With the East as wide open as it’s been in years, there exists many different potential opponents and outcomes for the Knicks heading towards this year’s playoffs. Let’s look into the crystal ball and assess all the options on the table.

Outside a 2007 Mets-like collapse, the Knicks are a lock to play at least 83 games this season. Nine teams in the East are set to make the play-in or playoffs; the Knicks, at some point, could face any of them. What do we know about these teams? Read on for a comprehensive and entirely premature breakdown. Today in part one, we break down half the possible outcomes.

MISS THE PLAYOFFS/LOTTERY

The 2007 Mets happened, and thus I include this worst-case scenario, wherein the Knicks drop to the Play-In Tournament, lose both games and miss the playoffs. Actually, the worst worst-case scenario would be the Knicks getting knocked out of the East play-in and Dallas doing the same out West. Then the Knicks wouldn’t just miss the postseason, but for the second year in a row they’d miss out on acquiring the Mavs’ first-round pick, which is both implausible and gross. Let’s move on. 

CHICAGO/ATLANTA

The only way this matchup happens if is the Knicks drop to seventh or eighth and then lose the first play-in game. The Bulls and Hawks have been losing teams all season, while everyone above them in the East is at least six games over .500; there’s no way Chicago or Atlanta pass them. These two are going to face off in the 9/10 game. It’s only a matter of where.

The Bulls took the season series between them. Both have won more without their star player than with: Chicago is 10-16 when Zach LaVine’s played and 21-19 in his absence, while Atlanta’s 5-4 without Trae Young after going 24-31 with him.

WHAT’S AT STAKE? 

The best thing either of these teams will be able to say about the season ends is that it’s over. 

Since streaking across our imaginations with a 2021 storm of upsets that nearly landed them in the Finals, the Hawks are 113-116 – metronomic mediocrity at its most mundane. Despite continuing to put up 30 points and 10 assists a night, Young remains a conundrum, a seeming force multiplier who seems only to multiply by one. Dejounte Murray was acquired at great cost to complement Young, and yet it seems both play better as soloists. Onyeka Okongwu earned a contract extension but has yet to supplant Clint Capela as the starting center. De’Andre Hunter is a fine young player who, like Okongwu, hasn’t come close to whatever ceiling the team envisioned for him. Bogdan Bogdanović is like really good cheesecake at a disappointing restaurant: not enough to offset all that’s wrong around him.

Chicago’s best player, LaVine, is quite obviously tired of being a Bull – and when LaVine is tired of something, he won’t leave you guessing.

In addition to their own 1st-round pick this June, the Bulls own Portland’s, too, only not really, as it’s lottery protected through 2028. The Bulls will likely owe their 1st next year to San Antonio from the DeMar DeRozan deal (protected top-10 in ‘25, top-8 the following two years). Lonzo Ball may never return. Chicago took a stab at the present a few years ago and it blew up in their face. It happens. Time to start over. Past time, really. It’s hard to envision what the Bulls would think is the benefit of getting cakewalked by Boston over four games. Then again, “it’s hard to envision what the Bulls are thinking” is Chicago’s m.o.

Patrick Williams is similar to Okongwu and Hunter: a young player who could very well outperform a modest second contract, but who hasn’t done enough to inspire his first team to trust him with one. Perhaps Most Improved candidate Coby White’s leap this year gives Chicago trust in its development staff. Then again, the Bulls held onto DeRozan and Alex Caruso at the trade deadline in a dead-end year after months of failing to move LaVine. You can’t trust them to get anything right, reflected in a season in which their fans spent more time making an 80-year-old widow cry than watching meaningful basketball.

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