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The NBA In-Season Tournament is set to make its debut during the 2023 season, with the announcement being met with mixed reviews. Invariably it will take some time for what will be known as the NBA Cup to develop much prestige, but with games in the tournament counting towards regular season records, teams will be keen to put their best foot forward – oh, and the $500,000 given to each player on the winning team will help, too.
The New York Knicks will be no different, but with all 30 teams out to win this thing, claiming the inaugural NBA Cup won't be easy. These are the three main reasons that the Knicks won't win the 2023 NBA In-Season Tournament.
1. The quality of their group
Every team in the NBA In-Season Tournament consists of five teams – one that finished top three in their Conference last season, one each from positions 4-6, 7-9, 10-12 and 13-15. The Knicks, of course, are in the 4-6 group, meaning they were always going to get a team which finished above them last season. But they've been a little unlucky in that the team from that top tier is the Milwaukee Bucks, who finished top, and making things a whole lot harder is the fact that the team in their group from the 7-9 tier is one of last season's NBA Finalists, the Miami Heat,
That makes getting out of East Group B a mighty tough ask. To qualify for the quarterfinals, the Knicks most likely need to win their group – that means, obviously, finishing ahead of both the Bucks and Heat, as well as the Washington Wizards and Charlotte Hornets. There is one other avenue – the two second-placed teams with the best records out of the six groups will also advance as a wildcard, but even that will be tough for the Knicks.
2. There are a lot of better-credentialed team than the Knicks
Though the Knicks showed some good signs last year and have reason to be optimistic heading into the 2023-24 season, they're not exactly a championship favorite, and to win this tournament they'll have to beat a lot of the teams which are in that conversation. If, theoretically, they managed to make their way out of East Group B, they'll have to win three more games against teams which either finished first in their group, or advanced as a wildcard.
The teams most likely to do that in the East are the Boston Celtics from East Group C, and the Philadelphia 76ers or Cleveland Cavaliers from East Group A. On the other side of the draw, the likes of the Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns, Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors are those most likely to be advancing. The Knicks are capable of knocking off teams like that on occasion, but doing it three successive times after already advancing out of a tough group? That seems pretty unlikely.
3. Spacing
Now to one of the actual reasons that the aforementioned teams will be so hard to beat. There are a number of them, not least the fact that the Knicks, for all of their pretty good players, don't quite have the top-level talent of many other teams in the league. But one of the major metrics of concern for the Knicks last season was three-point shooting percentage, and that's not likely to change this season.
The Knicks last season were in the bottom 11 in the league for each of three-point shooting, field goal percentage and free-throw shooting. Shooting ability is a deficiency for this team. That's not to say they have no good shooters; Jalen Brunson is a bonafide weapon from outside, while both Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes can knock them down with reasonable regularity too. But with a center who can't space the floor at all and two forwards in Julius Randle and RJ Barrett who miss a hell of a lot more than they take, spacing – or a lack thereof – looks set to continue to restrict the Knicks' ability to improve this season.
Just one team will take home the inaugural NBA Cup, so failing to win it isn't exactly a disaster. With financial incentives combined with the contribution of the In-Season Tournament games to regular season records, winning it will still be on the agenda for every team, but the Knicks aren't likely to be the team holding that cup for the firs time.
