While it certainly helps to have deep pockets, as we have seen from the New York Knicks, spending money is no guarantee of success in the NBA.
Fans of teams in small markets can thank the salary cap for the parity that the league offers. Without these restrictions, teams with the most money would be able to offer the top players contracts so large that it would be challenging to maintain any semblance of competitive balance.
The salary cap is only a soft restriction and teams like New York (worth an estimated $4.6 billion, per Forbes) can still exceed it if they are willing to pay the luxury tax.
Since the luxury tax was instituted in 2002, Knicks governor James Dolan has been hit with the penalty 11 times. But the franchise has very little to show for it as they have missed the playoffs during eight of those seasons.
According to our research, teams have paid the luxury tax 167 times. But in 47 instances, they did not make the postseason. That means luxury tax teams have missed the playoffs 28.0 percent of the time. Overall, among the 21 worst teams record-wise to pay the luxury tax, New York appears five times.
Below are the other most notable seasons in which a team paid the luxury tax but still fell massively short of preseason expectations.