Are the 'Nova Knicks' the new wave of team building?

Thanks to three Villanova Wildcats, New York Knicks fans are partying like it’s 1999 — also known as the last time the Knicks were in the NBA Finals.

For the past two decades, the idea has been that you need to build a superteam filled with stars to win an NBA championship.

However, most champions of the last 20 years have been homegrown. Sure, the Warriors added Kevin Durant, but they had already won a title before that and even set the record for most wins in an NBA season. 

The lone “superteams” to actually win championships were all spearheaded by LeBron James, a generational talent with the Heat, Cavs and Lakers. 

The 2008 Celtics, with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, were a superteam. But Pierce was already there, and the other two were traded for. That's different from stars teaming up together in free agency or forcing their way out to go play with a certain co-star. 

But maybe the Knicks are onto something with their Big Three: Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo. These are three former college teammates who won the 2016 national championship at Villanova. 

Maybe the trick isn’t just three superstars but three guys who had already played and won together before the NBA — a trio with immediate chemistry.

We’ve seen it in recent years in the NFL, where a team will attempt to help out its young quarterback by drafting one of his college teammates.

The Cincinnati Bengals took Ja'Marr Chase to pair with Joe Burrow, who played together at LSU, despite desperately needing an offensive lineman.

The Eagles brought in DeVonta Smith from Alabama to help Crimson Tide alum Jalen Hurts, the Dolphins brought in Jaylen Waddle to aid Tua Tagovailoa, each from Bama, and the Jaguars drafted Travis Etienne to assist Trevor Lawrence, both of prior Clemson fame.

Could this trend, following the Knicks' success this year, now carry over to the NBA?

New York seems to be a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. 

Brunson was a Dallas Mavericks castaway before setting the Knicks record with 47 points in a playoff game this year. That was the guard's first of four straight 40-point playoff performances.

In fact, after averaging 11.9 points per game with Dallas, Brunson has upped that average to 26.5 with New York.

Hart was with three organizations in seven years before he wound up with the Knicks last season. 

DiVincenzo was with three organizations in five years before joining his college teammates in New York this season. 

This included championship-winning franchises like Milwaukee and Golden State, which didn’t see the same production from the guard, who averaged a career-high 15.5 points per game this year with New York. 

The Knicks have built this team nicely, much like baking a cake: adding the ingredients one by one: first with Brunson, then Hart a few months later, followed by DiVincenzo this season, and then letting it bake.

In doing so, New York has increased its wins from 37 to 47 to 50 over the past three seasons. 

In Spanish, "no va" means "not going." In New York, Nova might mean attending the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2000.

Ironically enough, this type of team-building was something NBA teams tried 30+ years ago. The Bill Walton-led Portland Trail Blazers were originally built on Walton and a couple of his UCLA teammates before winning the 1977 NBA title.

When the Bucks finished the 1979-80 season in first place, they were also led by three UCLA teammates.

And when the Rockets won the NBA championship 30 years ago, they were led by former college teammates Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.

The thought in the NBA has long been that you need three superstars to win. However, this Knicks team is showing that you apparently just need three college teammates to do so.