Free agency is upon us and there are some rumors, people!
It seems like the Knick are about to bring in Evan Fournier for three-years/$18 million a year.
Beyond that, it’s a big more vague, so I won’t even be doing any polls (which is strange considering our all-poll content) because I just don’t know what is real and what is not so it seems wrong to have polls about stuff that might be BS.
So there will be polls tomorrow! For now, let’s just all react together!
444 replies on ““You Get a Multi-Year Deal! You Get a Multi-Year Deal! You All Get Multi-Year Deals!” The NBA 2021 Free Agency Thread”
And we’re off!
Lonzo signs a 4/$85M offer sheet with the Bulls. If they actually reel him in with that, mistake on our part to not at least offer the same. Gotta think he would’ve preferred NY.
Wait, so the Knicks didn’t have an under the table deal with Lonzo done months ago?
@ShamsCharania
Free agent Tim Hardaway Jr. has agreed to a four-year, $72 million deal to return to the Dallas Mavericks, sources tell @TheAthletic
@Stadium
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i don’t know… i think 20mm aav is a bit much for a guy who doesn’t score… his defense is good.. but isn’t doing all the heavy lifting in his game.. and his best work is in transition which isn’t exactly all that valuable in the postseason…
but he is young… and i’d love to have paired him with sexton to see what that could do.. but i’m not sure if we will actually miss all that much…. 20mm aav is a lot!
THJ got basically his last Knicks deal to remain in Dallas. That’s pretty hilarious.
I really like the Ball – Levine pairing. I think that is a nice get for the Bulls. I think they will be better than us next year.
I would have loved him at that price.
I really don’t get why the Knicks weren’t in on Lonzo. Just kind of baffling, really.
https://twitter.com/VinceGoodwill/status/1422316481501671446?s=19
who needs cap space…
Sign and trade for Ball, Pelicans getting Temple, Satoransky and a 2nd rd pick.
No matter what you think of Lonzo, this is just awful asset management by New Orleans. They deserve Zion signing the QO and walking. To the Knicks.
Cam Payton is a best PG player/fit for us – who need both an efficient shot creator and ability to run an offense. He’s a good spot up shooter too. Last year, – Payne posted insane advanced stats:
a) above 56% effective field goal percentage
b) was only assisted on fewer than half his shots,
c) increased his team’s eFG% by at least one percent
d) their offensive rating by at least two points per 100 possessions
e) accounted for at least a quarter of his team’s assists when he played.
He’s a no brainer at $12M per year. Rose needs to wheel him in asap and not play matching/poison pill games with Lonzo Ball.
No worries Griffin will win the lottery next year
Woj saying Burks and Noel staying on 3 yr deals.
That 5yr-100m contract for Jarret Allen is nuts.
Burks for 3/30, Noel for 3/32.
I don’t like the latter at all if it’s as reported. That’s too much unless those are two non-guaranteed years, so I’ll withhold judgment until we find out about that.
Adrian Wojnarowski
@wojespn
Free agent C Nerlens Noel is returning to the New York Knicks on a three-year, $32M contract, his agent @GeorgeLangberg tells ESPN. Tom Thibodeau keeps his rim protector.
Those Burks and Noel deals stink
What a splash! Lol
What I like about Leon Rose is how he always waits the market out before he signs deals, to make sure he gets the best value.
I’m fine with the Noel deal. I wanted him back. I’ve been suggesting this for awhile and it may be more possible now that Noel is locked up. Mitch may be used as part of a deal to bring in an important piece eventually. He’s a bit of an injury risk and they are probably not going to “pay” two centers.
Allen, of course, took that $100 million offer before the Cavs could change their minds. 😉
I still say Brian Cashman should be the Knicks GM.
We’re all in baby!!!! seventh seed or bust!
I mean, we were a decent team last year so it makes sense to bring back our guys. But yeah, it’s not a leap forward either. Makes sense if they didn’t think Beal or LaVine would come next summer.
So they didn’t think LaVine or Beal would come here next season, but also didn’t think that the #19 pick this year could help them?
gotta lock in those bench guys to long term deals… can’t have draft picks mucking things up when you can hand out 60mil to career journeymen…
Next and most important on the agenda is finding a starting PG.
Sorry, we’re paying $11m to a backup center because why again?
We have around $35M in space left…so we basically blew the gasket on multiyear deals already assuming we want max space for 2022. We have Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel to show for it.
Again it’s always possible these years aren’t fully guaranteed etc. so I’ll withhold judgment temporarily, but this is not promising.
I really don’t think Mitch has much value. He’s going to be an unrestricted FA next year and he got replaced by an unsigned street free agent last year without the team missing a beat. I don’t think he’s moving the needle much as part of a trade package.
Goran Dragic, Precious Achiuwa, and a future 2nd round pick is a fucking great return for Lowry. I noted last season that I thought Masai was confident he could get a better return for Lowry in a sign and trade if he waited and he was correct. I bet they flip Dragic somewhere else.
So can we start with the “Our front office is officially shitty!” narrative, yet?
Starting PG can wait. We have to lock up our bench guys to 8-figure multi-year deals first.
I’d say those deals are fully guaranteed, otherwise they’d go elsewhere
@BobbyMarks42
Confirmed cap numbers for 2021-22
Salary cap: $112.4M
Tax: $136.6M
Wonder if Noel means a Mitch trade may be in the works
Ok this is the last straw, how did we let the Pistons sign Kelly Olynyk???
Sure sounds more like they just want to run back the same team and hope that the young guys improve. Mitch/Noel was obviously a heck of a pairing in the middle last year.
That’s why I keep saying Mitch might be on the block eventually. IMO, they are not going to pay two Cs. Mitch has the greater upside, but he’s had a few injuries, was seen in a foot boot today in NO, has been a little flaky at times, and the current gap between him and Noel is not huge. If you start Noel you don’t lose that much and that opens up trading Mitch as part of a deal that improves another position significantly. They have to get Mitch back, get his market value up a bit again, and then maybe do something. For now he’s cheap. So you keep him around to see if he can stay healthy and make a leap.
Remember that thing I said that everybody got mad at me about, that punting the #19 pick was a really troubling sign that this front office didn’t know what it was doing?
Yeah, that.
Personally if I’m investing 3/$32M in by far the easiest position to fill in the NBA I want a guy who can catch the ball
Mitch can leave next year, so it may partially insure against that happening.
It’s certainly underwhelming initial moves.
Noel was key to our 2nd ranked defense. Burks was the guy off the bench before Rose.
But there’s more important needs.
Payne is gone too…
Wow some real dogshit moves off the jump. Leon Rose definitely ain’t playing 4d chess.
Free agency for the Knicks every year must be what it feels like for a woman that deals with a guy lasting a minute during sex… Always exciting up until the point it starts and is quickly disappointing.
Payne to PHX 3yr & $19M…. #@$!
Hollinger heard rumblings that they were planning on extending Mitch and with these moves, I think that that sounds actually pretty likely, as it seems to be just going all in on the current squad which is…a way to go.
3yrs / 19mm for payne… wowzahs..
Wow, how do you pass on Payne for such little money? Like I said, though, I thought bringing Payne back was a major priority for the Suns.
You should be getting a backup center and a backup shooting guard for low dollar amounts. Kind of like we did last year. No need to give players like that eight figure contracts.
Cam Payne on a 3 year $19 million deal would have been a nice thing.
The Burks deal is somewhat defensible, as wings are in high demand and he fills a need for us. The Noel deal makes no sense. He’s a borderline starter at the least valued position. You can get 80% of Noel for the vet minimum. There was absolutely no reason to throw $32m at him on Day 1 of free agency.
WTF?
On the Jump Ramona Shelbourne was saying the Knicks are not going past 3 yr deals because they want to maintain cap flexibility for the summer of 2024.
That’s how Rose works, though. He sits back and lets the market sort itself out and then grabs bargains later on.
I am stunned… and afraid to say anything…
So when every team has it’s pair for the dance, there’ll be the Knicks and Schroder left standing and looking at each other, right?
ReBuiLdInG tAkeS tOo LoNg DoE
There was alot of rumors that Noel was highly sought out so I’m guessing he was getting 3yr-30m offers from multiple teams. The mid level is 9.5m per year I believe so I don’t think this contract is a real overpay.
Loosing on Payne is a deuchebag front office move.
Any news on Fournier?
McConnell 4yr/35M to stay at Indiana…
LMAO TH2 got ANOTHER 4/72!
He gettin Mike Vick money..you know..rich contract twice?
Berman says the plan is to bring Bullock back and add Fournier. Then they must also plan on bringing Rose back, too, right?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
it was covid related…this year…he should catch those passes..
The Knicks are back! lol
Berman had written about Knicks interest in Payne and I assume many other teams would’ve been in on Payne at that number so have to think he just wanted to stay in Phoenix.
I’m not even convinced that Payne is good now, but I’d sure rather have him for $32m than Nerlens.
same ol’ shit…god i need some psilo gummies…
Um, Rose, we need a starting PG and his name is not Rose!
That’s gotta be a joke, right? Right?
Right?
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Right?
so was this the moment we went full retard or was draft night?
Yuck.
was she laughing when she said that?
Hey man I’m just reporting what I’ve heard and read don’t kill the messenger!
So basically adding Fournier and hopefully also adding an upgrade at PG.
BigBlue, 3/19 or 3/36 – guarantee you Cam Payne takes the latter. Rose dropped this ball unless he lands us CP3.
But who’s the PG upgrade? They now no longer have cap room to even sign Dinwiddie.
duncan robinson..5 for 90…holy cow…
More serious note..
Noel’s deal does not concern me. He is VERY tradeable, as is Mitch. So I actually like that deal.
What I am concerned about is whether or not Rose is coming back. Chicago has no PG as well and they could very well outbid us. We may have to make that Sexton trade after all, unless Quickley makes an insane jump in year 2.
Or..do we bring Taj back on the minimum and take Wall and an asset from Houston? PG market is suddenly dry. Dinwiddie is out there, but at what price? Is there a way to get Brogdon?
Read that Burks and Noel’s deals are basically just above the mid level exemption because they were getting that type of contract offers.
They just traded for Lonzo Ball.
maybe a fournier dinwiddie deal could salvage this… i don’t think just fournier will… if it’s fournier schroder.. oh my lord…
i don’t know how many outs we have out of this… looking quite bleak..
edit:
lol nm.. we fucked..
How do we compare to the Lonzo-Lavine-Vuc Bulls?
We’ve been saying for months now that these were the exact types of contracts that Noel, Burks and Bullock were going to get. Like, these exact numbers in Burks’ case (by the way, will Burks be irked that Noel got an extra $2 million than him? 🙂 ) . We just didn’t think that the Knicks would be giving them out, ya know?
Pat Riley doing Godfather things. Same ol Same ol
So the goal is to be a 7th or 6th seed the next 3 years so we can sign who in 2024 free agency?
Berman tweeted a few days ago the Knicks were looking at Payne for about 11-12m per year at 2-3 years and I’m sure other teams would’ve offered that too so I’m just assuming Payne wanted to stay in Phoenix. Trust me alot of people on Twitter are shocked at him signing for that low a contract.
Vorkunov pointed out that there will be only 16 centers next year making more than 10M and a Noel will be one of them, so we’re paying him starter money.
CP3 re-signs for 4 years/$120 million (some incentives to get him to $120, so probably more like $100 million, but still). Wow.
Geez, things are moving really fast today. Players are signing faster than I can keep up with.
derozan to clips… 2/60..
That was me on draft night. I was correct.
I will be accepting apologies.
Dougie McBuckets fulfills his destiny of one day being a Spur with a three-year, $42 million deal.
keon johnson
CP3 4 years??? Yikes
McDermott to Spurs for 3yr-42m damn.
That shit is too real! 😀
Geez, things are moving really fast today. Players are signing faster than I can keep up with.
Mudiay?
He may be better than Payton was down the stretch of the season. lol
Maybe Frank, Mudiay, and Trey Burke can fight it out.
Ah..missed that one.
Joke account.
Sexton trade still on the table? Dont know what the plan is for a PG know
i’m terrible.. i got got… sorry folks!
Do the Knicks seriously think that they were so great last year that they both don’t need to add young talent and the best use of a huge amount of cap space is to bring back the same players with a couple of small upgrades on the fringes?
You don’t sign role players to $10 million multiple-year contracts until after you have your core in place.
So dumb and every move makes trading away 19 look worse and worse.
I don’t think either contract is a big overpay, as I do believe both players probably had offers at the midlevel; it’s just that those are contracts that look good (or at least okay) on teams that are pretty good and not so good on teams that are not as good. If Burks is the last piece of your puzzle then giving him 3/30 is totally fine. If you still need to figure out what the main pieces are then it’s less so. The Knicks surely think of themselves as a good team and maybe they will be proven right if everybody can play up to last season’s standards and whatever other moves they have left to play turn out well. But these contracts both feel like putting the cart before the horse to me. We’ve locked in a low level starting C and a depth wing for 3/62 combined. Now we need a starting backcourt.
I keep smelling a trade, but that could be the broccoli rabe I cooked for dinner.
DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!
What about Kai Jones (the most talked about pick… the super famous 19th pick) ?
This is one of the rare times when the blue checkmark comes in handy.
So no one can trick people into thinking that Shams, Alan and I are tweeting something fake. 😉
But you gotta remember — Leon looked at the free agent market and didn’t see anything he LIKED.
Could have just drafted Isaiah Jackson at 19 and gotten similar rim protection for peanuts instead of $30M. Also maybe he knows how to catch a basketball
I would be fine with all this if they came away with a shooter/scorer and starting PG. To be honest, that’s what I was expecting and more or less hoping for all along. I thought they’d bring back a few players and simply try to upgrade PG and add a scorer. Then between upgrades and development they’d have a better team going forward, continuing development upside, and still plenty of picks to deal with. But as of now, it’s hard to see what their PG plans are unless there’s a trade coming up.
Look on the bright side — there’s nothing wrong with this roster that a big heapin’ helpin’ of Carmelo Anthony can’t fix.
I am just not feeling these contracts we’re offering out here.
Rose didn’t like Jackson, Post hoc ergo propter hoc it was the correct move not to use the #19 pick at all.
Make it happen, Rose!
The big problem with the Noel signing is it locks us out of even trying to pair Toppin with Randle for a couple minutes a game. Toppin is probably going to outgrow his 10-15 minutes a night job backing up Randle and if he cannot play center that puts a lot of pressure on us to move one of them which I don’t think we want to do.
Didn’t we just pick Grimes to hopefully fill that backup wing role we just signed Burks long term to fill? Couldn’t we have drafted Jackson with #19 or bought a 2nd to draft Bassey and saved $30 million on Noel?
This is what happens when a team has no faith in the draft. They overpay for mediocre talent instead of developing it.
Are we gonna play Miles McBride 2000 minutes or what’s the plan
Berman:
I think the plan is Rose and Luca and IQ.
It’s way better than a specific one of the remaining alternatives…
Yeah, but they’re small enough it doesn’t really matter
Can he beat out Elfrid Payton?
Oh how I wish the plan was Rose and Luka and IQ.
Leaving Mitchell future in doubt is the key point.
“Okay, Kawhi, we have $18 million left to spend. It can go to Evan Fournier, or it can go to you?”
I feel like anyone who is negative should realize:
1. we were all wrong last year
2. we all loved anthony randolph.
3. anyone who says they didn’t love anthony randolph is lying.
Not sure either Burks or Noel is an overpay. I mean, the deals didn’t need to be done at the stroke of midnight, but it seems the market for wings is going to be stupid given what we have seen for McBuckets and THJ, so Burks coming off a good year at his price is okayish in context of the current market.
Honsetly struggling to keep up with the signings and trade. GMs not here to fuck spiders that’s for sure.
Is the plan really to just bring back the same team that fizzled in the first round of the playoffs without any major improvements?
so, we basically got Noel and burks for what Cleveland paid for Allen. that’s not horrible.
i’m good with fournier, but it means not resigning bullock, because where the hell are they all going to play?
Yeah, but just think of how it would look if they were going into the meeting with only $15.5 million to spend.
Looks like Rose is likely coming back if reports are accurate. Looks like we are bring the band back together (not you though Frank)
LOL, it’d be hilarious if Kawhi wanted to come to the Knicks and we had spent the money somewhere else.
I still love Anthony Randolph.
I doubt they’re even going to sign Fournier at this point. Just going to run it back.
Defense-oriented centers who play no offense do not earn a lot of money in the league these days. You can get the equivalent of Nerlens Noel for way less than $10M AAV.
There’s no one major blunder here but a series of small mistakes is piling up.
Bullock to Dallas
Toppin is not a C, at least not anytime soon. I wouldn’t worry about that. He’ll either settle into a really solid backup role so Randle can actually rest or improve enough to cause an issue. Then they can move him and get a quality player back if need be. If he gets really really good, that’s not a problem either. It’s a wish.
Our team has IQ coming off the bench, he is going to deserve a bigger role this year, doesn’t that kind of squeeze Burks’s minutes anyway. If we sign a starter at SG and PG then you have IQ, Grimes, Vildoza, McBride, and now Burks all fighting for minutes off the bench at the 1,2, and 3. IQ should get the majority of the minutes at the 2 and 3 since he was as good as Burks last year as a rookie and will probably be better this year. If either of Vildoza or McBride can back up the point IQ should be able to eat the rest of the minutes with Grimes or Vildoza filling what little is left. Burks is expensive and redundant.
I didn’t just staple my balls together so really it’s not so bad that I drove a nail through my pinky
We have $18M if we keep Rose & Bullock cap holds.
We have $30M plus if we renounce them.
“Okay, everyone who’s returning to the Knicks next year take one step forward! Not so fast, Frank!”
Mavs are signing Bullock looks like. Can’t wait to see the comparison between him and Burks.
Great move for them. 100% exactly what they needed badly.
This please.
We all praised the Knicks a lot last offseason. Oh wait, is that what you meant? 😉
Technically if Kawhi wanted to come here, they could back out of one or more of the agreed-upon deals. Would probably wind up boomeranging, but is doable.
Oh well, the Noel deal is at least better than the Jarrett Allen deal… speaking of which, that does make it seem likely the Cavs will trade Sexton.
Bullock fucking the big reunion up! Dammit, Reggie, you and your fucking confusing last name!
Good for Bullock, though. Dallas is a good spot for him.
So right now it’s….
Rose/Vildoza/IQ/McBride
Burks/IQ/Grimes
RJ/Burks
Randle/Toppin
Mitch/Noel/Sims
I put Grimes at the 2 because he’s only 6’4″
Forgetting anyone?
You’re not going to get a Top 5 shot blocker who anchored a Top 5 defense for the minimum. Noel was the 6th pick in the draft too. You’re not drafting a big at #19 who can replace what Noel did on defense, not even close.
You can say that the money would’ve been better spent elsewhere and that’s a very fair argument but Noel’s play is deserving of a contract similar to what he’s getting.
Dame is coming. I am going to will this into reality because this offseason has been too much of a bummer for me otherwise.
If we just return our team from last year I don’t think we make the playoffs. Not only did our little playoff run move us out of the running for a high draft pick and did not attract any big names it also deluded our management into thinking we were too good for the draft and convinced them we should lock in our mediocrity at big money for the next three years.
wish we had signed him…oh well, maybe we can get graham from charlotte somehow…
looks like rose will start at point guard for us and mcbride/quik/burks will run the second unit…
Yeah, I am not saying the deal is particularly good or that we couldn’t have spent the money wiser. But you’re not replacing an elite level interior defender with your usual 18th overall pick either.
I assume Reggie is going to Dallas in a sign and trade for Porzingis, right?
Looks like Reggie to Dallas is done. Kind of hoped we could have brought him back (seems like a good character guy) but happy for someone else to give him a big payday.
Okay, that made me laugh…
**I assume Reggie is going to Dallas in a sign and trade for Porzingis, right?**
THJr again
BBA – Noel is definitely worth what we paid him he’s just not worth it for us. As a 15-20 minute off the bench back up center the drop in production from Noel to Jackson or Bassey or even possibly Sims or hell Gibson is not worth 3 years $32 million.
I’m torn between “They’re just bringing back everyone because Leon Rose is lazy and unprepared” and “This offseason has Tom Thibodeau’s fingerprints all over it.”
I mean, obviously blowing out your cap room on multi-year deals for last year’s empty arena mega-fluke that got completely exposed in the playoffs is hapless and pathetic.(*) Rank it on the LOLKnicks scale where you will, but it’s an utterly absurd philosophy on every level.
(*) I think it’s just the haplessness of it that bums me out the most, especially when you put it together with the punt of 19. Last year’s team couldn’t use an influx of young upside talent? Pathetic.
We’ve talked before about the specific moments it dawned on us that various front offices didn’t know their asses from their elbows. The Joakim Noah contract, the THJ contract, etc. Everyone has a unique one. Fun little Knicks fan tradition, I suppose.
I’m not quite there yet, but I also don’t bring this up for no reason.
Is he coming off the bench though? I am not convinced Mitchell Robinson has proven himself a full season starting center yet. His style is conducive to many an injury.
Nerlens Noel literally can’t catch a basketball thrown to him. He was embarrassed in the playoffs last year which I guess they think is because of the ankle. The delta he brings above what 19 could have brought isn’t even close to worth 3/30.
Stop making sense.
They want to believe everything we do sucks, management sucks, and we should have tanked until 2028.
Bringing back Noel at this price is perfectly fine. The more important question is what to do with Mitch now. They have to extend him, trade him, or let him become unrestricted. Paying Noel makes less sense if you plan on extending Mitch. I guess if Mitch is healthy and makes a leap, they can extend him and then trade Noel. That might be the thinking. They needed one of either Mitch or Noel and they probably aren’t sure they can count on Mitch. So they signed back Noel and will play it by ear later with what to do with one of them. I don’t think they are going to pay both.
Mitch can walk next year, Noel maybe slotted as starter for next year or will be traded.
Noel & Burks are being compensated fairly, but because it makes more sense for a team to use their Mid- level than cap space.
I actually think this might be my low. I’ve given up hope now. I hadn’t before.
Mitch was still in a boot as of a few days ago so I sorta understand locking Noel up.
Didn’t the Melo Max No Trade Clause happen before that? Also, the Tyson Chandler trade was brutal.
Mitchell Robinson is both a better defender and a much much better offensive player than Noel. It is not even close. Robinson had a couple of unfortunate injuries last season but I don’t think he seems particularly fragile.
You don’t tie up three years of cap space for injury insurance.
By the way everyone, welcome to the mediocrity treadmill!
WhY dRaFt RoLe PlAyeRs wHeN yOu CaN sIgN tHeM fOr ChEaP
The idea of a Pat Riley or one of the better GMs building up this weird sense of loyalty to a roster like the 2020-21 NY Knicks, is simply inconceivable — and that’s why the Knicks will continue to be … this.
Whoa that Gary Trent Jnr deal is nuts. 3/54 million. Wouldn’t even hesitate offering him that.
It’s all just a 3-D chess long game for Zion, man….
the invisible sixth man…with this bunch…we’re gonna need him/her (want to self identify)
OK, here’s my troll for the night before I take a dinner break from this.
With Bullock going to Dallas, that makes it more likely the Knicks are going to bring Frank back on a cheap deal!
Yeah baby, need that 3&D!! Woo Hoo!
Eh, Riley did the same thing a few years back with that 44 win team.
seems more like yahtzee!
Zach Collins has agreed to a three-year, $22M deal with the Spurs. Wow, that’s a lot of money for such a walking wounded player.
I like Trent Jr., but I don’t get trading Powell because he was going to be expensive and then lock Trent in for that much money.
It is hilarious that Portis re-signed for two-years/$9 million.
I have penny stock in Collins but how is that not an obvious one-year prove it situation?
They seem utterly directionless. 3/$64M between Collins and McDermott!
The first couple days of free agency is for suckers unless you are signing a star or prying a young rfa away from a team. Everything else is terrible and usually ages very poorly.
I am willing to bet there will be players about as good as Noel and Burks signing one year deals in 3 or 4 days.
The patience is what made our last offseason so refreshing.
Yeah, as vincoug noted, Riley did this same exact thing just a few years back.
I think I’d have preferred Bullock over Burks but whatevs.
It’s nice that the Knicks will meet with Kawhi. I don’t expect anything to come of it – even though we’ve improved, I still can’t think of a reason why he would want NY over the Clips. He’s a hard guy to read.
The Clips could easily be a top-4 team in the West again. And I’d think the allure of not having a super-team in the West gives a healthy Clips team just as fair a shot to make the Finals next season as the Suns, Nuggets, Lakers (depending on LBJ’s age and AD’s brittle health) and maybe Jazz?
The only thing the Knicks could sell him on is that they are a (younger) playoff team with some up and coming talent, an MIP 2nd banana type, and a “3rd wheel” that could very well make a near-All Star level jump next season. It’s crazy, but I’ve been wrong before.
But won’t Primo lead them to the promised land?
Please no Rose. That would officially cap this shitty offseason.
I have mixed feelings about this strategy. I want get better sooner than that which is a negative. On the other hand, the NBA TV contract expires in the summer of 2025 and the new one is actually expected to be triple the money which will raise the salary cap 50%. So contracts signed in 2024 may look like real bargains a year later. Despite this sort of long term thinking (and it’s nice our management actually thinks long term), I was really hoping to feel we will get better this summer given all our assets. But it isn’t looking like that. We have unexciting draft picks and are re-signing players we had this year. Nothing is badly wrong in the specifics of what we’re doing, it’s just unexciting.
so i wonder what the price tag on rose as a starter will be: 3 years $45 million maybe…
i wonder if that was thibs’ choice all along for this upcoming season…it really does feel like the FO is doing all it can to give him control of the roster…
just a few hours in to free agency – barring some trade with either charlotte (graham) or dallas (brunson), or picking up dinwiddie, what other options are there???
maybe this is as good as it gets…
Why wouldn’t the good players in this scenario just sign one year deals until the new tv money hits? I don’t think any max-level guys will lock themselves into a a much lower contract if they can just wait a year for way more money.
You are absolutely 1000% sure last season was a fluke. I don’t know how you’re so certain, but I guess it is what it is. You also 1000% certain that the picks the Knicks did make have no upside whatsoever. Let’s say I gave you both of these points. How do you feel about the prospects of improvement of RJ, IQ and Obi? Are you factoring that in at all, or do you believe what they do won’t matter in terms of on-floor product?
I’ve said this before: as much as we focus on free agency, the path this team takes next season will also depend on the improvement of the team’s young players.*
You can get a solid defensively oriented big for less than 10 million, but if he’s a decent vet you’re not getting him for that much less and he’s not going to be as good on defense as Nerlens, who is legitimately one of the better defensive bigs in the NBA. The guys who are better than Nerlens (on D) all make serious money. It’s an overpay, but it’s not an egregious one.
Burks money is fair, but I think it’s too long, but again whatever. Not thrilled with either move but they’re nowhere close to giving Joakim Noah 72 million
Any reason to think Thibs is going to play IQ and Obi?
Totally agree. And again, there are (SURPRISE) young players on this team who can improve (and who’s improvement can help move the needle some for the team). It’s easier to project how x free agent will fit on the team, harder to project how y 1st (or 2nd) year player already on the team will improve their play on the team.
Last season was exciting because it felt like the start of something and not the end. That turned out to be wrong. We’re at the destination.
This is just an astonishingly uncreative and uninspiring off-season. We’re not even preserving flexibility anymore, we’re just locking in all the mercs, with no real avenue of substantially improving.
Good thing we have Leon Rose and his “special relationships” with players that got us market-rate deals for guys who are going to come off the bench. Awesome.
Yeah they are not horrible contracts. I did think we should bring back one of Burks or Bullock and we did that.
Maybe the idea is the start Quickley at either the 1 or 2? Rose is probably too old to start, but if we’re signing him, that won’t leave much room for another pg… I’m not seeing much of a ceiling with this plan.
lol, I mean he did last year. Or was I seeing things? I used to have 20-15 vision when I was younger but now it’s 20-40. Maybe when I saw IQ play, it was really Burks w/dreds. 😉
is portis available?
I wouldn’t call last season a fluke just us getting the 4th was fluky, Boston, Miami, and Atlanta were all better than us and if the season had been even five games longer I think Miami and Atlanta would have passed us. Orlando and Chicago got decimated with injuries, Toronto and Indiana underachieved. We could be just as good as last year and still end up the 9th or 10th seed.
As for our PG, I would take Nunn, Graham, Caruso, Larkin, and Dinwiddie all over a long Rose contract because I think they will all be better over the next three years., I would also roll the dice with Vildoza, IQ, and McBride as our PGs over him because I don’t want him on our team. He is boring to watch, he is most likely a rapist, he doesn’t make his teammates better, and he quit on the team. No thank you.
Pretty underwhelming, but I guess it’s better than jettisoning the entire team for Lillard.
There’s always the trade deadline…sigh.
I’m with Cdiggy on this. Despite being a cynical, pessimistic asshat, I’m not so bothered by all this Knicksian weirdness. No massive overpays, no Shroeder, no any other number of really bad ideas. So we bring back a .569 team and only lose Bullock, while we’re pretty much guaranteed to see jumps from RJ, IQ, and Obi, fingers crossed we get the two-headed center dragon back. I think Grimes is going to be decent, and McBride will be… interesting, perhaps even fun, to watch. And we get to see if Sims smashes his face on the rim at some point.
Plus who wants to bet that there’s no fairly significant play coming a la Sexton? Even if there’s not, I can root for this team, and we weren’t going to win a chip next year regardless.
Bon Voyage Reggie, you were great guy to root for. Say hi to the Zinger for me!
I should clarify. None of these moves are anywhere as close to as bad as the Noah deal. The Rose regime is better than the Jackson etc. regimes. I am reasonably certain of this.
What it comes down to is the fact that building a contender without super friends luck is really, really hard. Just like the Noah deal proved without a shadow of a doubt that Phil didn’t have the juice to do it, I am getting the same feeling about these guys even if they’re much better.
At a certain point it almost feels like you either have one of the best front offices or you’re reliant on dumb luck. So whether your front office is, say, 15th like this one, or 30th like Phil’s ceases to matter at least a little bit.
Fournier 4 Yr 78 M BOOM
Well Rose did ask for patience at his opening press conference….
Fournier Signed 4/78
4 years 78 mill for Fournier
Well now this is a whole new can of worms
Fournier apparently coming to us on a 4 year $78 milllion deal. Team option year 4. I can get around that.
We’re just gonna keep running Derrick Rose out there until the wheels fall off.
I kinda like Old Man Derrick Rose and his crafty layup game, but if we buy three years of him we’re getting his age 33-35 seasons. I’m kinda skeptical he’s gonna keep having 1.5 BPM seasons.
Every good team has to get some luck. That is why the draft is so important. It is a great leveler. even with scouting some great prospects flounder and some mediocre ones blossom. It is why mediocre and bad teams try so hard to maximize their chances because every draft pick is a potential lottery ticket. It is why we needed to keep #19 and hope to draft the piece we need because short of a bigger plan it is the best move. We obviously don’t have a bigger plan so we needed to maximize our chances to land a long-term piece and we didn’t.
Instead, we went all-in on pocket twos because last round hit a 2 on the flop.
Team option on the 4th year solid deal
The deal is pretty close to what was reported, just with a team option. 3/$58.5M guaranteed.
I’m just not seeing the vision here. Hope I’m wrong!
Pardon me, good sir, but two of those mercs are not returning to the team – one of which was a good placeholder, and the other who’s departure can easily be addition/improvement by subtraction.
Fournier is decent but so was Reggie Bullock. This seems like a little bit of a wash.
Who’s the point guard?
honestly, i wonder if that was thibs’ wish all along…
hope rose keeps his yoga work up…
So we are basically running back the same team as last year substituting Fournier for Bullock. We’ll get similar spacing from Fournier with more versatile and efficient play making and scoring on offense (which is what we needed) but less defense.
Now it’s on to PG and then some fill in pieces.
Also, IMO something is going to happen with Mitch (or maybe Nerlens), but that may not be until much later during the season. This is going to be a process, Just a different kind. lol
WELP!
Any Leon Rose dead enders left?
Fournier is fine but it does make the Burks deal more questionable. If Fournier and Barret both get 35 minutes a game, likely considering Thibs, that leaves just 26 minutes for Burks, IQ, and Grimes. Are we just not going to play IQ, despite the fact he was just as good as Burks last year despite being a rookie, and who is signed cheaply for the next three years.
Anyone see 3 years $43M for Rose?
Rose’s back 3 Yr 43 M
That’s A LOT of money
boo
There it is
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1422349393659838465
Anytime you can run back a team that got utterly spanked in the first round, you do it. This is well known.
3/43 for Derrick Rose.
So it’s the same team, but with Fournier swapped out for Bullock, and Vildoza swapped out for Payton, with Grimes and McBride now in the mix.
It’s not going to be a BAD team, but with so many of these deals being of the multi-year variety, it has a hard ceiling. Some of the young guys will improve, but some of the older guys will decline.
Now the Rose deal, this one fucking sucks
Rose, Fournier, Barrett, & Randle is probably the most dribble/pass/shoot foursome the Knicks have fielded in my lifetime as a Knicks fan. It is also very reliant on the shooting from Barrett and Randle to be real.
Fournier did look great against the US in France’s olympics win last week. I have no idea if he’s worth this contract. Let me ask you all something. How does Fournier compare to Gordon Hayward? They seem to fill similar roles, but Hayward got a contract for something like $32M a year last year and Fournier is reportedly getting a little less than $20M.
Pretty sure I said 3/40 on the day they traded for Rose, but the archives are what the archives are.
the fournier deal is also pretty bad for what it’s worth. He’s 28 and just kind of okay.
Maybe the plan is to move RJ to the 3. That will free up some minutes in the guard rotation. And when you listed Burks IQ and Grimes, you seemed to question whether IQ will play – why not question if Grimes will see rotation minutes? He’s the biggest unknown in that group.
Wow!
We are basically done.
Now it’s onto to Frank as our 13th man defensive stopper off the bench except against Trae Young who can’t be stopped by anyone. lmao
We’re going to need exponential development from our young players if we’re ever going to move up in the pecking order in the East. And only RJ has real true star potential.
At least the fourth year of Fournier’s deal is a team option.
Fournier.. if anything.. is really consistent… i think he has a shot to perform on the life of the deal with the 4th year being a decent bonus… it’s probably the best move of the offseason but it’s still about a C- move… and it also makes the Burks deal really questionable…
Guess we now know what they were saving that $2.5 million for.
PG Rose, Vildoza, McBride
SG Fournier, Quickley, Burks
SF Barrett, Grimes
PF Randle, Toppin
C Robinson, Noel, Sims
Very thin at PG, also a bit thin in the front court really. I guess Taj at the vet min is another inevitability but we could have used another viable 4.
I see some more first round playoff exits in our future.
So we’re going to be waiting until 2024 for Leon and Wes’s ‘player relationships’ to possibly bear fruit? What the fuck was the point of hiring these guys?
This was not the off season I had in mind.
This is giving me Scott Layden flashbacks. Lock up B-tier veterans to big money. JFC.
Do all this moves mean that we avoided Dennis Schroeder? *
* I’ll give my vote on the moves after a night of sleep and meditation…
I don’t know about y’all but I’m pumped that I get to watch 35 year old Derrick Rose make $15M for sitting on the bench in a suit someday
Hayward is clearly all around better in my view, but he’s constantly hurt.
I’m not super excited, but Fournier is what we needed. We added a scorer/playmaker to help Randle and RJ in the starting lineup. Now it’s up to Rose to not fall apart or we’ll be doing the PG shuffle again using Burks, IQ, McBride, and Luca Vildoza. Who is going to start at PG? I guess Rose, but not sure that is ideal. Rose and Fournier is not exactly a defensive wall.
I was really hoping for something like Fournier and Payne with Rose off the bench.
We are done for now, but we are far from done. We are not locked into this team for 3 years. We have plenty of ammo and assets for trades going forward.
This is not as bad as Layden. I don’t think we overpaid for the guys we signed, it’s just a meh result. We have to hope that the Knicks is correct this mix of players will be a well functioning team.
So you’re on team optimism because you see more playoffs seeding…. 😉
“On the Jump Ramona Shelbourne was saying the Knicks are not going past 3 yr deals because they want to maintain cap flexibility for the summer of 2024.”
LOL! Ha, more saving that cap space for (insert future year here), yeah that’s when we’ll hit it big in free agency you just wait. Whoever it was giving me shit about downplaying the value of all the Knicks cap space please raise your hand and own up to this pu pu platter that it was used for.
This team…. they could have tried to sign Cam Payne for 3/20 to outbid Phoenix and acquire a decent starting point guard, but noooo. Using pick #19 on a backup center (who can actually catch the fucking ball) might have been smart and less expensive too.
so do these ‘smart’ rose year 1 deals look smarter or dumber now that we know what it led to?
gotta give it to thibs, he got rose paid, well…
rose, did perform excellent for us this year, and until he broke down in the playoffs – actually was one of the few players on the roster who performed well in the post season…
i see him more as a backup at this point, but, oh well…
lots of regrets from this off-season…
I thought the 2024 thing was sarcasm. It can’t possibly be serious.
So this is it. We are fucked. This is what we couldn’t afford another rookie for. This is the team we want to etch in stone. I like Fournier just fine, he is a perfectly fine signing but everything else is terrible. We are paying Rose, Burks, and Noel $35 million a year to come off the bench and Rose is 33, Burks is 30, and Noel is playing behind a much better player.
We are bringing back a team that basically got swept in the first round of the playoffs with a slight upgrade at SG and still no starter at PG. Are we planning on starting IQ or Vildoza? We didn’t even upgrade our biggest problem. We spent over $50 million and we didn’t even get a starting PG. Amazing.
Rose last year said he wasn’t up for being a starter and now he is a year older. What is our plan here?
Also, Burks squeezes out both IQ and Grimes, Noel squeezes out Toppin, and Rose squeezes out McBride and Vildoza. We are going to see another year where all our young players: Toppin, IQ, Vildoza, and Grimes are all getting less than 15 minutes a game and we locked into it for the next 3 years. For what 40 wins and a loss in the play-in game? We went from locked into the 9th pick every year to locked into the 14th pick.
This is roughly where I fall. The Noel and/or Rose contracts might be slightly tough to move if we need space down the road, but for the most part, everyone is being paid about what other teams would have paid them. So it’s a bet on a couple of things:
1)A more offensively versatile wing like Fournier adds the secret sauce that the starting lineup needs, especially if…
2)Any one of Vildoza, Quickley, or McBride isn’t a trash fire as our starting PG (which allows Rose to continue to dominate against other teams’ bench units)…
3)The young guys (both this year’s picks, plus IQ, Obi, and even RJ) will continue to improve under this staff’s tutelage…
and…
4)If/when another star shakes loose and wants to come to NY, we’ll have enough pieces — both contracts of various sizes and players of various skill sets — to put together a trade package to get them here, either via sign-and-trade or just trade.
These aren’t necessarily the bets I would have made, and I don’t feel particularly great about any of this — Rose’s deal in particular — but there’s some logic to it.
This is almost worse than worst-case scenarios I was dreaming up.
We were a mediocre team with a ton of flexibility. Now we’re pretty much the same mediocre team, but with none of the flexibility.
What the fuck was the vision here? This smells of Thibs completely triumphing over Aller. In fact, I bet Aller is out soon–there’s no way he can stomach this shit.
RJ really played the 3 last year, and Bullock the 2, and I imagine that’ll be the same here, since Fournier is the same height as Bullock.
Be curious to see if the Vegas line moved off the 37.5. Barring a huge jump from one of the youngsters, this probably isn’t even a playoff team.
Not one of these signings was for good value. They were all… market value signings. Nothing creative, nothing with lots of upside. Best case, these guys play up to the value of their contracts. Very, very low chance of any of these players providing surplus value. We’re locked into three years on all of them.
Good thing we have some surplus 1RPs for when we need to dump some of these contracts.
A-yup. He was never going to just coach the team. Last year got him the cred he needed and he pounced. This is the bill.
Rose will start at PG, I would be very surprised if that does not happen. He will play way too many minutes and will not even get the benefit of playing against the opponents’ second unit.
We will need RJ to make a superstar leap, that’s really the only path to improving on last year’s team.
I miss the days when punting on draft picks was the stupidest thing this front office had done.
The only deal I don’t like is Rose. As a player I am fine with him for now, but 3 years at that price is both too long and too much for a player his age with his injury history. That’s the only deal that could really bite us in the ass. That was probably Thibs preferring to stay with his guy rather than trying to lure Payne or someone else away with a much bigger offer. It’s not a good move. I’m fine with everything else they did even if I’m not doing handstands. We have to hope Rose holds up for three damn years. uggh
Maybe I’m just a smug idiot who likes Devon Dotson but I’m starting to think if a front office lights the 19th overall pick on fire it’s fair to make some inferences about them
Usually optimistic but Derric Rose being our best PG option right now is horrendous. Heres hoping SGA or Fox become available or RJ makes the leap
I told you that was the least of the things to be upset about. lol That can still work out fine in a future deal.
We have substituted Elf and Bullock in the starting lineup for Fournier and a rotation of Rose/Vildoza/more IQ. That feels like an improvement by default.
Is IQ our starting PG? With the Burks and Fournier signings, there is no room for him at the 2 or 3 anymore so is he the starter? It is the only outcome that makes any sense. Burks will backup both Barrett and Fournier, we didn’t sign him to play 15 minutes a game so he’ll probably eat all those minutes. Rose will play 25 minutes at the PG and Toppin and Noel will eat up all the bench minutes at PF and C. That leaves about 20-25 minutes at PG to split between IQ, Vildoza, and McBride and squeezes Grimes completely out of the rotation. My bet is IQ wins those minutes or at least that is the plan.
What if Vildoza or Grimes or McBride are ready to be in the rotation, where will they fit?
Also why in the world did we sign a 33-year-old player who is on a permanent minutes restriction to a contact that will take him to his 36th birthday. He was already breaking down this year and now we have to pay him almost $15 million a year to decline right in front of us.
I’m trying to think of good multi year deals available last offseason that they didn’t try to make because they wanted to maintain their flexibility for this offseason. Sigh.
vet leadership
Jesus Christ.
Rose was a very good PG last year. The problem is that it’s 3 years at an unattractive price for a guy that may not be able to handle starter minutes or last the full 3 years. This is a rough one for me to swallow. I’m Ok with everything else.
We’re not locked into any of these deals, we can pay teams to dump them. Still dumb, but free agency in the NBA is a suckers game. I mean if one of these kids plays really well next year and we have to put Burks on the bench is not exactly a tragedy.
Fournier: 4yr / $78M (AAS $19.5)
Rose: 3yr / $43M – (AAS $14.3)
Noel: 3yr / $32M – (AAS $10.6)
Burks 3yr / $30M – (AAS $10)
There’s your cap space.
According to Spotrac, the Knicks have a Non-Taxpayer MLE and a bi-annual $3.1M exception (Brian, plz correct me if I’m wrong)
Oh good
I’m not doing cartwheels over the moves the Knicks made, but I’m going to put it to those who say this was an awful day – if you were GM of the Knicks, what would have been your moves? I mean, it’s easy to say every contract was an overpay and we should have sought out “value deals” so just curious what all the Kblogger armchair GM’s would have done to improve this team.
Fire away…..
Noel and Burks are fine from an asset management point of view because they should be fairly movable over the length of their contracts but long term we would do better playing younger players in their spots to try and get improvement at a cheaper price. IQ is as good as Burks and will likely improve over the next three years while Burks declines so investing time in him is better. Grimes might not be as good as Burks now but in two years he could be and he is much cheaper so pairing him with IQ gives you similar production and way more upside than just giving all their minutes to Burks.
Rose will most likely be better than McBride and Vildoza next year but there is a very good chance he won’t be by year 2 of his contract. It would be a smarter play to develop those younger players than trying to squeeze the last bits of juice out of Rose’s career.
I am so sad I have to watch him for three more years.
Blech
I would’ve liked Lonzo.
in totality… this is really narrow minded.. short term.. unimaginitive… thinking… it’s low upside but also high risk strategy we’re employing.. and i think everyone recognizes it…
we’re going to be leaning on RJ pretty hard these next few years to project any sort of outperformance because we got regression and age deteroriation to worry about at key positions now.. but if RJ makes another leap next year then we might have another first rd exit in our future.. and yes i think playoffs are going to be a fight every year including next year…
and yes these are mostly all rotten deals…. these are fairish market value deals for this past year… but looking forward these are not good looking deals… Burks a career journeymen at age 33 at 10mm per is not going to look good at all… Rose who couldn’t last through an entire series starting half the time is being asked to last three more starting.. what’s he going to look like at age 33 which is this next year? what kind of value is Noel giving you as a bench big at 10mm per when we could’ve just brought back Taj for a fraction?
i’m sorry for dooming.. but this isn’t really all that much better than the jackson years…
i would’ve started by not vaporizing the 19th pick in the draft… and then.. i think i just win right there…
I figured they’d bring back most of the free agent vets from last season but I thought that would be along with adding rumored players like Sexton, Lonzo Ball or Payne. I like Fournier but for him being the only new addition while is somewhat surprising. Has to be something else brewing for a PG unless they are truly gonna give IQ, McBride and even Vildoza a real look at PG along with Rose which would be somewhat encouraging.
Leon’s continued reticence allowed rampant speculation to bubble over. Reheated leftovers with a side of French Fries leaves a sour taste.
Oh where oh where has my underdog gone?
Oh where oh where can he be?
There’s no need to fear, Lilliard is here!!
The Knick are going to have to try to figure out how to construct a deal that includes Mitch, a bunch of 1st rounders (including that CHA pick or our pick that year lol) plus something else to land Lilliard if he wants out.
I’m talking about today, not the draft
That’s the thing, I’ve mentioned before that I did not envy the Knicks position going into this off-season. Ton of cap space with no real superstars to spend it on plus their free agents all looking at significant raises from last year. It’s easy to say don’t spend this money but then they would’ve been stuck giving 1yr deals to inferior players and most likely taking a huge step back next year.
I know most here would’ve been happy with that being bad again next year while possibly trading Randle at the deadline but after last season realistically there was no way the front office was going to do that.
Cam Payne for peanuts instead of Derrick Rose at 3/43.
Isaiah Jackson on a rookie scale contract instead of 3/30 for Nerlens Noel. Acquire another defense-oriented C if you think Jackson will take too long to develop, you can get them for cheap.
Use the savings to make an aggressive play for Lonzo Ball.
I’m fine with the Fournier contract. Burks was probably not necessary.
PG Lonzo Ball, Cam Payne, Bones McBride
SG Evan Fournier, Immanuel Quickley
SF RJ Barrett, Quentin Grimes
PF Julius Randle, Obi Toppin
C Mitchell Robinson, Isaiah Jackson
My team’s better, younger, and has more room for growth.
Dude give it up. That’s a non event and may still work out in our favor if a star becomes available and we need a lot of 1st rounders to trade to pull it off.
I would’ve been all over the Bledsoe trade. Extra 2nd rounder and a 1st rd pick swap for taking on Bledsoe and Adams. Both contracts keep the 2024 balance sheet clear (lol) and adams at 2yrs, 17.5mil wouldn’t be all that bad considering what they just gave Noel.
Or begin FA by focused on getting a starting PG instead of locking up the backups. I would’ve offered Payne at least $4mil more per year than what he got from the Suns. Test the waters with Lonzo maybe.
Acquiring draft picks should’ve been the name of the game for a mediocre team like the Knicks. I want to see a championship eventually, not a perennial 7th seed.
Last year Bullock took the hardest matchup on the wing pretty much every night, next year looks like it will be RJ. That’s an interesting direction to take his development – probably will not help him in developing into a superstar as it’s incredibly difficult to be your best self on offense and take that defensive assignment but might be the best route to make him into a very good player. Not the biggest takeaway from tonight, but an interesting wrinkle.
The more I look at it the less I like the Noel deal. He was good last year but C is just not the position to invest resources in non-stars with the way the league is now. Guys fall through the cracks at that position much more than others and I really would’ve preferred finding the next Noel vs giving him his payday. Mitch, Taj, a value signing is plenty at C, particularly because we need to play Randle-Obi together more this year.
The rest I’m with the consensus I think. Not awful but not inspiring. The Rose deal has real downside and none really offers a lot of upside. If Thibs can make this a top-5 defense again we will be good again, but the defensive personnel got worse and there were reasons to be skeptical last year, I’m nervous.
This lineup is good enough to win a lot of games for a number of years. These are all multi-year deals so let’s get comfortable with the continuity it brings. It established a floor. This team will NOT suck. It will be relatively stable. It brings a strong core back, a core that knows how to play together.
I don’t know how many of you play in keeper auction leagues. It mimics how the NBA free agency works. It becomes a dollar allocation issue. You have $52M to purchase (outbid) your competition to fill 4 slots. Do you allocate it
34-6-6-6 (megastars and scubs)
19-13-10-10 (tiered)
13-13-13-13 (balanced)
This was a tiered approach, which I think works very well when there were no megastars worthy of the money. Maybe one of the rookies steps up? The Knicks have various salary levels that can be mixed and match to make trades possible.
I like this free agency for the Knicks. When do the Knicks resign Taj?
Fournier gives you more ball handling/shot creation than Reggie did and he’s a very good shooter, so that’s something. Otherwise it’s pretty much the same team, which is both good and bad. Certainly a very unimaginative off season.
Fournier + MitchRob + Quickley + Picks for Lillard?
Well you kind of answered your own question. No deals are better than bad deals and that’s factorial. If this front office doesn’t have the stones to tell Tom Thibodeau they’ll do everything they can but won’t damage their long-term standing, they don’t deserve their jobs.
Even if we’re operating under the assumption that all of this money had to be spent, there were still better opportunities. I would’ve vastly preferred Payne to Burks even at the same money. I’d also take TJ McConnell’s deal over Rose’s (I don’t even think the McConnell deal is great, just saying there were better, higher upside opportunities even if all the money had to spent for some stupid reason).
Doesn’t Payne have to want to leave Phoenix? We have no idea if he would have taken more money from us
Hey!
We didn’t sign Schroder!!
that’s all I got
I feel you TNFH but like your boy Z-Man often says once Thibs was hired and especially after a pretty successful season there is no way the Knicks were going to purposely take a step back.
So far it has been a very unimaginative, kinda boring off-season but it certainly hasn’t been a franchise killing, future is bleak off-season either.
And yes, not being in on Lonzo at all was super weird. I mean our mantra seems to be “we can pay to get off these deals” anyway, so why not apply that logic to signing a 23 year-old who keeps getting better?
We’re paying Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel around the same amount of money per year the Bulls are paying Lonzo. I’m supposed to believe Lonzo is the bigger risk between those options?
I am totally reeling. I thought we might overpay to bring back a couple of our players but not for 3 years. I thought even if they brought the band back together it would be on short contracts.
All three deals are really poor moves for us and the Rose deal is one of those Noah like moves that will start to smell bad in year one.
Now we cannot even upgrade our PG position moving forward because we are capped out for three years.
The only explanation would be if a huge deal of Lillard for Barrett, IQ, and Robinson plus lots of firsts was looming because otherwise, we spent a lot of money for players that will be coming off the bench but then that doesn’t even work because we don’t have the cap space for it. So maybe it’s Randle, Barrett, IQ, Robinson, and a bunch of 1sts for Lillard. But that would be pretty ugly.
I can’t even understand the logic. Why leap so fast to sign mediocre contracts? Why not wait a couple days and see what shakes loose.
Well, we also didn’t even try to find out.
At this point I wouldn’t mind emptying out the cupboard for Dame. RJ, Quickley, Mitch, all the firsts, whatever. It’s a better plan than what we have cooking right now.
Pretty wild we still don’t have anyone who can throw a fucking lob to Mitch
another good day for team glass half-full…revel in the glory of our mediocre off season…
even if we reach another .569 winning percentage and a 6th seed or so next season – it’ll still be doomsday all day…
hopefully our floor is .569 and we build (as a team) going forward…
I would have hated Schroder and immediately panned the deal but 3 yrs $73 million for Schroder would still have been better than 3 years $73 million for Rose and Burks.
But again, even if you operate under the assumption that all of the cap space had to spent, there were unambiguously better options. We basically got sentimental about a team that got spanked in the first-round in a year in which there was a lot of anomalous underperformance by teams below us.
Maybe we’ll still get lucky somehow, but we’ve completely taken our destiny out of our own hands. If we’re to become a contender, it will require other teams cooperating with us. Why would you ever lock yourself into that situation?
Daniel Theis and Jarrett Allen might beg to differ…
Would have rather gotten in on that than running last year’s squad back.
That sadly does make more sense than whatever they’re doing here.
you could have gone after any number of guys… but just chill out on Rose.. Burks and Noel..
i was really hot for trading for a pg… like Delon Wright who went for RIDICULOUSLY cheap i have no idea how we did not even sniff that… but even if you hate Wright… there’s Dinwiddie.. there’s Ball … i don’t know how much Payne was available but he’s there too…
and then you fill out however you want depending on strategy… leave max room? sign James Ennis and the like after the first couple of days of free agency and mix those guys in with your rookies… of which i would have picked entirely different players…
dont’ want to leave max room? ok sign Fournier too …
here’s just one possibility…
PG: Delon Wright.. Dosunmu.. Vildoza
SG: Fournier.. IQ.. Keon Johnson
SF: Barrett.. Ennis
PF: Randle.. Toppin
C: Robinson.. Bassey
massive cap room for next year too! don’t want to leave cap room? just sign Dinwiddie.. or Ball or whoever..
i don’t know how good ppl think this team will be next year.. but it’s not the favorite for the 4 seed i can tell you that much… the marginal difference between what rose.. burks and noel give you vs just about any other alternative is very very small… and certainly doesn’t exist once you look past next year..
just terrible all around…
that sucks…
OMG what a disaster.
Possible minutes allocations:
Vildoza 20 Rose 20 Quick 5 McBride 3
Fournier 30 Burks 18
RJ 35 Burks 10 Grimes 3
Randle 38 Toppin 10
Mitch 24 Noel 24 Sims 0
Nightmare for the kids, including IQ. Maybe Rose will break down right out the gate… that’s burning $100 bills, but good for the kids…
oh well, what’s up next – julius’ extension offer?
I missed seeing Olynyck got 3yr-37m from Detroit.
I don’t get how you pick Graham over Lonzo, but Graham is talented, at least.
Man, I just don’t get why the Knicks weren’t in on any of these guys.
Wouldn’t have been crazy about paying for Graham twice, but yes, still better than this shit.
We very obviously weren’t on the prowl for the best possible options. We attached esoteric value to players who played for the 2020-2021 New York Knicks. I’m sure there are some people who think that’s a good thing because of continuity or whatever, but I think they’re in for a rude awakening.
It wouldn’t shock me if next season is one of those “rooting for losses by the second half” situations.
Wow, they could have gotten Devonte for under 12M/yr.
You don’t need players of that caliber, you’d need a backup center to hold down the fort for a year or so until Thibs coaches Isaiah Jackson into a defensive monster.
It took Thibs about 3/4 of a season to coach Obi Toppin into a competent defender, he’d probably have Jackson in playable shape in a short amount of time.
Leon Rose only knows players who play for the Knicks. Plus whatever five college players he watched YouTube highlights of.
What, you expect him to know who Devonte Graham is? The guy has a life, you know.
If Rose’s year 3 is non-guaranteed I’d feel a lot better about that deal.
So it looks on the surface like they punted on the next 3 years and are going all in on FA 2024, which is probably better than trying to keep up with the Jones’ in the East with a megamax trade for Beal or Lillard. It’s just kind of boring to bring back the same guys, and I would rather have kept Bullock than signed Fornier. But here’s to Vildoza and our 3 rookies making an impact. And Kevin Knox, of course.
We probably could have just given Charlotte back their own draft pick and traded for Devonte Graham. DRose should not be a starter.
And what’s going on with Mitch still being in a walking boot? Hasn’t it been something like 6 months since his injury? I guess that’s why we were forced to overpay Noel.
It’s possible that they could have gotten them to avoid matching if they gave him more money, like $15 million. Graham at $15 million seems like it has more upside than Rose at the same price.
Seriously? You would have given up a 2022 pick to sign Devonte Graham? This board would have self immolated
Possibly. Could be the case with Jericho Sims for all we know. But the market price for high-level 27yo backups (keeping in mind that Nerlens started a hell of a lot of games, or backed up Taj, and mostly played his ass off, so he’s more than just a garden variety backup) is pretty much what Nerlens got.
This is a ridiculous plan. Nobody punts on THREE seasons.
At that point just do the fucking rebuild, it would actually be faster.
Maybe Rokas will be the answer.
I would have been okay giving Charlotte their pick back for Graham instead of Rose.
I am really having a hard time understanding this offseason. Unloading 19 makes even less sense. If we were trying to bundle assets for a big trade why sign mediocre players with mostly negative value to long contracts. Maybe Noel or Burks are moveable but the other team has to want them or we have to find someone who does and has cap room. Any big trade is now much more complicated. If we are not bundling assets for a big move then why not make a pick at 19.
None of this makes any sense. The Rose contract especially. To think my big fears were big contracts to Schroder, Derozan, or Lowry and now all three of those would be better than the $35 million trio of mediocrity.
Quickley played 20 minutes a game last year when we had essentially the same team.
Rose has no clue what he’s doing. There’s no more to it than that. It’s not complicated. He has no experience in doing this and there’s no reason to think he’d overcome that experience with some kind of innate ability. It’s a tough, detail-oriented job. He was hired for the job by an abject idiot.
It looks like he’s just delegated it all to Thibs, quite frankly.
But yeah, obviously you’re properly stunned. This is basically a nightmare if you’re a Knick fan.
There’s no way that their actual plan is to “plan for 2024.” That’s just the thing they say because they couldn’t do any of the things that they were hoping to do. I mean, come on, planning for 2024? When Randle is, what, two years into his mega-max extension?
Payne and Graham were my #1 and #2 choices for point. Weirdly similar stats per 36, both 6’1″, although Payne shot .440 from 3 last year (outlier anyone?). Graham was twice as likely to put up 3s, funnily enough.
Didn’t really like anyone else out there, even Ball. Ball + Sexton as someone suggested would have been wild, though. Overall disappointing. Not apoplectic about it, however.
Does swapping Ball for Graham increase or decrease the Zion sweepstake odds in 2024?
Tommy Beer
@TommyBeer
The Knicks are clearly prioritizing continuity/chemistry over future cap flexibility.
It makes sense in some respect, but is also a significant gamble.
Especially because NY has burned through their cap space and they still don’t have a reliable, durable starting point guard.
And when RJ hits restricted free agency. According to spotrac, his cap hold will be $32M.
Norman Powell 5 years 90 million
Folks, everyone’s getting overpaid
I honestly don’t know if I can handle three years of Derrick Rose. I might have to step away. He is literally one of my least favorite players in the NBA. Now I not only have to watch him for three years but watch him decline for three years. Him being injury-prone is maybe the only upside of this deal. Hopefully, he won’t play too much. I am pretty bummed. I thought with McBride, IQ, and Vildoza us signing a starting PG would mean the end of Rose on the Knicks.
They blew their cap space Day 1 on Evan Fournier, Derrick Rose, Nerlens Noel, and Alec Burks.
LOLKnicks barely does it justice.
If EVERYONE is getting overpaid, is that overpayment or true market value?
First day of free agency is always absurd.
That’s a lot like.. we traded the 19th pick in the draft to create cap space to sign Derrick Rose.. Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel to fat multiyear deals…
Fucking the same here. I watched way fewer games last year after we traded for him.
Calmed down a bit. We are not going to compete with the Bucks, Nets, Hawks, Sixers or the Heat next season. Youth is everywhere on this team. Even though DRose was brought in as a mentor, he was productive. Noel and Burks were key ingredients to last year’s great chemistry. Leon may believe it is better to build a culture of continuity while harnessing the work ethic of RJ, IQ, Grimes and Miles. Shooting for a straight line improvement with all of the peculiarities of last year’s season was not realistic, especially with the middling free agent talent available. I’m still pissed that not a shred of imagination was apparent tonight.
Derrick Rose was destined to sign this contract the day Thibs got his way and they traded for him. It was inevitable.
So we have a $4.9 million room exception remaining? Is that the last of it?
The only other positive I see about meh market value contracts is that they are easier to trade! Noel and Burks at those numbers make it easier when you try to salary match in transactions. (I don’t post here a lot, so before people make fun of me, that was all sarcasm).
I will hold off on judging too harshly until I see what the structures of the contracts, are, etc. But it is really strange how the team seems fixated on their guys, both in the draft and free agency. However, like others said, it seems to be how Thibs likes to do things. We bought into a way of doing things and it looks like he has 2024 to get it done. But I don’t see this roster as much more than a 6-7-8 seed until then.
But that rose deal. Ugh. Maybe Charlotte pick will be used to get rid of that contract in a few years. More forward thinking.
Yep.
Nobody should question my “this front office sucks” epiphanies ever again. So far I’m 100% on those
The second your “market value” players decline they are a negative asset, and thus you have to attach other assets to them to get rid of them.
Which is presumably what we’ll be doing in the near future.
Continuity and chemistry along with continued development. That’s what I see,
I understand the hatred of D-Rose because of his much-worse-than-me-too encounter. How did you feel about Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd? I compartmentalize and don’t look at the person, just the player. Otherwise, he was the ideal teammate.
Would anyone be truly shocked if the room went to Elf?
Or Frank?
Norman Powell, who is in the same class of NBA player as Burks or Fournier just got a 5 year $90 million deal so we could have fucked up even worse!
“The real plan is to make a big splash in 2024” is a great bit. Nothing but respect for it as a matter of comic relief, especially given how often we’re told a true rebuild would simply take too long and Knicks fans would never put up with it.
In the real world, of course, we have no idea who will even be a free agent in 2024 and this is obviously some post-hoc rationalization nonsense.
Yes, I would’ve rather surrendered a lottery protected pick to get Graham on that deal than just about anything we actually did. There were honestly not that many moves made today I wouldn’t have preferred to what we did. Even, like, the Chris Paul deal, or paying a lot for DeMar DeRozan, or something else clearly suboptimal long-term but beneficial in the short-term would’ve at least represented a direction of sorts.
I mean we’re paying Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel upwards of $20M AAV. Does anyone want to defend that on the merits, or just talk about the possibility of paying to get out from under those deals?
The most disappointing thing for me is that we never have a good young point guard and we still don’t have a good young point guard.
How many years are we supposed to go with shitty point guards? Every good team in the NBA has a great facilitator. How is that so hard for people in this organization to understand?
I would have given CHA its pick back for Devonte in a heartbeat at less than 12/year.
Powell is a young 28 and has three consecutive seasons of ~.600+ TS% scoring on high usage. I would rather have him and Isaiah Jackson than Alec Burks and Nerlens Noel.
Would I have signed him to that contract? Doubt it, but it just goes to show you how boring and uncreative our moves were.
I continue to be fascinated by the idea that we simply couldn’t have rostered too many rookies when the Sixers went out of their way to buy the pick that turned into Charles Bassey from the Pelicans, by the way.
A genuinely terrible free agency, both bad in the classic sense and uninspiring in that there’s only one new player in the rotation. I am distracting myself with bemusement at what some of the other teams are doing — the Lakers willingly dismantled a championship team for no reason, the Heat are giving me memories of the 2013-14 Nets, and the Mavs I guess still have enough support in the media that people are spinning a Josh Richardson for Reggie Bullock swap as progress towards building a championship team.
FWIW Zion will be here in two years
It’s less ridiculous when you consider that the PR for the team is in the best place since, what, 2012-13? Tanking would probably destroy the team’s image, and big dollar moves would only lead to being capped out and still behind the Bucks, Nets and possibly Sixers Heat, Celts and Hawks.
But even so, the execution is clearly sloppy and uninspired. Not woefully incompetent, just workmanlike (was that your assessment from a couple of days ago or someone else?)
Anyway, let’s say Mitch comes back healthy and all the newly-signed vets play to their contracts, and Julius, RJ, IQ, Obi, Vildoza, McBride Grimes, and probably Taj fill out the roster. It’s a wonky but deep team. Assuming that Boston and Miami bounce back, ATL is for real, and BKL, PHI and BKN are the elite teams, looks like we’re fighting for position in the play-in tournament with TOR, CHI, IND. But the East will be tough, CLE, WAS and ORL all could surprise and DET picked up Cade and have a nice young core already, no gimmees this year.
Agreed. It’s not the exact flexibility I had in mind – I agree w/Strat that the Rose deal is one year too long (no team option 3rd year?), but they are market deal for guys that played well last year. No overpays – guys that can potentially be cobbled together along with a 1st or two for a premiere superstar should one shake loose… or request a sign-n-trade 😉
I think the poll should be which veteran FA signing will be the worst contract….
Generally I think it’s better to make a bunch of stupid relatively small moves than a couple really stupid big moves, so I think the Knicks are making progress in the right direction. I think we overpaid on every player we signed but if you overpay by idk 8 million over 3 years it’s much better than overpaying by 60 million over 4 years.
Still we made the classic Knicks mistake of doing too many deals right off the bat. If you can sign Kevin Durant the first minute of free agency you go ahead and do that otherwise you should take your time for at least some deals because some decent players will get overlooked
Dude. That was in my “okay I’ll give them a chance” phase. Turns out my initial reaction was the correct one.
If their true intention was to punt three fucking seasons to take a swing at some FA class in which we don’t even know who is available, that is even more hilariously idiotic than the Occam’s Razor explanation, which is that this FO is just bad at their jobs.
Leon Rose just figured out a way to save his job for a couple of years. That’s what went down here. There’s no master plan.
How I imagine Leon Rose’s conversation with Dolan: “Last season was fun, right, Mr Dolan? Well, what if I told you we could so that for THREE MORE SEASONS? Sounds amazing, right? Where’s that cool guitar you were going to show me? Nice fedora!”
This feels like the most penny wise and pound foolish front office I’ve ever seen. Where did their model for player valuation even come from?
I was suspending judgment about the draft partly because I was so confused, partly because I try not to dwell on negative things I can’t control. But this is just bad. Bad in a different way than before — not Isiah’s extravagant whims, Dolan’s petty interference, Walsh’s weakness, Grunwald’s Bargnani fixation, or Phil’s assurance of his own genius. This is like having insurance agents in charge — uninspiring, boring, so much effort to secure marginal returns when the goal should be to shoot for the moon.
It’s been 20 years of the same shit, what’s another 3 more at this point?
not a happy night. just doesn’t seem like we are nearly good enough today to commit $54 million for what is not going to be an awe inspiring 2023-24 quartet of rose, burks, noel, fournier. almost all the vol is to the downside. and this is not a foursome with pristine injury histories, either. need to pray for a homerun or two from the kiddies. boo.
last year i was told that we couldn’t take flyers on cheap young guys getting multi-year deals like christian wood or m-m-melton bc we needed to keep cap space open for big fish. these fish be stale.
I did hate Kidd and Kobe as well. I actually stepped away from the Knicks during Kidd’s tenure partly because of him and partly because of Melo and the all veterans approach we were taking. But my dislike of Rose is not just his questionable character it’s also when he quit on the team and I personally dislike the way he plays I think he is boring to watch and a ball-stopper.
On top of that, he is not that good, though he did have some good stretches last year, and he is a huge injury age risk.
Derrick Rose has now played pretty well for three straight years. He has reinvented himself as a crafty old guy and he’s talented so he’s good at it.
He is NOT a good bet to keep that up for three more years. And his decline is only going to be accelerated by the fact that he’s almost certainly going to play very heavy minutes until he’s permanently cooked.
I’ll be surprised if he plays more than 500 minutes in the last year of that deal.
And we can thank Steve Stoute for that.
Oh how little faith you show in Mr. Stoute.
so any early W-L projections? Assuming a 72-game season, I’m setting the O/U at 36.5 wins…and only because Thibs will once again grind every win out of these stale fish…
A lot of you are not entertained by these moves, lol. But like others have said, it doesn’t mean they’re bad or horrible. And while RJ’s leap will be the most important improvement needed from a franchise standpoint, it’s not the only path. IQ and Obi can take big steps forward and that would go a long way, especially if IQ shows more passing chops. Maybe McBride and Grimes make a good impression in preseason. We don’t know how good Vildoza may be.
I get it – it’s like going to Texas de Brazil and getting full on salad instead of delicious, juicy meat sliced from a spigot. You’re looking at you friends who are acting all Monkey D Luffy over their leg of lamb, Brazilian sausage and filet mignon, and you’re looking at your salad like, “maaaaan this shit boring as hell!” But your digestive system will eventually thank you for not loading yourself down with meats that will take 2 days to pass through you. That’s what’s going on here… the Knicks chose the salad bar.
It’s back to a regular 82 game season and I say they finish over .500, around 43-45 wins.
P.S. I know there are some folks with fine culinary taste buds so don’t look down on me for using Texas de Brazil as an example – I actually like that place lol.
I was originally thinking of using Outback Steakhouse as an example because I felt the free agent pool was more akin to that vs De Brazil, but I reallydidn’t want to be taken to town for holding up a chain restaurant to the light of fine dining.
Cdiggy you’re the best. You know I want this team to win.
Sounds about right, yeah.
Thanks, so make that O/U 41.5…
Ultimately I think the idiocy of the “team of rivals” approach was on full display tonight.
We spent multiple years meticulously conserving cap space and looking for extra picks here and there. In doing so, as ptmilo mentioned, we passed on some intriguing opportunities. Maybe that was stupid, but it at least was consistent with some kind of vision. The idea loosely seemed to be we weren’t going to lock ourselves in to a team that couldn’t contend.
Welp, tonight we took whatever that vision may have been and lit it on fire. I know I’ve already said this but it reeks of a change in which “rival” is winning the power struggle. The problem with drastic changes in direction is whatever direction you pivot towards, other teams have necessarily been at it for longer than you.
We don’t have nearly the fire power to compete with the actual contenders, and we’ve thrown away the ability to accumulate assets at a similar pace to the rebuilding teams.
To top it all off, we didn’t even blow all this flexibility on a particularly interesting team. I could’ve signed up to watch some combination of Lonzo Ball, Devonte Graham, Cameron Payne, Isaiah Jackson, etc. try to get this core to a new level even if I knew for a fact it wasn’t gonna end in a parade. Instead we get Derrick Rose and Alec Burks.
Feel free to give this front office special internet credit for being better than Phil Jackson, but I think they’ve proven they’re not particularly sharp.
Me, 6pm today: The Noel deal doesn’t make sense because you can get centers that are 80% as good for the vet minimum.
Two hours later: Cody Zeller signs for vet minimum.
Well, at least the Knicks didn’t sign PJ Tucker to a 2-year/$15 million contract.
We were a good team last year. We brought our guys back. It’s not what we wanted but the nice part about having a good team already is you don’t need to do anything. It’s better than the last 20+yrs so I’ll take it, begrudgingly.
Start preparing yourself mentally for the Randle mega extension. It’s coming. The front office is determined to lock in the 2020-21 season, and Randle is the straw that stirs the drink. They are NOT letting him walk.
Oh man I can’t wait to share this news, Melo is apparently deciding between the Knicks and Lakers!
This from Marc Stein.
The Knicks will top 50 wins next year and be top three in the east and you will all look like idiots.
None of the contracts we signed are bad really. Rose is probably the worst snd it’s only 3 years. They can all be included in a deal for a star. We have all our first rounders plus the Dallas and Charlotte picks plus a boatload of second rounders. We have a 26 year old who is second team all NBA and RJ is 21. Oh and we just seriously upgraded our offense with Fournier and got younger overall with him replacing bullocks and our two rookies plus Villadoza. You all are addicted to being angry and negative and are all completely wrong. I can’t wait for the backpedaling to begin!
Oh good I hope Melo gets all of Obi’s minutes.
I know you do. And I know you wanted Lonzo Ball and you made a good case why. People (not you, btw) tend to say things like “aw man why did the Knicks let Chicago get Lonzo” or “we should’ve spent that $ on Lonzo” like Lonzo doesn’t have anything to say about where he wants to play. We don’t yet know why he signed with Chicago and not us, but it’s not like he’s some mindless dude, and some here have brought up legit concerns about him being able to run a half-court offense.
This was gonna be a tough offseason to reign in a big fish w/out forces outside of the team’s control breaking right for them. Hasn’t happened, so they made some decent to meh moves that should keep the ship upright; I think we’re gonna like Fournier.
I am a bit concerned about Rose’s deal and how they’re gonna use him. He should not start at this point in his career – so they need to be committed to developing a starting lead guard out of either Vildoza or IQ for the start of the season. There’s a chance Rose has transformed himself enough where he can extend his career by 2 or 3 years. And Obi has someone that will look for him on offense again!
Bobby Marks from ESPN reported that the Knicks matched the Suns’ initial offer to CP3 for 3 years/$100M, but the Suns were able to offer a 4th year because they had his Bird Rights.
So maybe that was Leon Rose’s Plan A?
Interestingly enough, the increase in the age restrictions on Bird Rights deals from 36 to 38 happened under Paul’s watch as players’ association president in 2018.
It’s way too early for predictions. I mean we still have another $4.9 mil to waste, I mean spend.
CDiggy, the “going to Fogo de Chão and only ordering salad” metaphor is hilarious and the first thing that’s made me feel better about tonight.
Nerlens is one of the elite defensive Cs in the league, especially as a rim protector. He led the league in DBPM. There wasn’t any drop-off when he became a starter. He is also a joy to watch (my daughter’s favorite player, along with IQ) His contract is fine by me. It’s Rose and Fournier that we’re going to regret. Burks is probably okay.
-Rose is not worth that money, even at last year’s level of play. By year 3 he will require assets to dump his salary, or will have to take Noah’s place in the dead cap box. This was a Steve Mills bidding against yourself deal…I don’t believe anyone else would have offered that deal. Very disappointing.
-Burks is a career journeyman but has played his best in the last couple of years. He’s probably a market-value asset on his contract at age 30. I like his swag and his game, so whatever. This signing is more boring than anything else.
-Fournier? He’s a minus defender and will get abused by the best wings in the league. Plus he gets banged up a lot. He can score, but I don’t see the match with Thibs.
Compare their #s on Bball Ref. That doesn’t look like a guy who’s 80% of Noel last season, especially defensively. His offensive #s are a bit better and so is his rebounding, but you want to trade off a slight bump in offense for a significant drop in defense? Not me.
I mean Cody Zeller doesn’t have hands made of petrified wood on offense, but he’s also not in Noel’s league as a rim protector.
Marc Stein @TheSteinLine:
Another free-agent duel of interest: Carmelo Anthony is weighing interest from both the Lakers and the Knicks, league sources say.
The point is not that Zeller is as good as Nerlens. It’s that he’s pretty good, definitely a fine backup center, and he’s being paid $30m less.
There will be more Zellers to come. It’s just so much smarter to save that money with a small downgrade at backup center and use it on one of the things we actually need, like I dunno, the starting PG that we incredibly STILL don’t have.
so how does trading the 19th pick for peanuts start looking in hindsight?
i hope folks realize now.. good front offices can make bad decisions… and bad front offices are capable of good decisions… but good front offices don’t generally make deals where they are clear losers multiple times..
that’s why punting the 33rd pick was such a canary… say what you will about rookies but having someone like Paul Reed or Xavier Tillman or whoever.. could’ve saved us from 30 million from Alec Burks or to Noel.. hell Devon Dotson could’ve save us from having to pick McBride this year.. (yes Dotson’s better than him)….
you don’t have to believe in the draft.. but you absolutely have to respect it.. no self respecting functioning front office gives away picks like that ever.. and that’s a sign of something not right.. and doing it twice no less and with the 19th pick should have raised alarm bells that we were going to do something terrible today…
sometimes great dysfunction can lead to good short term results.. but eventually the magnitude of your mistakes start compounding until it all collapses.. wouldn’t it be nice to have haliburton now and not have to sweat the pg market? wouldn’t it be tolerable to swallow half of these signings if we made all our picks? all it takes is a randle or rose injury or moderate regression from a few candidates and things start collapsing really really quick…
what happens if randle decides not to resign? what happens if he starts regressing? we’re pretty locked into him now at all costs right? rj too even if he doesn’t make a leap right?
these are very sobering questions with some terrible answers.. and that’s because we’ve cornered ourselves because we had a small taste of success… how lucky we got from that huh…
I strongly believe Thibs could have coached Isaiah Jackson into a defensive beast. The kid is known for having a strong work ethic and he’s already a strong rim protector, and he’s a freak athlete. And he might have even had some upside on offense.
Nerlens is a fine defensive player, but he’s a one way player with no chance to be anything more because he simply can’t catch a basketball.
Swift predicted 50 wins and a three seed, and honestly that is probably like 10% possible: everybody stays healthy, RJ makes a leap, Randle repeats his season, the rookies surprise, Rose squeezes out another nice year, the defense is elite again. But that requires an awful lot of things to go right. The young players will really have to do a lot of improving. And it’s hard to see a path for this team to truly go toe-to-toe with the top teams in the East over the next three years. We’re capped out and still seem to have some obvious weaknesses.
What would you rather have for $25m: Payne, Zeller, and $12m, or Rose and Nerlens?
And what about Dinwiddie? He would have been a really good fit, and his list of options is running out. Where were we on him?
If I were running the team, I’d prefer waiting out the market or scouring the G League for a backup. But a move that makes the team worse is not going to happen with Leon Rose.
Plus, if Mitch is still in a walking boot, maybe the FO wants more of a 1A and 1B center situation rather than Mitch and a clear-cut backup.
Noel’s play allowed the D to keep up their intensity while Mitch was out. Like Z-man says, Nerlens is one of the elite defensive Cs in the league. He fits what the team needs. Zeller doesn’t.
Like some, I wondered if they could’ve found a Noel replacement in the draft, I don’t think I would’ve spent #19 on finding one. $10.6 mil per is meh, but in a way it’s also good money on essentially a Mitch insurance policy.
Count me out on bringing back Melo back even if it makes sense.
I can see the team finishing 6th or7th- you hope RJ/Obi/Quick improve enough to offset any step back from Randle and having a healthy Mitch/Noel tandem for the entire season makes up for losing Bullock. Hopefully Fournier improves the offense enough to keep pace with Charlotte’s improvement but it’s tough to see them beating out Boston or Miami if they’re healthy.
And I could have lived with that if they’d picked 19 and 21 but if you just got waxed in the first round and you’re running back more or less the same team hoping for internal improvement then you need to give yourself a better chance by drafting well. This is just unimaginative middle management BS.
it was Taj Gibson who replaced Mitch’s minutes… and i don’t know how much he costs but it’s a lot less than Noel given that he’s still available…
Melo does not seem like a Thibs guy. He is, unfortunately, a Rose guy.
I’d feel better about gambling on Payne’s #s translating to starter’s minutes vs potentially asking Rose to start if there are no better options. I’ve already stated my opinion on Zeller v Noel. The extra $12 mil? Intriguing, but it depends on what your plans for it is. I suppose Option 2 b/c sometime a bird in the hand…
I would’ve been interested in Dinwiddie. But again, none of these guys are sure-fire starters for a variety of reasons.
Taj got Mitch’s minutes, but that doesn’t mean he backed him up in terms of how he was used. Not primarily.
Taj was a pro’s pro last year, no doubt. He’s also 36. He’s not who I want to rely on as your main b/u center.
i just can never understand why the new york knicks hate point guards so much…
unless quik makes some incredible improvement – we still do not have a starting point guard…if we had done nothing else this off-season but address the starting point guard role, i’d have been okay with near whatever else the FO did…that however, for like the 100th year in a row did not occur…
We have Derrick Rose, Bones McBride and a bunch of two guards who aren’t ideally suited to play PG.
If Rose misses some time, which he always does, we’re down to Bones and a bunch of two guards.
I’d be looking to spend that exception on a pure PG who is not named Elfrid Payton. We’re thin at that position, inexplicably.
I feel u. That said:
-Cam Payne resigned the type of deal that makes you think he wasn’t chasing every last dollar; guess he really loves the Suns. Is he a starter yet tho?
-Lonzo signed w/the Bulls. I won’t rehash my comments on this one.
-We were in on a competitive offer to CP3 but the Suns were able to offer the 4th year.
-Is Dinwiddie the type that makes you say, “yes finally our PG!”? Maybe?
What was so funny about the #19 nonsense is that we got to see a rehash of the Derrick Rose trade back in the day, where we got to see people take their positions (then, “Of course the Knicks aren’t dumb enough to trade for Derrick Rose!” or “Well, maybe if the Bulls give the Knicks a first rounder to take him!” and now, “Obviously, the #19 pick is part of a trade they haven’t announced yet” or “We needed to clear out the $2.5 million the pick would cost to make a big free agency signing”) then see the opposite of their positions occur and then….”What a good move!”
It never fails.
Cody Zeller made 15 million dollars last season. He’s a good basketball player. He’s getting the minimum now because he’s proven he can’t stay healthy
Oh wait, he’s “Deuce” McBride, the other guy the front office supposedly liked was “Bones” Hyland. I got my potential Knick buddy cop partners confused. Sorry Deuce!
Deuce will be wearing #2 as a Knick, which is pretty cool.
I was so confused as I had never heard McBride being called “Bones” before and I figured that would be the sort of thing I’d remember if I had heard it before.
The Knicks saved 2.5 million never made a lick of sense you can always get 2.5 million in space if you need it.
Isn’t Vildoza a PG?
I like the Burks and Fournier deals, and the Derrick Rose deal signals to me they’re giving Quickley/McBride a chance to be a full time starter this year. I’m not the biggest fan of the Nerlens Noel deal, but he’s maybe a top 15 center in the NBA and we have him through his athletic prime. I think the moves to grab Fournier and keep Burks over Bullock made a lot of sense, but it also signals to me that this franchise is planning on RJ Barrett to take another leap defensively. He’s going to be tasked with guarding the other team’s best wing every night next year out of necessity, and I think he’s up to the task.
I’m actually pretty happy with what the Knicks did today because it signals, to me, the faith this front office has in IQ and RJ Barrett. I firmly believe Grimes at 25 is going to be the steal of this draft, too, but that’s not a hill I’m willing to die on today. We still have all of our draft picks, there are zero albatross contracts on the books, Elfrid Payton is a thing of the past, and there are no players on the roster that will take minutes away from our two most important young guys.
One thing about Derrick Rose; the Knicks were 24-11 in the games he played last year, which would be good for 56 games over an 82 game season. The back end of that deal looks really bad if there’s no team option on the 3rd year, but the guy changed the course of our season and earned a second contract with the Knicks.
Vildoza seems like more of a combo guard as an NBA player, but maybe that’s the plan, to start Vildoza at point and bring Rose off the bench.
If he’s a viable NBA point guard that does change the picture quite a bit.
This offseason reminds me a lot of the one two years ago. We have tons of space miss out on our target, which now appears to be Paul, and instead of regrouping and being patient we spend all our money super quickly.
I don’t understand the rush. Every year there are some nice players that miss the opening frenzy and are available at pennies on the dollar. At this point I would not be surprised if Dinwiddie signs for about what we are paying Rose.
Why did we have to sign everyone so quickly? Once we missed out on Paul we could have just been patient and we wouldn’t be capped out less than 12 hours into free agency.
i don’t think he’s “lighting it up” in the olympics…
i don’t know man – if the answer is quik, and he can at least average 25 minutes and 4 assists a game next season, then yeah, it worked out i guess…
i just don’t see the same value with rose as a starter and rose off the bench…
that’s kind of an expensive bench too: rose, nerlens, burks…
graham four years, 47 million – new orleans didn’t sign him to be a backup, did cost a first round pick though, for a starting point guard, i’d have given them back their pick…tj mcconnell, four years, 35.2 million, he is slotted to be a backup…payne – backup at 3 years, 19 million…lonzo at 4 years, 85 million (i don’t know what got in to zach lavine the last year or so, but he’s born again basketball hard)…
summer league starts next sunday, august 2nd…3 of the four games are on espn 2, one’s on nbatv…it’ll be interesting to see who starts at the point – they could be our starting point guard this season…
Can this team compete with Atlanta now? Or in 2023 season?
This roster kind of gives me a post-Kawhi Spurs vibe…
I hate that Knox is playing summer league and taking shots away from guys who actually might help the team down the road. Because he’s going to get some shots up- he’s got to know his NBA career is on the line.
Damn… Spain couldn’t keep up with the US in the 2nd half. Too much size and speed and they were already tired on defense, i guess. Congrats!
Rose and Fournier are disappointing, not because they are bad value per se, but for the lack of upside. I think having Fournier might be a bit better than Bullock + Burks at the same combined salary. I believe Burks season was kind of a mirage, and Bullock is fine, but Fournier gives you way more on offense. Let’s hope that Thibs can make Fournier work on defense. But I do not see it changing the team’s future.
As it stands, we are just hoping to be about the same as last year. I guess that we are going to end up over the cap anyway, so Fournier also works as trade filler in case that something happens at the trade deadline. The team option is also nice, and it is good to see that we get those options nowadays.
I have missed that we retained Burks and Noel. I am OK with Nerlens, I believe a good part of our success was having great defense at C (through 48 minutes, and more so through injuries). But I do not like Burks deal, I do think last year was kind of a mirage and that he will regress.
And that takes us out of Lonzo Ball sweepstakes, :/
RJ must really take the next step if this team is to grow, because we did not really get better through FA.
According to Vornukov and Hollinger we have about 8m in space to still spend so there may still be a pg deal out there somewhere, albeit not a major one.
No, please no.
Available PGs include Schroeder and Payton, I’d rather stay put and accept misery than disaster…
Edit: If I read the right tweet, Gollinger said we can have 8M of space if we cut Vildoza, otherwise it’s less.
Macri seems to get it right in his most recent newsletter. On the one hand, it seems like the Knicks used up most of their cap space bringing back a pretty mediocre roster for the next 3 years. On the other hand, they tried to maintain the optics of last year’s improvement which matters when a star is looking to change teams; secured some continuity, upgraded their offense by signing Fournier, and avoided signing any contracts that will be immovable later.
He says that this is the new strategy to building a contender; protecting cap space even if it means sucking now being the old strategy.
I am pretty disappointed this morning.
I’m fine with the Fournier deal
I’m fine with the Burks deal
Really disheartened by the Noel deal – I guess we need more details on that one (maybe at least partially nonguaranteed?)
The Rose deal in a vacuum isn’t too bad, although I wish it were a 2 year deal rather than a 3 year deal.
It’s just disappointing they accumulated all this cap space and just brought the band back together on market rate deals. Continuity is good – don’t get me wrong — but it feels like you could’ve gotten a little bit of a discount on years or $.
Really not sure what to make of this from a Mitch perspective.
Bullock is gone, which is fine — but I am not sure who guards the best wings on the team now – I guess it is RJ. Is he ready for that?
And who is the starting PG? Is it Quickley? Quickley + RJ + Fournier + Randle + Mitch is actually sort of fun. Not in a contender-fun kinda way but still fun.
I’m guessing Noel’s not coming off the bench at that contract amount. Injuries may solve the problem for us, or Mitch may be part of a trade. I would definitely like to see more of Quickley and RJ and Randle playing together, though.
I remain underwhelmed but not despondent. This seems like a Do No Harm offseason in a slightly different way than last year’s. Fournier is better and more versatile offensively than Bullock (though not nearly as good on the other end as Reggie), there looks to still be a move left, and most of these deals should be tradeable if/when a star wants to come to NY. But until/unless that happens, the roster’s upside rests entirely in the young guys, and who knows how many minutes will be available for some of them?
Macri’s newsletter is always kind of fun in a sort of “What kind of mental gymnastics will he come up with to explain that whatever the Knicks did was the right thing?” And this is one of his better efforts. I don’t buy it, but he really gave it his all.
You mean you don’t think it’s optimal that they used up almost all of their $53 million in cap space to not even address their most glaring need at starting point guard?
This all said, if Burks is making $30 million over three to be a bench player, I don’t see why Noel can’t be making $32 million over three to also be a bench player/emergency starter. So I’m not too worried about what these moves say about Mitch’s future here. The Knicks saw what the team looked like with Mitch and without and they obviously know “with” is a lot better (especially after a gimpy Noel and Taj were destroyed in the playoffs).
Yeah, I love Macri, but today was him at his most Pollyanna. Some days, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.
Since Fournier is better on offense, they should have kept Reggie for his defense. Signing Burks seems redundant as his skill set seems similar to Fournier’s and Reggie is better than both of them on defense, by a lot. This is where it’s going to hurt next year – the offense will improve because of Fournier’s shooting but the defense will take a step backwards, particularly on the perimeter.
Reggie and Burks are both 30 and I believe both reportedly signed for the same contract 3 years 30 million. So we get no new starting caliber point guard, redundancy on the wing, and the defense will be worse. Disappointing
What specifically don’t you buy?
Macri is usually overly optimistic, to be sure but I do think catering to increasingly empowered stars and extending last year’s improvement has merits. And I do think any of the contracts signed last night could be included in a trade when the right opportunity presents itself.
I don’t get the “the contracts are movable” thing at all. If Portland trades Lillard, for example, it will be to start over. Why would they possibly want to take back Nerlens Noel’s or Alec Burks’s or Derrick Rose’s shitty contracts?
So the “new way” to build an NBA contender is to spend all your money on an aged, mediocre roster. I guess that’s an ethos anyway.
They could theoretically be traded, but for what? No one is trading a star for a bunch of decent veterans signed to market rate contracts. So you’re going to, what, trade Alec Burks for the equivalent of Alec Burks on another team?
Plus, if Alec Burks is playing well enough for another team to want him, the Knicks won’t move him and if he is playing poorly enough for the Knicks to want to move him, other teams won’t want him. These deals are not putting pieces together to trade for a star. That’s a pipe dream by Macri designed to make these deals seem more palatable.
I think you could argue that if the highlights of a Knicks package (RJ, a healthy Mitch, IQ, and/or picks) were attractive, and a star and his agent were making an Anthony Davis-esque play for him to go to NY, then Noel’s, Burks, or Rose’s contracts wouldn’t stop the deal.
I think the point is that these aren’t albatross contracts that tie up cap space and then cannot be moved if/when you need to put together a large trade package and make salaries match. And if you get continuity and some wins in the meantime then you remain a more attractive destination.
Well said. The folks who are despondent fall into a couple of camps, it seems.
-the DRose haters
-the Opportunity Cost police
-the FO of Christmas Past PTSD folks
-the “PG, when will we ever have a PG?” crowd
-The Thibs is running the show theorists
All legit beefs, and I feel their pain. Nothing that the FO did required much imagination or inspires confidence. It felt very The Olive Garden-y.
But that said, there is still a lot to look forward to and I’m still excited about the season. Noel, Burks and Rose were all fun for me to root for. I know Fournier’s game from watching him kick our ass at MSG years ago, he’s a strong offensive player. RJ, IQ and Mitch are still core pieces. I still think Obi has upside and liked what he showed in the playoffs. Vildoza should be a quality rotation player. McBride and Grimes were reasonably high on my list compared to where we drafted them, and Sims is an interesting project at #57.
Teams aren’t going to trade a megastar and swallow these contracts as part of the deal. If they did, it would just mean the Knicks would have to pay extra.
When’s the last time a star maneuvered themselves on to a team in a situation that you described?
It’s just some major straw-grasping by Macri.
New post!
http://knickerblogger.net/remember-how-cool-that-game-2-win-over-the-hawks-was-then-boy-do-i-have-good-news-for-you-the-knicks-2021-offseason/
Yes, these contracts are, for the most part, moveable in two ways: 1)As acceptable salary filler to trade for a star, since the highlights of such a package would be the cheap kids and/or picks; or 2)As stuff that could be sent to other teams who might need microwave bench scoring (Burks) or defensive help (Noel), while clearing space on our end for the arrival of a star.
Meh. M-E-H, meh.
I guess Rose’s plan to trade for a disgruntled superstar is to… offer a package of draft picks and then throw in vets to match salary…? I don’t see that enticing anyone unless said superstar is dead set on going to NY and tells his team, “take the Knicks’ deal, or I pull a Vince Carter and quit on the team.”
The margin is so narrow for such a thing to happen.
Let me put my Macri hat on and posit this: what if Rose’s strategy is to leverage the irrational optimism of Knicks fans and the media attention a decent Knicks team will get in order to trick superstars into coming here? I call it the “Potemkin Village Contender” strategy. Looking at r/nba to gauge the average fan’s reaction, and pretty much every Knicks fan and even fans of other teams like what the Knicks did. They’re excited to run it back plus Fournier. They think securing the vets on 3 year market rate deals makes them moveable pieces. People eat it up with a spoon when Leon Rose makes low-upside marginal improvements. So maybe someone like Damian Lillard won’t automatically rule out NY.
That makes this the formula: The Knicks being decent + having the assets to make it work on the NBA Trade Machine + irrational fan & media hype + ???? = superstar forces a trade to NY. That’s all I got. My head hurts now. I’m taking off the Macri hat.
Fuck.
I’ve been thinking about this off-season and our management’s moves and I have come up with a new perspective. When say, the Dallas Mavericks, have their off season and two of their big moves are to re-sign Tim Hardaway and to sign Reggie Bullock along with keeping their draft pick, we don’t look at their management and think “ what are they doing, they should have done more”. We think did they make moves that added what they needed to improve. Why do we think this? Because we think of them as a good team. They finished fifth in their conference and made the first round of the playoffs. But when the Knicks re-sign some players and sign a useful free agent to a useful contract, we have anguish. We don’t think of our team as a good team even though we finished fourth in our conference and played a first round playoff series. We think it needs major surgery. But Knicks management does think of the Knicks as a good team. And they have reason to think so. So it’s not some odd behavior on their part that they kept the team mostly together and tried to make incremental improvements. It’s what decent teams like Toronto or San Antonio or Dallas often do in the off season.
re: Derrick Rose, putting his character issues aside, right now he is essentially Devonte Graham, except better in nearly every measurable area. Rose reinvented his game, now as a below the rim player with a great mid-range game and solid from 3 with a lower usage and an outstanding AST/TOV ratio. He was almost a 50-40-90 guy for us, and he was our best player in the playoffs.
Graham is not a kid, he’ 26 years old and has never had a FG% higher than 38%…he’s terrible from 2 and at 26 I doubt it will get much better. He tops out at 37.5% from 3 at a very high rate. He’s a statistical negative on D. So the excitement with him is more new car smell than anything else.