The Knicks have the chance to deliver a rare map of NBA power

The best basketball of the upcoming NBA season may run along I-95.

The Celtics, 76ers and Knicks have emerged from last season and the early business of this offseason as perhaps the three teams to beat in the East.

And you might have to go back to the 1980s to find the last time all three teams were legitimately this good simultaneously.

The three signature franchises have not each won 50 games in the same season since 1981. During the Knicks glory days of the 1990s, their Northeast rivals had faded. When the Sixers and Celtics revived in the past two decades, the Knicks were in the wilderness.