Just under two weeks ago, we wrote about the palpable impact Josh Hart has had on the New York Knicks when given the opportunity to start this season.

The Knicks have been slumping since that breakdown was published, but even with New York’s recent dismal play, Hart maintains an impressive impact as a starter over the course of the season.

Here is a simple breakdown of how the Knicks have performed through 44 games based on Hart’s role:

  • Hart as starter: 13-6 record (.684), +8.3 point differential
  • Hart off bench: 8-6 record (.571), +4.4 point differential
  • Hart absent: 5-6 record (.455), -3.6 point differential

These numbers seem to paint a simple picture: The more Hart, the merrier… right?

Well, perhaps it’s not that simple of an equation for Knicks head coach Mike Brown.

Do the Knicks need a new starting five?

While the Knicks have won games more consistently with Hart in their starting lineup, Brown still has to contend with a complex dilemma: the Knicks’ current starting lineup, featuring Hart in place of someone like Miles McBride or Mitchell Robinson, is nowhere close to their best five-man combination.

With everyone healthy, Brown has preferred to start the following five-man combo: Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, and Karl-Anthony Towns. This combination has played 158 minutes together, the most of any five-man combo for the Knicks.

Their net rating? Just +4.7. While that makes it a decent lineup relative to the average NBA lineup, it’s not nearly good enough for the starting lineup of a team that believes it should be running the Eastern Conference.

Among the Knicks’ 11 different five-man combos that have played at least 30 minutes together, their primary starting lineup ranks just sixth-best in net rating.

A more daunting comparison is to stack the unit up against the primary combos used by the Knicks’ top rivals in the Eastern Conference.

The Detroit Pistons’ primary starting lineup—Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson, Duncan Robinson, Tobias Harris, and Jalen Duren—has a net rating of +8.4, comfortably ahead of the Knicks’ starters. And this is in 292 minutes, nearly double the sample size.

The Boston Celtics, who have been playing elite basketball since mid-December, have recently discovered a new starting lineup that is working tremendously: Payton Pritchard, Sam Hauser, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, and Neemias Queta. In 149 minutes with this group on the floor, Boston has a net rating of +19.2.

The way things are going, the Knicks are poised to enter the Eastern Conference Semifinals with a much worse starting lineup than their opponent.

In fact, the Knicks’ primary starting five looked even more unimpressive before it skewed its numbers on Wednesday night during the largest blowout win in the franchise’s 80-year history. In their 54-point win over the inept Brooklyn Nets, the Knicks’ starting five outscored the Nets by 16 points in just 15 minutes. This ballooned their season-long net rating from +0.4 to +4.7 in one night.

Take out the historical outlier of a game against Brooklyn, and the Knicks’ primary starting lineup—a group of five guys being paid $172 million this season alone—is outscoring opponents by 0.4 points per 100 possessions.

You’re not winning an NBA championship with that. It’s just not happening. Case closed.

Although things trended in a promising direction on Wednesday night against Brooklyn, one great outing against a team full of underdeveloped youngsters is not enough to change the reality that has been glaringly obvious for well over a year now: This lineup is not very good.

We just finished an entire playoff run in which this exact lineup was the No. 1 subject of scrutiny in the New York sports world. In the 2025 playoffs, Tom Thibodeau ran this lineup into the ground, playing it 335 minutes in 18 games (18.6 minutes per game), even though it was outscored by 6.2 points per 100 possessions.

The playoff woes were no surprise, as even in the regular season, the Brunson-Hart-Bridges-Anunoby-Towns lineup had a mediocre net rating of +3.3 over a gigantic sample size of 940 minutes. Not only was it the most-used lineup in the NBA, but it was more than 200 minutes ahead of the closest lineup, and more than double the fourth-most-used lineup.

Thibodeau gathered more than enough information during the regular season to know that this particular lineup did not give his team the best chance of winning, and yet, he relied on it even more heavily in the playoffs, refusing to pivot until it was too late. His obsession with this lineup is arguably what got him fired. It probably cost the Knicks an Eastern Conference title at the very least, and possibly an NBA title.

Now, Brown is adhering to the same exact group despite similarly uninspiring results.

While Hart has enjoyed a solid season (offensively), and the Knicks have won games at a higher rate with him in the starting lineup, it is time for Brown to admit that the specific five-man combo of Brunson, Hart, Bridges, Anunoby, and Towns is not built to compete for championships. If the Knicks want to start playing like legitimate title contenders, they need a new starting lineup.

And Hart cannot be a part of it.

The Knicks’ preferred starting lineup

Benching Hart would not mean he is no longer a critical piece of the Knicks’ plans. He could still play 26, 28, or even 30 minutes per game off the bench.

The Knicks just have to stop using that specific five-man combination. We have 1,433 minutes of data (almost 24 hours’ worth of basketball) telling us that it is not a combination capable of performing at an elite level.

New York’s best option to replace Hart? Clearly, it is Miles McBride.

Before diving into the lineup data, it is worth stating that, independent of anything else, McBride simply deserves more minutes.

The man is shooting 43.7% from downtown on 8.9 three-point attempts per 36 minutes; no other player in the NBA (min. 30 games) is shooting as accurately on as many attempts per minute. He does it while playing solid defense on the wing. This player should be playing more than 28 minutes per game and shooting more than 10.3 shots per game. Simple as that.

More important than McBride’s individual play, though, is how well he works alongside the Knicks’ starters. Each of the Knicks’ best players looks significantly better with McBride next to them.

The Knicks are 11.4 points per 100 possessions better with McBride on the court than off, the best margin of any player on the team by far. Most notably, each of their starters plays their best basketball when paired with McBride.

Here are the net ratings of the Knicks’ primary four starters when they play with McBride, as well as where that two-man combo ranks among all two-man combos featuring that starter (among those with 100+ minutes)

  • Brunson with McBride: +12.6 (Brunson’s best combo)
  • Anunoby with McBride: +12.2 (Anunoby’s best combo)
  • Bridges with McBride: +9.0 (Bridges’ best combo)
  • Towns with McBride: +7.8 (Towns’ 2nd-best combo)

These are the types of net ratings that the Knicks need from their starting lineup to compete with Detroit and Boston in a seven-game series.

Three of the Knicks’ four starters play their best basketball when paired with McBride, while Towns is not far behind (only Tyler Kolek gets a better net rating out of Towns).

Interestingly, the Brunson-McBride-Bridges-Anunoby-Towns lineup has not yet yielded the desired results. In 91 minutes, this exact grouping has a net rating of -1.4.

Given how well all four players perform with McBride, though, it stands to reason that the five-man grouping will trend up with more minutes together.

In fact, that lineup’s lowly net rating is probably just the byproduct of bad opponent-shooting luck over a small sample.

With the Brunson-McBride-Bridges-Anunoby-Towns lineup on the court, New York’s opponents are shooting 56.1% from the field and 44.6% from deep. While it raises concerns about the lineup’s defensive capabilities, those numbers are outliers and should be expected to drop over time.

After all, the same lineup with Hart subbed in for McBride has allowed opponents to shoot 47.1% from the field, and McBride is clearly a better defender than Hart, so it does not make sense to expect that the McBride lineup will continue allowing such exorbitant shooting numbers.

On the positive side, the McBride lineup has displayed tantalizing potential on offense. It boasts a 126.9 offensive rating, buoyed by its 66.6% true shooting.

What gives the lineup such a high ceiling is that it fits the modern NBA as a true five-out lineup, which the Knicks don’t get with Hart in McBride’s shoes. With McBride out there, the Knicks have five shooting threats to space the floor, creating more room for each scorer to touch the paint and kick it out for open threes.

Since everyone on the court is a shooting threat when McBride replaces Hart, Brunson can instinctively throw the ball to any teammate who is left open by a double-team and trust that teammate to capitalize on the advantage. If Hart is out there, his man can sag off to help on Brunson without worrying that Hart will take a shot if he gets the ball. With McBride in for Hart, every defender has to worry about giving up an open three if they help onto Brunson. It changes everything for the offense.

The proof is in the pudding. When Hart plays with the other four starters, the Knicks have put up 119 threes in 158 minutes, an average of just 36.2 per 48 minutes. With the Brunson-McBride-Bridges-Anunoby-Towns lineup, New York has launched a whopping 80 threes in 91 minutes, 42.2 per 48 minutes, an increase of six attempts.

When you have five excellent outside shooters on the court, points will be scored in bunches from taking so many threes; the Celtics have taught us as much in recent years. Launching a ton of threes with their five most talented scorers on the court is New York’s best chance at extending massive early leads with their starting lineup.

Another advantage is that, with more room for drivers to punish one-on-ones, the Knicks’ starters get to the line far more often when McBride is pulling defenders away from the lane. New York has an incredible free-throw attempt rate of 0.329 with the Brunson-McBride-Bridges-Anunoby-Towns lineup, compared to a mediocre 0.191 with the primary starting lineup.

Anunoby and Towns particularly benefit. They see their free-throw attempt rates rise by 0.12 and 0.31, respectively, when playing with this lineup compared to any other lineup. It shows how floor spacing can unlock newfound aggressiveness for players who otherwise might be hesitant to attack the basket when they know that help is probably coming.

Start Deuce. It’s really all that needs to be said if the Knicks want to maximize their title odds without making any significant changes to the roster.