We know for a fact that there are no guarantees. Knicks fans with a memory long enough to connect with the 1992-93 season understand this better than anyone. If you sift through each of the 52 teams that have tried to win the franchise’s third championship, that’s the one that sticks most permanently and most prominently in the collective craw.
Yes, the 1993-94 and 1998-99 teams advanced further than that one did, making it all the way to the NBA Finals. And that ’94 team took a 3-2 lead back to Houston, and came damn close to getting it done in Game 6.
But it was that 1992-93 team that was in the best position to win the title of all the ones that have come after 1972-73. That team won 60 games, three more than the Jordan Bulls, and beat the Bulls three out of four that year. That team did a lot of things well, had Patrick Ewing at the peak of his powers, had Doc Rivers running the show on the court and Pat Riley doing the same on the bench.
But that team’s unparalleled superpower was this:
