2025–26 New York Knicks season

The 2025–26 New York Knicks season is the 80th season for the franchise in the National Basketball Association (NBA). On June 3, 2025, the Knicks fired head coach Tom Thibodeau after five seasons with the team. On July 7, the Knicks hired Mike Brown as their head coach.

In the 2025 NBA Cup, the Knicks won East Group C with a 3–1 record in the group stage, advancing to the knockout stage after clinching a head-to-head tiebreaker over the Miami Heat, who had an identical group stage record. In the knockout stage, they defeated the Toronto Raptors in the quarterfinals, the Orlando Magic in the semifinals, and finally the San Antonio Spurs in the championship round, winning the Cup title. The Knicks finished the tournament with a 6–1 record, becoming the first Cup champions to win the tournament title without a perfect record.

In a span from December 31 to January 19, the Knicks had a 2–9 stretch that featured two separate 4-game losing streaks, their longest streak since the 2023–24 season. Following a blowout loss to the Dallas Mavericks, the Knicks closed out the month with a 5-game winning streak, which included a 120–66 victory over the rival Brooklyn Nets, which also broke a franchise record for the largest victory margin in a regular season game.

On March 30, the Knicks clinched the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season following the Philadelphia 76ers loss to the Miami Heat. On April 9, the Knicks improved over their 51–31 record from the previous season with a win over the Boston Celtics. They finished the regular season with a 53–29 record, placing third in the East.

In the first round of the playoffs, the Knicks defeated the Atlanta Hawks in six games, advancing to the semifinals for the fourth consecutive year. The series concluded with a record-breaking game where the Knicks set an NBA playoff record for the largest halftime lead (47 points) and a franchise record for the largest playoff margin of victory (51 points). The Knicks also became the first NBA Cup champions to win a playoff series in the same season. They would later sweep the Philadelphia 76ers in the semifinals, advancing to the Eastern Conference finals for the second season in a row, where they would face the Cleveland Cavaliers and yet again pulled off another sweep to clinch their first NBA Finals berth since 1999. Since facing a 2–1 deficit to the Atlanta Hawks, the Knicks won a franchise-best 11 consecutive postseason games, including the two aforementioned series sweeps, to compile a 12–2 overall post season record entering the NBA Finals. As of their Eastern Conference Final win, the Knicks recorded a point-differential of +221, the biggest over the first 12 games of the playoffs in NBA history. Additionally, their 9-game stretch point-differential of +212 is the greatest of any team in the history of the NBA.

The Knicks entered the draft with a single second-round pick, which originally belonged to the Memphis Grizzlies; the Knicks had acquired it through a 2024 trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder as Memphis secured a more favorable draft position than the Boston Celtics by finishing with a worse record in the previous season. The team had originally held another second-round selection, but it was forfeited due to tampering violations related to the free agency signing of Jalen Brunson in 2022, following three consecutive drafts that each featured only 58 total picks due to various teams—including the Knicks in prior years—being penalized for free agency violations. They had also traded their own 2025 first-round pick to the Brooklyn Nets in 2024 as an exchange for Mikal Bridges.

With the 50th overall pick, the Knicks selected Kobe Sanders, but immediately traded his draft rights to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for the draft rights to the 51st pick, Mohamed Diawara, and to Luka Mitrović.