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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; James Dolan reportedly has high expectations for his Knicks. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Last season, the Knicks finished second in the Eastern Conference with a 54-28 record and advanced to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. Their owner has much higher hopes this season, though.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;James Dolan told his staff that he expects to win the franchise's first championship in 41 years, according to the &lt;em&gt;New York Daily News&lt;/em&gt; and ESPNNewYork.com, which reported the owner's message to his team this way:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In a recent meeting with the coaching staff and some team executives, Dolan said he believes the Knicks have enough talent to win a title and that he expects them to do so this season, league sources with knowledge of the owner's message during the meeting confirmed.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"He told them he believes they have enough talent to win it all,\" one source said, \"and he expects it to happen this year.\"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;...&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"A few people were a bit surprised, taken aback. But he's the owner. He has a right to expect it,\" one source said.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In response to the reports, Knicks general manager Steve Mills told reporters: \u201CIn terms of an edict, we try to win every year. And our goal is to try to win a championship and try to be as competitive as we can possibly be.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Carmelo plans to recruit players to New York&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Knicks opened at 22-1 to win the title. Nine teams had shorter odds, including four in the East: two-time defending champion Miami; Chicago, which has former MVP Derrick Rose healthy again; Indiana, which beat New York in the second round and upgraded its bench after pushing the Heat to seven games in the conference finals; and Brooklyn, which added Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Andrei Kirilenko and Jason Terry after winning 49 games.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;With little financial flexibility, New York's main offseason additions were much-maligned forward Andre Bargnani, 33-year-old forward Metta World Peace, backup point guard Beno Udrih and rookie guard Tim Hardaway Jr. The Knicks also re-signed guards J.R. Smith and Pablo Prigioni and power forward Kenyon Martin.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In SI.com's season predictions, none of our six writers picked the Knicks to make the conference finals.\n\u201CI think we\u2019re solid enough to compete for [the title], absolutely,\u201D coach Mike Woodson said Tuesday, according to the &lt;em&gt;Daily News&lt;/em&gt;. \u201CI think we\u2019re one of the teams that are going to be in the hunt.\u201D&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nba/point-forward/2013/10/31/knicks-james-dolan-nba-championship>