The Knicks have surprised many with how well they’ve played this year, but as Knicks history has taught us, leveling up from good to great is no small feat. Who could help the Knicks get there?

The New York Knicks rank seventh in the NBA in offensive rating and 14th in defensive rating (all numbers c/o Basketball-Reference unless otherwise indicated). The last time the Knicks finished with a top-10 rating on both ends was 1988-89, when Rick Pitino’s Bomb Squad won 52 games and came within a Michael Jordan of the conference finals. A year later, the Knicks got off to a 35-17 start. 

You never hear much about those teams, namely because they went 10-20 the rest of the 1990 season, finished 1991 with a losing record and were taken to court by Patrick Ewing looking to exploit a loophole in his contract to get away from New York. Today’s Knicks will want to avoid some of the mistakes those long-ago Knickerbockers made. It’s not easy going from 40-something wins to 50-something. It can be done, if you avoid certain pitfalls.

When you have a team that’s balanced on both ends – the ‘89 Knicks were sixth in offensive rating and 10th in defensive rating – you want to maintain being excellent at the things you do best. In 1989, that meant playing at a top-five pace, making the most 3-pointers in the league while giving up the fifth-fewest and forcing the second-most turnovers. A year later, their pace was nearly middle-of-the pack, their 3-point advantage dropped nearly 70% and they were bottom-half in forcing turnovers. They took more than six fewer shots per game and nearly half as many threes. What happened?

The biggest thing to jump out from the numbers is how blessed the ‘89 team was health-wise. Their top eight players in minutes played combined to miss 16 games that entire season. A year later, that number was 77. You replace about 400 minutes of Charles Oakley with Kenny Walker, you’re gonna see some decline.

Until Mitchell Robinson’s thumb injury that will sideline him for at least a month, this year’s Knicks were relatively healthy. Julius Randle has played every game. Jalen Brunson’s missed three. RJ Barrett didn’t miss any before the freak finger laceration he suffered in Dallas, after which he missed six. The man who replaced RJ in the starting lineup, Immanuel Quickley, had played every game before missing the Toronto game this week with a sore knee. For better or worse, Isaiah Hartenstein has played every game. After being inactive most of the first month of the season, Quentin Grimes has only missed one game since.

When it comes to team strengths, this year’s Knicks have a pretty solid formula. They’re not a great 3-point shooting team, but they’re 10th in attempts from deep; if you’re gonna play the lottery, best to buy a lotta tickets. They get to the line a ton, they’re a top rebounding team on both sides of the glass and they simply don’t turn the ball over. On the defensive end, they rank fifth in opponents’ 3-point percentage, fifth in 2-point percentage and they’re even eighth in opponents’ free throw percentage. One big positive for New York is how much of these accomplishments are being driven by young players. Success at early ages often correlates to improvement over time. But there’s a half-empty glass, too.

Success at early ages is no guarantor of a continuing trend. Injuries happen; so does regression. No team has born more witness to year-to-year vagary than the Knicks, who’ve seen Randle go from booed in even-numbered seasons to MVP-chants in odd-numbered ones. So they should approach this offseason looking to add talent in areas that can both preserve areas of strength while also adding upside to them. What kind of player would that be?

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