After 53 years, the New York Knicks are NBA champions once again. At the core of their title-winning roster are the famed “Nova Knicks” trio of guard Jalen Brunson, wing Mikal Bridges, and wing Josh Hart. The three Villanova Knicks were dubbed with their moniker via their NCAA teaming on the Villanova Wildcats men’s basketball team, in which they also won a national championship together in 2016.
What ultimately solidified the Nova Knicks core into NBA champions was the addition of center Karl-Anthony Towns and wing OG Anunoby, players who have no allegiance to Villanova University yet share a common bond with the Nova Knicks (aside from Bridges).
Towns, Anunoby, Hart, and Brunson are all clients of the CAA Sports agency, which was once the home of a wildly successful NBA agent named Leon Rose, the same Leon Rose who runs the New York Knicks front office. The same Leon Rose who once represented Tom Thibodeau, the former Bulls and Knicks head coach.
You see, the foundation of the 2025-26 New Knicks NBA championship starts with the organizational advantage of partnering with a powerhouse sports agency that facilitated the construction of a team that navigated CBA obstacles, and leveraged the Knicks surplus draft capital to finally end the Knicks' title drought that existed before the NBA three-point line was introduced.
So theoretically, the Chicago Bulls, who are in the genesis of their roster rebuild, could benchmark the Knicks' title run as a playbook for returning the franchise to relevance.
However, it would require the Bulls to go on a prolific draft capital accumulation spree, partner with a super agent-tier sports agency (an NBA agent with $1B+ in total NBA player contract representation), and acquire a top talent from that agency on their second NBA contract, just like the Knicks when they signed Bruson in 2022 NBA unrestricted free agency via cap space.
The NBA sports agency partnership options available to the Bulls
For starters, let’s exclude CAA Sports since they are effectively a Knicks-house and Klutch Sports, home of super agent and CEO Rich Paul, which aptly has their hand in representing players across the majority of NBA franchises.
Other NBA super agents worth noting are Jeff Schwartz of Excel Sports Management, Jason Glushon of Glushon Sports Management, and Bill Duffy of WME Sports, who don’t really have a superstar upside rookie contract the Bulls can target to acquire on the player’s second contract.
Here’s the agent who is the possible solution to this puzzle: Mark Bartlestein of Priority Sports & Entertainment, an agency that coincidentally is headquartered in Chicago, IL.
Bartlestein represents Charlotte Hornets sharpshooter Kon Knueppel, who has all the bona fides to be a perennial All-NBA player. If the Bulls somehow found their way to acquire Knueppel, then perhaps rounding out the roster with other Bartlestein clients like Zach Edey, Keegan Murray, and Herb Jones might usher in a new era of Bulls relevancy.
This isn’t to suggest this premise is easy to achieve, rather this story is intended to contextualize what sort of roster maneuvering it would take for the Bulls to replicate the roster moves the Knicks executed over four years to win it all.
The Knicks didn’t tank their way to a title, and they didn’t have to, because they had the draft capital and sports agency backing to trade their way to an NBA championship.
Add us as a preferred source on Google