Expected wins for 2023-24 New York Knicks: Too high, too low, or spot on?

The sportsbooks are placing the barely-changed New York Knicks as the 13th-best team in the NBA entering the 2024 season with a win projection of 45.5 games.

The Knicks find themselves below five other Eastern Conference teams, including the Celtics, Bucks, Cavs, 76ers, and Heat in that order. The win projections of those five franchises range from 54.5 (Boston, no. 1 overall) to 48.5 (Miami, 9th-best).

New York is coming off a season in which they posted a .573 winning percentage and won 47 games, the most since they burned the league to the tune of 54 wins in 2013. Both the 2023 and 2013 seasons ended similarly for the Knicks as they failed to get past the Eastern Conference Finals losing to the Heat and the Indiana Pacers respectively.

Last season was also the second in three years in which the Knicks reached the playoffs, something they had not done twice in a three-year span since they went back-to-back-to-back between 2011 and 2013.

When it comes to the Knicks' chances of lifting the Larry O’B, DraftKings gives the New Yorkers +5000 odds of doing so or a 1.6% probability. That’s also the 13th-highest percentage among all NBA franchises next season.

The Mavericks (3.6%) and the Clippers (4.3%) are above New York, while the Knicks are tied with the Pelicans (1.6%) and a hair above the Kings (1.5%)

These lines normally feel conservative but it’s important to understand the dynamics of sportsbooks, which are based on a gazillion fan predictions normally forcing all of them to converge to the mean.

Just last season, the Knicks were projected to win 38.5 games and they ended up with 47 victories, nearly 10 more than expected. The Celtics had the highest O/U at 54.5 and they won 57 games, with Milwaukee (58) getting the most wins throughout the regular season while projected to 53.5 in the preseason.

New York’s 2023 +8.5 win differential compared to the projection was the fifth-highest in the NBA, only topped by Indiana, Utah, Sacramento, and Oklahoma City. However, only the Kings (48) reached at least 47 wins last season as the Knicks did.

On the other end, oddsmakers were too high on Dallas (10.5 fewer wins than projected), Golden State (-8.5), and the Los Angeles Lakers (-8.5) as those three teams finished with an inverse win differential (or worse) than the Knicks’ one.

Coincidentally, all of those three teams are once more expected to win more games than New York in 2024. Do you think the Knicks will outperform their projection once again while those three franchises (and/or others) will fall down the projected ranks?

Make your prediction below before the season gets rolling on Oct. 24th!