Predicting the NBA's Eastern Conference for 2026-27

But the New York Knicks sit atop the conference at 52.5 in Andre Drummond-Jack.

kael who they drafted and another rookie they drafted in the second round out mitch robinson ariel huckporty and jeremy sohan um nbo champion jeremy sohan very impressive but yeah my initial thing with the knicks is like how can i go over if they've never hit like they they have never been a regular season juggernaut In this whole run, last four seasons, they did go over slightly last year.

They got 53 wins last year.

But this whole run, they've never been a team that's ripped off high 50s.

They've never cracked 60, as we talked about with DJ.

That's just not how they do it.

Unfortunately, they're like adversity clutch time merchants.

That's who they are, as we've seen with them coming back against the Celtics multiple times.

I lean under partly because there's no reason for them to push it in the regular season coming off the title.

It would be foolish to do so.

They lose Mitchell Robinson and Huck Porty, who is kind of important for them as well.

Playable.

Playable center.

Yeah, absolutely.

Drummond's okay.

But like Mitchell Robinson, he played 60 games for them last year.

And Towns, who's constantly in foul trouble, was super important for them.

And yeah, from that reason, I'm just going slightly under than the regular season output from last year with a slightly worse team.

Yeah, I think that's probably where I'm at.

They were 4th in offense and 10th in defense last year.

They have even less reason to care about the regular season at all.

And I do think big man depth and getting solid minutes out of bigs is really important in the regular season.

And look, Drummond's good-ish.

I mean... he's a fine backup big in the regular season.

Like he's in his mid thirties now, like at some point he's just going to fall off and not be useful anymore at all.