'Every team has to go through a little chaos': How...

THE ONLY PERSON to place such audacious standards on the 2025-26 New York Knicks was owner James Dolan, whose midseason words rose above objective and well into expectation. "I'd say we want to get to the Finals, and we should win the Finals," Dolan said on New York's WFAN radio in January, comments that came in the middle of a 2-9 stretch. "This is sports; anything can happen. Getting to the Finals, we absolutely have to do. Winning the Finals, we should do." Around the league, Dolan's declaration generated a collective yawn. This roster? These stars? This coach? Winning the NBA Finals?! Yes, these Knicks, who after breaking down in back-to-back playoff runs, were finally ready to merge their new-school build with an old-school playoff path and earn universal respect. Jalen Brunson, the 6-foot-2 guard who couldn't be the centerpiece of an NBA champion, is validated. Center Karl-Anthony Towns, who was acquired in a blockbuster trade and considered too soft to anchor a front line, is justified. Coach Mike Brown, fired four times and often overlooked in his own profession, is verified. Destiny reigned over the Knicks following a season clouded with doubt, even as they checked off the benchmark nearly all contenders have in common: a modernized top-five offense, a top-10 defense and an ability to morph on the fly while maintaining space for their point guard to rise in late-game occasions. It culminated in a five-game NBA Finals win over the rising San Antonio Spurs, as the Knicks won their first title in 53 years. But replacing the headstrong Tom Thibodeau with the easy-going Brown was supposed to backfire. Investing in Brunson as their foundation was supposed to fail. The Knicks were supposed to crumble when things got tough. The Spurs, meanwhile, looked dominant. Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards congratulated them early in the fourth quarter of a closeout game in the conference semifinals. They had Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the back-to-back MVP, so exhausted in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals that he mustered only two shots with the series in the balance in the final quarter. But San Antonio finally faced an opponent it couldn't outlast. In fact, the Knicks have spent years building their collective endurance. By the time the Finals tipped off, it had become a full-blown superpower. KNICKS PRESIDENT LEON Rose is a man of few words but many actions. He has rarely sat in front of the media to answer questions, take credit or explain organizational thinking. The closest thing to accountability regarding Thibodeau's firing last June was Dolan's radio interview six months later. No one was sure about Rose's passion for this team until he broke down in tears as the clock wound down in Cleveland, with the Knicks clinching the Eastern Conference title for the first time since 1999. Rose's team-building style is in direct contrast to recent champions, especially the Knicks' vanquished opponent in San Antonio, which built through the draft, quietly assembling before sprouting up loudly over the past four months. Oklahoma City, the exalted 2025 champions hailed as the blueprint, built through the draft. The Boston Celtics, the 2024 champions, built through the draft. Today's NBA is set up for contenders to be constructed that way, but Rose didn't have such patience. Reserves Mitchell Robinson and Miles McBride are the only draft-night players in the Knicks' rotation. Josh Hart had been on three teams before joining his college teammate Brunson in February 2023. OG Anunoby had been in trade rumors for years when he played for the Toronto Raptors, but Rose and the Knicks acquired the coveted wing in December 2023. New York earned the 2-seed that season but was ousted in the conference semifinals. It showed it was getting closer to realizing its potential, however. The next two trades helped the Knicks make their final push. Adding Towns for an ill-fitting Julius Randle always looked like a steal, and even though Rose surrendered multiple draft picks to acquire Mikal Bridges from the crosstown Nets, Bridges has shown his value, even if he hasn't been a star. Though the roster construction was to be admired, it never felt as though the Knicks deserved the Dolan-induced pressure of getting to the Finals, even with the Boston Celtics (Jayson Tatum) and Indiana Pacers (Tyrese Haliburton) losing their superstars to Achilles injuries during the 2025 playoffs. Something was bound to keep the Knicks from their stated goal -- a missed finger-roll, a block-strip-block-block, or a visiting star making Madison Square Garden his home was surely on the horizon. Short-term failures and long-term meltdowns weren't far from the psyche of Knicks supporters. But the failures of the past couple of years weren't marks of an underachieving, overhyped franchise -- just one that needed to be hardened by a few more postseason calluses. The new-school build was juxtaposed by an old-school climb, the way Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls and Isiah Thomas' Detroit Pistons had to endure heartbreak and doubt before finally arriving. The Knicks' disappointment of blowing a second-round series against the Pacers two years ago was followed by losing to them again last year -- this time in the conference finals. The Knicks were still growing, but it was hard to see them breaking through, let alone taking down whoever survived the West gauntlet. It would have been a fitting end to see New York win the East and have reality hit once the calendar flipped to June. THE SMOOTH POSTSEASON was a payoff from a regular-season grind that often felt as if the Knicks would capsize before having a chance to fulfill their potential. At times, no one was sure about Brown's demeanor. He loved a collaborative approach, giving his players and assistants a voice in decisions. But even they wanted him to take more charge, to establish himself as the leader who needed to be followed. "First of all, there's always rocky moments during the course of the season. That's what the season's there for," Brown said before the Finals began. "I actually hoped there would be some big, rocky times or adverse times because you have to try to fight through them as an organization, not just as a team, but as an organization, to see if everybody can stay connected. ... "If you can navigate through some of those adverse or tough times throughout the season, you'll give yourself a chance when it really matters, which is the postseason." The Knicks spent the past year bouncing back from the verge of elimination in almost every critical situation. "We're not the same team from last year," one Knicks staffer told ESPN midway through the season. But believing that sweat equity would automatically transfer from season to season seemed foolish, and certainly dangerous. Tension threatened to derail every meaningful step. Entering his first offseason with the Knicks, Towns had to endure being mentioned in summer trade rumors involving Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Knicks also didn't offer the All-Star center an extension. Add Brown's early-season comments on Towns' changing role, and the season could have unraveled. "[Towns] wasn't looking around the locker room saying, 'Who wants Giannis here instead of me,'" a source close to Towns told ESPN during the season. "He wants to be in New York. He's a great compartmentalizer, and he wasn't going to be vindictive about it." Bridges faced constant scrutiny because of what the Knicks gave up to acquire him, at times seeming to wilt beneath the pressure of playing at Madison Square Garden. Hart had been brought off the bench to start the season, and then was benched in fourth quarters in the first month. Brown, who had gone through a tumultuous finish with the Sacramento Kings, was a secondary choice in New York after the franchise struck out trying to get permission to talk to coaches under contract. He never tiptoed around the shadow of Thibodeau but also didn't try to compete with the critiqued-but-popular coach he replaced. Brown was doubted during times of strife and tolerated during others, but he stuck to his big-picture vision. He was the coach when a 22-year-old LeBron James took the Cavs to the Finals, and Brown won four titles as an assistant. If players were slow to buy in, he would have to convince them. Slowly, it happened. And once the playoffs were on the horizon, belief had formed. Brown adjusted his offense multiple times to fit Towns, culminating in another alteration during the Atlanta Hawks series that led to an East-playoff record 14-game winning streak. He listened to Brunson's call for morning shootarounds -- the Knicks' captain wanted the team sharp rather than being rested, sources said. Brown didn't object. "Sometimes, we feel dysfunctional; sometimes, it feels crazy from the outside looking in," a Knicks staffer told ESPN before the postseason. "But something feels different. Maybe this is a championship team. Every team has to go through a little chaos." Every team also has a fatal flaw, something that could derail everything at a moment's notice. The Knicks decided they would never be vulnerable, that they had done enough losing to last another 53 years. They were never supposed to justify Dolan's midseason claim. They were supposed to fall to a Detroit Pistons team that had the Knicks on their radar since last April; supposed to succumb to Boston to avenge last season's playoff loss; supposed to be the first line in the Victor Wembanyama coronation, similar to Spurs legend Tim Duncan winning his first title against the Knicks 27 years ago. But yet, the Knicks owned June because they outlasted everyone. Just like they were built to do.