Solely three video games separated the Knicks and Magic within the standings final season. Nevertheless, many issues shall be completely different in 2024-25. For one, each groups will look completely different getting into the marketing campaign. Notably, the Knicks’ addition of Mikal Bridges alone trumps the Magic’s most impactful offseason acquisitions, being two-time NBA champion Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Orlando has maturation going for them, with their younger nucleus having a 12 months’s value of profitable common season and playoff expertise beneath their belt. Nevertheless, the Knicks have two of the ten finest perimeter defenders in all of basketball in Bridges and OG Anunoby, and an offensive unit with three surefire 20-point-per-game scorers in Bridges, and All-Stars Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle to just one for the Magic in Banchero.
Past this, the remainder of the East received significantly better too, together with the Philadelphia 76ers’ addition of All-Star Paul George). As well as, Orlando has a troublesome opening slate to start the upcoming marketing campaign, as they’ll face the Indiana Pacers twice, the West’s No. 1 total seed Oklahoma Metropolis Thunder, the reigning Western Convention champion Dallas Mavericks, Miami Warmth, and Zion Williamson’s New Orleans Pelicans in six of their first 10 video games, to not point out their assembly a Memphis Grizzlies workforce set to welcome again star level guard Ja Morant.
In addition they end the 12 months with stiff competitors, together with contests in opposition to LeBron James and Anthony Davis’ Los Angeles Lakers and the defending champion Boston Celtics in two of their remaining 11 matchups.
Banchero will have to be able to cope with the improved roster that the Knicks will subject subsequent 12 months, the elite competitors additionally gunning for the crown out East, and the challenges that their schedule poses. The East is not the little brother of the league’s two conferences. There are legitimately six groups that would advance to the NBA Finals in 2024-25.
The Knicks, who dominated the Magic 3-1 of their season sequence final time round, look well-positioned to comb them subsequent season, with their finest roster on paper in over a decade. The Magic will certainly be a risk within the convention, however the Knicks ought to be ok with getting the higher hand within the win-loss column over them and a number of different contenders in 2024-25.
