It may not have ended how they wanted or even came to expect, but the New York Knicks’ 2023-24 campaign will go down as a rollicking success—a gritty-as-hell run that saw them progress functionally and culturally, all while navigating injury issues potentially beyond compare.

Everyone involved deserves a moment or three to bask in the afterglow once the sting wears off from New York’s Game 7 loss to the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference semifinals. But if we’ve learned anything about this core, it has little time or patience for moral victories and linear progress and “Atta boys!”

This is a group that needs the offseason but will loathe entering it on anything less than its own terms—all (totally understandable) “Well, only one squad wins it all” caveats be damned.

Fittingly enough, the Knicks front office, led by president Leon Rose, thinks and operates in the same vein. It has meticulously assembled, preserved and rolled over an asset base ready-made for the Next Thing(s).

Shuffling the deck in advance of the trade deadline, twice, does not change this approach. Indeed, New York as it sits may be the answer to the question of “Who’s the second-best team in the East at full strength?” But there is still work to be done—decisions to make, swings to take, futures to figure out.

And while taking time to reflect upon and appreciate what the Knicks just did is essential, puzzling out the next steps—both big and small—begins now.