New York Giants edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux was the topic of trade rumors around the 2026 NFL Draft in late April, and while ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Giants “never came close” to trading Thibodeaux at draft time, the rumors persist.
For now, however, Thibodeaux is all in on New York.
The Giants posted a video showing an energized Thibodeaux jogging out to Wednesday’s OTA while wearing Jalen Brunson’s No. 11 New York Knicks jersey and declaring to the camera, “Knicks in 5!”
The Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs will play Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals in San Antonio on Wednesday night.
Thibodeaux might be biased toward the Knicks and the No. 5 — he wears No. 5, and the Giants drafted him fifth overall in 2022 — but there are plenty of purely basketball reasons to believe the Knicks can win the Finals over the Spurs in five games.
The Knicks are riding an 11-game winning streak into Game 1 of the Finals. And it has been a historic winning streak, at that. According to the NBA, the Knicks’ +23.8 point differential over the past 11 games is the highest in any 11-game span, regular or postseason, in league history. The Knicks are also the first team in NBA history to score at least 108 points in every game of an 11-game span.
The Knicks swept the Cleveland Cavaliers to win the Eastern Conference Finals, while the Spurs defeated the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games to capture the Western Conference Finals.
That set up a rematch of the 1999 NBA Finals, the last time the Knicks appeared in the Finals, where the Spurs dispatched the Patrick Ewing-less Knicks in five games. Both teams have their best players this time around. Let the series begin.