were looked down upon as players at some point in their career. They are that B+ student with an A+ attitude. They are the Rudy of patience, the Radio of inspiration and the Villanova of underdogs. Like the school itself, it only took them nearly two centuries to “make it.” Its current achievements are just unbelievable in so many ways you have to understand to believe.
This Knicks team is like many scrappy likely championless teams I have seen in many sports. They have the heart but don’t have the talents. I don’t think the Knicks are any different in that regard with many of these teams. Another championship team with at one Villanova player that won an NBA champion in 2019 with numerous likely first ballot hall of famers was probably significantly more talented than this Knicks team, yet it took numerous lucky breaks for it to win the championship that year. The difference is the team chemistry and everybody including some very important groups of people and entities who may want them to win not too dissimilar to everybody wanted a team named the Patriots to win the Super Bowl in 2001 with a 6th round second year quarterback, three eventual and likely hall of famers on the team versus Super Bowl team average of five to six, a track record of previously being unsuccessful and having won zero Super Bowls over three decades before that. Momentum builds and the rest is history. Plausible denial may only delay how history wants itself to be told for so long. Patrick Ewing draft pick or not, I think most teams need more than luck, resources and aspirations to win a championship. The sad part for basketball purest is the Knicks probably have the best realistic odds of winning this championship not because of who they are but because of who the opponents are.
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Will the Knicks win and should you invest in Jalen Brunson chase cards?
Many say the San Antonio Spurs will be the New York Knicks’ easiest opponent in the NBA Finals, I strongly disagree. Except for Fox, all of Spurs’ good guards are all the size of small forwards and some may be able to play a stretch power forward with no one really daring to go straight to the rim without thinking twice when Wemby is nearby. San Antonio can afford to play a smaller lineup with Wemby in the paint. Wemby is already a global superstar, neither Brunson nor Towns are at this time. Wemby, Fox, Johnson, Castle and Harper is a significantly stronger lineup than that of the Knicks’. Exhibit B’s Oklahoma City Thunders on paper is probably the best team with SGA, Chet, Three Williams, Wallace, Caruso, Hartstein, McCain, Dort and Mitchell. In reality, the second best player on the team Jalen Williams will likely play limited minutes if he plays in all games in the series. Ajay Mitchell the sixth man is also injured. Given SGA is a 30+ points scorer on average and everyone else average below 20 with Jalen Williams in essence the team’s second best scorer and Ajay Mitchell the 4th best scorer on the team. Whoever get their minutes in the series will probably on average score 10 points less than they do on average aggregate scale. The Spurs are like the Knicks with a clean injury report.
I think the Thunders will likely win their home game to go to the Finals through experience that the Spurs are likely too youthful to have gained. Against the Knicks that will be a much different story. Villanova players under a certain coach knows the pump fake very well. SGA is also for whatever reason becoming a less likeable player in the eyes of some fans whereas Wemby is continuously praised with many who may have entrenched interest in having him win a few championship. On paper OKC is a much better team, in reality, Knicks will have a much better chance facing OKC than Spurs in my opinion. The Spurs also have a Manifest Destiny type of attitude as they won five championships in the last 30 years and Wemby was literally coached by the man who helped them win all five. OKC although won a championship, it is a much newer team with only one championship in a small state without the basketball pedigree San Antonio has in its nearly 60 years history.
Imagine you have to rely on one foot because the other foot is injured, do you know how much weight and stress that is going to bring to the good foot and injury risk to the good foot? The worst part is, you have to take care of the injured body part by slowing down and recover decreasing overall efficiency. The Thunders have been relying too much on SGA potentially creating a Tyrese Haliburton 2024-2025 Finals situation in the making. The bottom line is, the Spurs are the much more difficult match up for the Knicks at this stage than the Thunders. I think Jalen Brunson is a significant upgrade from Kyle Lowry from a Villanova guard strand point. I think there are two ways to look at Jalen Brunson’s situation. If he wins, his cards will likely go much higher. If he loses, his cards will probably be cheaper in the off-season and probably even cheaper if he is in a slump early next season. I think he will stay with the Knicks for at least a few more years, likely 5-10 years. Knicks are probably willing to spend money on the team to continue to be good. I think if Jalen Brunson lead the Knicks to be championship this year, he will be a hall of famer and if he do a little more in his career he will be an NBA 100th anniversary player. The Knicks plays in Madison Square Garden, one of the most storied stadiums in the world. Knicks have been starving for a championship for a long-time and the league does need the Knicks to win. New York is unquestionable the richest city in the world consistently and on average for the last 100 years or so.
I repeat, if Brunson wins this championship, his chase cards especially his rookie chase cards are probably going to increase exponentially. While a lose might decrease his cards value somewhat but likely no where near the absolute percentage swing of him winning the championship. To win with your college buddies, roommates whom you already won NCAA championship(s) is incredible. That one commercial about the Villanova Knicks will be an instant classic. Jalen Brunson rookie chase cards are selling at only a fraction of SGA’s cards, yet the first Knicks championship in over half a century and in the modern era probably means way more for the world than OKC winning again or Spurs winning under Wemby. Knicks winning this year is like the Red Sox winning in 2004 after over 100 years not winning one. It’s historic.