The New York Knicks are champions — winning the franchise’s first title in 53 years — after eliminating the San Antonio Spurs in Game 5 of the 2026 NBA Finals, and now the offseason is upon us.
We are here — while you are still celebrating, New York; while you are commiserating, everyone else — to set the table with the six most massive storylines of the summer.
Antetokounmpo has made it clear he wants to play for a team with a legitimate chance to win a championship, and the Bucks are far from that, which makes the partnership awkward. The two-time league MVP has all but publicly requested a trade from Milwaukee, and the Bucks reportedly opened business for a deal last month (if they had not done so already).
So, we fully anticipate Antetokounmpo to change teams this summer, perhaps even as soon as before the draft, and that’s a big deal. He remains one of the NBA’s best players, averaging a 28-11-6 on 62.4% true shooting in the past decade as, really, a point forward.
He also turns 32 years old in December and has mounting injury concerns. Knee and calf ailments cost him all but 36 games this past season, as the Bucks won 32 games. He is owed $58.5 million next season and holds a $62.8 million option for the 2027-28 season. He is due a massive contract extension. And you will have to gut your assets to get him.
But he might be worth it. With Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton as his co-stars, Giannis led Milwaukee to the 2021 championship. He’s won a single playoff series since, though that has more to do with the roster around him than his contributions. When healthy, his effort level is always on tilt, and he is a wrecking ball of a force on both ends of the floor.
Some team will convince itself it is an Antetokounmpo away from a title. The Miami Heat are reportedly in hottest pursuit and fear the Boston Celtics as their chief competition on an expanding list of suitors that includes the Minnesota Timberwolves, Orlando Magic and Portland Trail Blazers, according to multiple reports. Does Miami have enough to get him? Would Boston part with Jaylen Brown? These are questions that need answering — soon.
A loaded — and homegrown — 2026 NBA draft
The NBA’s 2026 draft class is considered a stacked one. At the top, it boasts a group of four could-be franchise cornerstones, all from collegiate basketball: BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, Duke’s Cameron Boozer, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson and North Carolina’s Caleb Wilson.
After them, there’s a run of really talented guards, any of whom could be a star, all of whom you saw in the NCAA tournament: Louisville’s Mikel Brown Jr., Arkansas’ Darius Acuff Jr., Illinois’ Keaton Wagler, Arizona’s Brayden Burries and Houston’s Kingston Flemings.
Even 7-foot-3 Spaniard Aday Mara — considered the top international prospect in the draft, if only as a defensive counter to Wembanyama — played for the NCAA champion Michigan Wolverines this past season. If you even paid cursory attention to basketball beyond the NBA, you should recognize a ton of these names, and if you didn’t, well, just know this, as always: good players will fall deep into the first round, even into the second.
To better familiarize yourself with this year’s draft class, check out our NBA Draft Guide, featuring in-depth analysis of each prospect and a two-round mock by Kevin O’Connor.
How do contenders respond to a Knicks title?
Every season, it seems, whenever a team wins a championship, others try to draw lessons from the reigning champion, as if there is some definitive blueprint for a title.
What can we learn from these Knicks? You don’t necessarily need a top-five player to win the whole thing. Jalen Brunson made this year’s All-NBA Second Team. Karl-Anthony Towns made the Third Team last season and was left off the rosters this season. Neither OG Anunoby nor Mikal Bridges have ever made an All-Star team. They, and the rest of the rotation, are just a bunch of really good players around an extraordinary clutch performer.
Do teams, then, consider themselves closer to a title than they imagined? You think New York scares the Celtics or Pistons? The East’s top two seeds wish they had a shot at the Knicks, but fell short before they could meet them. Might they, respectively, put Brown or Jalen Duren on the table in an attempt to better balance the roster around a superstar?
Then again, the other lesson we learned from these Knicks is that continuity matters. Undoubtedly, the fact they were mostly all together for a couple of years now — and for Brunson, Bridges and Josh Hart, dating back to Villanova — benefited the Knicks. Their chemistry, really, is what won them the title, and that cannot be slapped together. It might have required a different coach to tap into it, but the same players remain the heartbeat.
So, should the Celtics and Pistons instead move on the fringes, continuing to build around their existing cores? There is a case to be made in front offices for that, too.
If you’re not as far from a title as you may have thought, if these 53-win Knicks can catch lightning in a bottle for two months, should you take a big swing — for Antetokounmpo, for New Orleans’ Trey Murphy III, for whomever — to supplant them as betting favorites? Or should you tinker around the edges, hoping continuity — and coaching — carry the day?
How teams answer these questions could dictate the availability of, say, Evan Mobley in Cleveland, Paolo Banchero in Orlando, De’Aaron Fox in San Antonio, Chet Holmgren or Jalen Williams in Oklahoma City, anyone but Nikola Jokić or Anthony Edwards in Denver and Minnesota, respectively, or actually everyone in Houston. The list of could-be contenders is long, especially if we expand it to include every 50-win outfit in the league.
Really, teams might be more scared of the Spurs and what they could become as Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper mature. Do rivals, then, say, screw it, the window is open, let’s make a big swing, let’s go for Antetokounmpo and take advantage?
Someone will bite, but there is only one Giannis, and he will cost you your continuity.
Yes, LeBron James, one of the greatest players in the history of the game, is an unrestricted free agent. His talents have not been on the market, really, since 2018, and not since The Decision in 2010 has his status been so uncertain. All of which makes him 41 years old. The most accomplished 41-year-old in basketball history. But 41 years old.
He can still play. He made the All-Star team for the Lakers this past season and was the league’s best third option for a spell, at least until the much younger Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves suffered injuries that impacted their playoff availability. Then, James could not carry those Lakers beyond the second round, which is impressive nonetheless. But not good enough in Los Angeles, where championships are expected from superstars.
So, do the Lakers believe they can win a title with James as a third option? Would he be willing to be paid as a tertiary star, as both Dončić and Reaves command higher salaries?
Likewise, does James believe he can win a title with these Lakers, given how far they were from defeating the Thunder? If he must take less money to re-sign in L.A., might he consider accepting a below-value deal to join a more ready-made contender elsewhere?
We recently dove into LeBron’s options, and the list of potential destinations — ones that James would accept, and ones that could accommodate him — is shorter than you think.
Aspiration scandal
We should soon have a resolution to the Aspiration scandal, which alleges the Clippers funneled funds through the company to pay superstar Kawhi Leonard, violating the NBA’s salary-cap rules. The league launched its investigation when journalist Pablo Torre first broke news of alleged cap circumvention in September, and it has yet to be resolved.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver reminded us prior to the Finals that an independent law firm is conducting the investigation, and while there has been a rush to judgment in the public sphere, the league is taking its time to ensure that it at least gets its ruling correct.
“I don’t have a specific timeline on when they will be completed,” said Silver. “I think it’s clear they are far along. … I think they understand that you could keep going on and on, but I think we are close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up, because you also need finality. The team has to understand what situation they are going to be operating under, and so do the other 29 teams. So that’s where things currently stand.”
The Clippers, for what it’s worth, own the No. 5 pick in this year’s draft. At least for now.
Nikola Jokić and looming contract extensions
While more than 100 players become eligible for contract extensions this summer, and we should expect dozens to sign them, there are a few important ones to keep an eye on.
First and foremost, as the Finals conclude, Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokić, the league’s three-time MVP, becomes eligible for a contract extension that could be worth an additional $278 million through the 2030-31 season. If Jokić, who holds a $62.8 million option for the 2027-28 campaign, does not sign the deal, how will the Nuggets respond?
Do they panic and try to maximize the return for one of the game’s truly elite players? Or, more likely, do they (again) retool a roster around Jokić, ultimately persuading him to stay?
Or, of course, Jokić could just sign the extension. He did inform reporters in the aftermath of a first-round loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, “I still want to be a Nugget forever.”
The Cavaliers face a similar situation with Donovan Mitchell. While the All-NBA guard has publicly pledged his allegiance to Cleveland, nobody will truly know Mitchell’s desire until he puts pen to paper on a deal that could keep him under contract on the Cavs until 2031. And if he doesn’t, well, that might signal that he is not so committed to the organization.
It is not dissimilar to what has happened with Giannis, who becomes extension eligible on Oct. 1, when he could stun everybody by re-signing with the Bucks. Everybody gets anxious around these extensions, and for good reason: It is nerve-racking not to know how a superstar feels. Not until an offer is on the table does any player believe he will get a maximum extension, and not until he signs it does his team know he wants to stay.
It takes trust between a superstar and his front office, trust that can be frayed in any number of ways, especially when it comes to finances, and maybe that’s the biggest lesson we have learned from these Knicks, one that is impossible to replicate, since Leon Rose, New York’s top executive, is the actual godfather of their best player, Brunson, the 2026 Finals MVP.
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