The Knicks are the 5th best team in the league right now, ex aequo with Dallas. If that is sucking then every team outside of the Top 5 sucks and the NBA can close the rest of the league. And yes, on paper they are mediocre but I believe they are a Playoff team much more so than Regular Season team.
It would be a good idea to merge East and West in the Playoffs but I guess that would not happen in the foreseeable future.
Imagine paying Tobias Harris $35M a year for him to put up 0 points on 2 shots in an elimination game.
He made 39.27 million this year and averaged 9 points (51%TS) in 36.3 mpg in the playoffs. That's an absolute backbreaker, they lost their games by an average of 4.5 points and desperately needed help to relieve Embiid and Maxey.