We’ve heard forever — and admittedly regurgitated by myself — that the path to NBA success is through superstars.
The Knicks chased that for a long time, pitching plans involving cap space and high draft choices and mega-trades for box-office attractions.
Yet here we are today, April of 2024, enjoying the most exciting NYC basketball team in decades, with its roster built on college friendships and connectivity and grunt work.
The most impressive statistic about these Knicks, often overlooked, is that not a single member of the rotation was a lottery pick. You can’t say that about any other team in the NBA, let alone one in the playoffs.
If you take out the injured Julius Randle who hasn’t logged a second since January and the highest pick is Donte DiVincenzo, hardly a blue-chipper out of high school, at No. 17.
More than half their rotation were second-rounders — Jalen Brunson, Isaiah Hartenstein, Mitchell Robinson, Miles McBride and Bojan Bogdanovic.
The other half share the same trait. “They’re all overachievers,” Greg Anthony, the former Knick and current TNT analyst, told The Post. “There’s not one guy in their rotation who is not an overachiever.”
In all walks of life and human existence, it takes a certain personality to outgrow the outside expectations. Most of that is about commitment, about effort.
