For one franchise, the crowning of a new NBA Champion marks the culmination of hard work, masterful roster construction and a stroke of good luck. For the other 29, it's an opportunity to start thinking about the next season — and how they can topple the league's top team.

The Chicago Bulls, of course, are far away from contending for a title. They may be far away from even reaching the playoffs as well, but new head executive Bryson Graham will certainly be looking at other models around the league while he figures out the direction he wants to take with the Bulls' rebuild.

Could the Knicks — a large-market team that stunk for the vast majority of the 2010s — provide a blueprint for the Bulls' turnaround?

For years, Knicks fans convinced themselves that stars around the league would be attracted to the bright lights of New York City and sign with the team in free agency. That would make up for the franchise's poor drafting record, in which they picked Frank Ntilikina over players like Donovan Mitchell and Bam Adebayo, and Kevin Knox over Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

But that star free agent cornerstone eluded them. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving took their talents to Brooklyn instead. LeBron James chose Los Angeles over New York. Kemba Walker came close to signing with the Knicks, but ended up agreeing to a deal with Boston.

Those Knicks teams didn't have the foundation for a star to join. It took an experienced Tom Thibodeau and a developmental breakthrough from Julius Randle — whom the team decided to use its overflowing cap space on — for New York to finally turn the corner.

In 2020-21, Randle won the NBA's Most Improved Player Award while leading the Knicks to a 41-31 record and their first playoff berth since 2013. Even though the team fell short of expectations the following season, it set the table for the Knicks' biggest free agent signing ever to join the fold.

The Knicks signed Jalen Brunson to a four-year, $104 million contract in the summer of 2022. Many analysts at the time — myself included — viewed it as an overpay for someone who was a solid player and certainly deserving of a bigger role than he had in Dallas, but might not be the true 1A on a contending team.

How's that for a bad take?

Despite his small stature and subpar defense, Brunson's transcendent scoring proved to be good enough to silence any doubters. In his debut season in New York, Brunson took his team to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in a decade. The Knicks won 50 games and returned to the second round the next year. In 2024-25, New York reached the Eastern Conference Finals. And by year four, the Knicks were NBA Champions.

But there were several more moves in between 2022 and now that enabled Brunson to become the player he is.

The New York Knicks have been one of the most aggressive front offices in the league since signing Brunson four years ago. At the 2023 trade deadline, they traded Cam Reddish and a first-round pick to acquire Brunson's college roommate, Josh Hart. Ten months later, New York sent RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and a high second-round pick to Toronto for OG Anunoby.

Both deals seemed to be overpays in the moment, but the Knicks knew they needed to surround the undersized Brunson with lengthy wing defenders who could mask his deficiencies on that end of the floor. No price was too large, as shown by New York's two other massive blockbusters in 2024.

Following a second consecutive second-round exit, the Knicks traded three players, five first-round picks and a swap for Mikal Bridges, who was also a teammate of Brunson's and Hart's at Villanova. New York didn't stay pat, trading a package that included Randle — an All-Star in three of the prior four seasons — for Karl-Anthony Towns in a stunning move.

In all, the New York Knicks gave up an All-Star forward, five significant contibutors and six first-round picks to acquire their starting lineup outside of Brunson. Only the trade for Towns was instantly perceived as a "win" instead of an overpay, but each player supplied crucial moments on the way to the championship victory.

Chicago, like the late 2010s Knicks, is a major-market team that just hasn't managed to find its path or direction. Fans have tried to convince themselves that names like Giannis Antetokounmpo — or even smaller-scale stars like Zion Williamson or Tyler Herro — could be lured by the franchise's history, but the Bulls do not have the infrastructure in place to attract a star like the Knicks did with Brunson.

Could that change in a year, especially if the Bulls knock this draft class out of the park? Absolutely, but so many things had to go right for the Knicks to get to this point. New York hired Brunson's dad as an assistant coach, had cap space when Brunson was a free agent, bet that a 16-point-per-game scorer would turn into a franchise-leading superstar and sold the farm to bring in Brunson's college buddies through trades. The fact that the Knicks did all of this without drafting any of their starters is nothing short of remarkable and would be nearly impossible to replicate.

Brunson also passed up on $113 million so that the front office could use that money to bring in Towns and Bridges. That kind of selflessness from a star is rare and cannot be relied on when constructing a team.

If the Bulls want to find their Brunson, they'll focus on building from the ground up, not chasing stars before they're ready. That starts with drafting four high-upside players next Tuesday and developing them to their fullest potential. Once Chicago believes it's found its star, only then can the Bulls take a page from New York's book of aggressive dealmaking and upgrade their role players around the margins.

That's easier said than done, though, and it takes patience. But the payoff will be well worth the wait, if — when — the Bulls return to the mountaintop.