Here's what's important to remember, the fact that casts the rest of it in proper context: the New York Knicks were terrible last year.
I mean, sure, they were bad the year before, when they missed the playoffs just one season after winning 54 games, the Atlantic Division and a playoff series for the first time since the Clinton Administration. But they were intensely heinous last season, finishing with the second-worst record in the NBA and the worst mark in franchise history ... and, sepia-tinged remembrances of Willis and the Rolls Royce backcourt and the sweat of Patrick Ewing's labor aside, there's been an awful lot of "worst" in this franchise's history.