CJ McCollum saw the Knicks coming before anyone else did. Even the Knicks.
The Atlanta Hawks veteran revealed on SiriusXM NBA Radio this week that during their first-round playoff series with New York, he pulled OG Anunoby aside at the free-throw line and told him something very specific.
“I wasn’t surprised they won. I actually told OG at the free-throw line, ‘I think you guys can win the championship,'” McCollum said. “Looking at their roster, how they were playing, meshing, and their focus and intensity, I saw a team capable of making a deep run.”
McCollum was right. Atlanta pushed the Knicks harder than anyone did in the entire postseason, winning two games in the first round before losing the series. New York then went on a rampage. Three more series, one loss total, and the franchise’s first championship in over five decades was raised at Madison Square Garden.
The prediction is impressive in retrospect. It is even more impressive in the moment. This was a Hawks team going toe-to-toe with New York, and their veteran leader was already telling opposing players that the Knicks had it. That is either extremely gracious or extremely honest.
McCollum is one of the smartest players in the league, both on and off the court. He runs the NBPA. He has a broadcast career waiting whenever he wants it. His feel for team dynamics and roster construction is real, and he clearly saw something in that Knicks roster that most fans and pundits missed.
Because let us be honest. Before the playoffs, the Knicks were viewed as a very good team, not a championship team. Boston was the favorite until Jayson Tatum went down. Cleveland had home court. Oklahoma City was terrifying in the West. Nobody had the Knicks winning it all.
What McCollum saw was the same thing the basketball world eventually caught up to. Jalen Brunson had ascended to top-10 player status. OG Anunoby had become the perfect complementary two-way star. Karl-Anthony Towns was giving them the spacing they had never had. Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges filled every gap. Tom Thibodeau finally had a healthy team that could actually go small when needed.
The Hawks pushed them harder than any team in the East. Trae Young and Dyson Daniels gave New York genuine problems. Atlanta won two games. That is not nothing. But McCollum, watching from the inside, saw the Knicks figure things out mid-series and knew it was over for everyone else.
Now the entire league has to catch New York. Atlanta signed McCollum to a 1-year, $21 million extension in June specifically to run it back with a veteran core that just won 46 games, the franchise’s most in a decade. They believe they can push the Knicks harder next year.
Can they? Maybe. The Hawks’ upside is capped by Trae Young’s defense and the ceiling of their bench. But with McCollum, Zaccharie Risacher, Jalen Johnson and a fully healthy roster, Atlanta has a puncher’s chance in the East.
The bigger story here is McCollum’s basketball IQ. He watched the Knicks figure themselves out in real time and told OG Anunoby to his face. Now everyone else has to figure out how to knock New York off the perch.
Good luck.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
