Should you be relaxed or worried about Knicks’ start? It’s complicated

Sometimes, every now and again, you get a year straight out of a fantasy, so there’s no reason to suffer from what we’ll call “Small Sample Sepsis.”

In 1984, the Detroit Tigers started their season 35-5. There was, quite literally, no reason for a Tigers fan to suffer even an ounce of angst after Cinco de Mayo. Forty years later, the 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers began their season 15-0 and 33-4. It was pretty apparent by the end of January that the Cavs were going to cruise to the No. 1 seed.

Those seasons are rare. So are the ultra extremes in the other direction: Despite all the positive vibes emanating from Cincinnati last week, the Jets still started this season 0-7. They are that bad. The Nets look like a calamity — as expected — and now we wait to see if they can match the zinc standard of the 2009-2010 version, when they were still playing in Jersey and started the season 0-18 and 2-29 and 5-52 on the way to 12-70. No mystery attached to any season like that.

Most every other season … well, it’s a war between “I’ve seen enough!” and “we haven’t seen enough.” The 1986 Mets, for example, started 2-3; they squeaked by at 108-54. The 1998 Yankees famously started 1-4 and there was already a Joe Torre Watch; the Yankees went 113-44 the rest of the way. Turns out they were fine.