Ever since becoming champions, it’s been a celebration in the city of New York. With the team, players, and fans all uniting together as one to celebrate this legendary championship. Following the Knicks championship parade and ceremony on Thursday, the team now turns to the offseason.
The 2026 NBA Draft is next week starting on Tuesday, June 23. The Knicks currently hold three picks with the No.24 (first round pick), No.31 (second round pick), and No.55 (second round pick).
If the Knicks decide to draft three players and not make any trades, they would have 11 players on the roster. The Knicks currently have eight players under contract for the upcoming season with the starting five core (Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart, and Karl-Anthony Towns), Miles McBride, Pacôme Dadiet, and Tyler Kolek.
After the two days of the NBA Draft, the following week beginning on Tuesday, June 30, NBA free agency takes place.
The Knicks have 10 free agents with five restricted free agents (Ariel Hukporti, Mohamed Diawara, Kevin McCullar Jr., Dillion Jones, and Trey Jemison), four unrestricted free agents (Mitchell Robinson, Jordan Clarkson, Landry Shamet and Jeremy Sochan), and one player option (Jose Alvarado).
Despite the Knicks becoming the NBA’s most recent champions, most likely not everyone will return to the roster to run it back. Knicks owner James Dolan recently was on WFAN radio in New York and was asked about the future of the team financial wise. “We cannot go into the second apron, Dolan said. I’ll write as big of a check as possible, but I can’t write a check that goes into the second apron.”
The NBA’s second apron started back in the 2024 offseason after it was agreed as part of the Collective Bargaining Agreement by the league and players back in 2023. The second apron is a strict spending limit that punishes teams for paying too much money to their players. With the second apron not going away any time soon, the Knicks will look to rely heavily on getting cheap rookie draft picks and league-minimum contracts to help out the bench.
The Knicks will have plenty of tough decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. As the team don’t want to lose four key players off the bench that played big time roles (Mitchell Robinson, Jordan Clarkson, Landry Shamet, and Jose Alvarado.)
The Knicks front office will now turn to improving the roster as they look to become the first team to repeat since the 2017-2018 Golden State Warriors.
