The 2013 Knicks were a fan favorite in the NBA even for fans of other teams. This group of guys were fun, creative, and unique. The term “Knickstape” arose when Iman Shumpert gave life to this new nickname as a way to describe the different personalities and skill sets of the team. Shumpert commented in 2013, the team was a  “mixtape of personalities all wearing the Knicks jersey.” Shumpert then went on to say, “I just take it as everybody is on a mixtape. You got the club song, the sophisticated song, and the brand new song.” The way it was described was just so abstract and different, giving everyone their own representation through a song. He began talking about his evaluation of each player’s play style: “You got so many different personalities, you got dudes that could dunk, you got dudes dudes that don’t say nothing, you got Novacane (Steve Novak) that just don’t miss. You got so many personalities. It’s so cool to me.”

Aside from the fun part, every team strives for success during the course of the season and the Knicks were no stranger to that, finishing with a record of 54-28 and claiming the second seed in the Eastern Conference, behind only the Miami Heat, led by their four headed dragon, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and Ray Allen. During the regular season the Knicks were an overall fun team to watch play. From the alley-oops to Tyson Chandler and Amar’e Stoudemire, Steve Novak making threes like it’s nothing, and Carmelo Anthony making everything look easy when it comes to his three point shot, mid range, and handles, the Knicks truly represented the energy of New York. Anthony was the star player and led the team in scoring with 28.7 points per game; however, with so many different guys on this team who each do their own thing, it was sort of like one whole roster that fit perfectly with each other. 

When it came to the playoffs, the Knicks faced the Boston Celtics, a division rival to the New York team. The Knicks started out hot, winning the first three games all in blowout fashion. Boston bounced back winning games four & five, but the Knicks took care of business and defeated the Boston Celtics in game six, winning the series 4-2. They then faced a tough matchup against the Indiana Pacers, led by George Hill, David West, and a young Paul George. The Pacers won the first game, then the Knicks bounced back in game two. However, the Pacers won two out of the next three while the Knicks only won one, making it a 3-2 series, Pacers lead. Unfortunately, in game six the Knicks season came to an end, losing 106-99, and falling to the Pacers 4-2.

Although the Knicks had a frustrating finish to what was an exhilarating season, that doesn’t take away from the fact that this team was the definition and standard to what we call Knicks basketball today. After this era of Knicks basketball they had a tough streak of losing seasons. They lost pretty much the entire roster in a span of a few years and tried to start over and draft new foundations of the franchise in Kristaps Porzingis, Frank Ntilikina, and Kevin Knox II. This definitely did not work, considering all of these first-round picks from separate years are no longer with the Knicks. While the Knicks have brought it back and have started to become more competitive recently, nothing compares to the 2013 Knicks, aka Knickstape.