Basketball in New York is a sacred institution. Everyone in New York is a basketball fan, but it hasn’t been easy over the last few years. This year, fans are praying for change.
The New York Knicks and the Brooklyn Nets are in different stages going into the 2025 season. The Knicks are beginning to retool and run it back by improving their bench and bringing in a new head coach. The team hopes to make a deeper push with its core players, Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns and re-signed Mikal Bridges.
Meanwhile, the Nets are in a full-on rebuild, after using all five of their first-round picks in the 2025 NBA draft to develop talent and build for the future.
The Knicks have a lot to prove after firing former Head Coach Tom Thibodeau, who had a record of 226-174 in five seasons. In his last season at the helm, the Knicks lost to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals (ECF). It was the first time the Knicks reached the ECF in 25 years.
After a long search for their next leader, the Knicks landed on Mike Brown, former head coach of the Sacramento Kings. When Brown was the Kings’ head coach, he worked to turn the Kings around. He put up a 107-88 record in his two full seasons with Sacramento. Brown was the second head coach to have a winning season with the Kings since they moved to Sacramento.
His philosophy differs from how the Knicks playbook has looked recently. Brown favors a very high pace of play utilizing organized chaos, a style he picked up when he was an assistant coach with the Golden State Warriors.
Brown wants every player constantly moving on the court to attempt to create the best possible shot on offense. This is different from how the Knicks have operated previously — Brunson usually takes his time with the ball and brings it up the court before making any decisions.
After the Knicks preseason game in Abu Dhabi, Brown spoke to the media after the Knicks took down the Philadelphia 76ers 99-84 in a lopsided win. Knicks fans got to see almost their entire team play with their brand new offense.
“Our guys did a pretty good job with their pace, but we have to play faster and we can play faster,” Brown said in a press conference. “It was great because our guys got a taste of how fast we need to play, and they know we still have to take it three or four more notches.”
Knicks stars Towns and Brunson have a lot of skills but aren’t known to be very fast paced players. This past offseason, the Knicks brought on Jordan Clarkson from the Utah Jazz, a guard who plays fast-paced.
Clarkson will fit right into Brown’s offense as one of the fastest players on the New York roster. Clarkson will be able to speed things up and spread the ball out to the other players on the floor.
The Knicks also attempted to shore up their very short bench that caused them issues last season by signing Malcolm Brogdon, one of the most veteran guards in free agency. During his stint off the bench with the Boston Celtics in 2022, he averaged 14.9 points per game and 3.7 assists per game, hitting 44% from the 3-point line.
Brogdon floated around the league with the Washington Wizards and the Portland Trail Blazers for the last few years. This will be the first time since 2022 that he will be on a contending team.
This is a “prove it” season for the Knicks, who have been inching towards the right direction, but haven’t been able to make it to the big dance just yet.
The Knicks have the skills of a championship team, but it remains to be seen whether their stars will be able to take another step in Brown’s new system.
In Brooklyn, the Nets are now in full rebuild mode under Coach Jordi Fernández. The Nets took five players in the first round of the 2025 draft, picking up Egor Dëmin, Nolan Traoré, Ben Saraf, Danny Wolf and Drake Powell.
This is a complete youth movement combined with returning players like Nic Claxton and Cam Thomas. The offseason chaos finally came to an end when Thomas signed a one-year deal to stay with Brooklyn.
Some of the Nets pickups in the offseason came from a trade that sent Cam Johnson to the Denver Nuggets, and the Nets received Michael Porter Jr. will play an increased offensive role with the Nets after playing behind Nikola Jokić and Jamal Murray.
Along with Porter, the Nets signed veteran Terance Mann from the Atlanta Hawks. Mann, along with Porter and the other returning Nets veterans, will take up a leadership role to support the rookies.
While the Nets might not be very competitive this season, if you are a fan, there is a lot to look forward to, with continued progression of young players like Noah Clowney and Day’Ron Sharpe.
Last season, Fernández showed poise as the Nets’ leader, even though he was not dealt the best hand with his roster. Even though the team might not have showed up for him, his team stayed competitive in most of their games.
It is going to take a few years for general manager Sean Marks and Fernández’s plan to start coming together.
Finally, it feels that the Nets are starting to build towards something that fans can get behind and root for a fun young team that might surprise some viewers.
