It would not shock me if he didn’t have the energy or desire to play hard on both ends next year and then got worse in year two.

The young Lakers played terrific basketball in the second half of the year last season. They lost a couple of productive young players, but they added Lebron. They should have been better than they have been. One reason they haven’t been as good is that Lebron doesn’t play defense anymore. The last couple of years he started to take possessions off. Now he takes games off.

It also recently dawned on me that the more aggressive Robinson gets trying to block shots the more often he’s out of position to get a defensive rebound. His DREB% would probably rise (and foul trouble decline) if he was more selective about when he tried to block shots or if we did a better job on the perimeter so he didn’t have to help as often.

It comes down to what I think of Durant. I’m a huge Durant fan. I think he’s the greatest scorer of all time and still a great player. I also think he’s starting to slip, but no one has noticed it yet. It would not shock me if he didn’t have the energy or desire to play hard on both ends next year and then got worse in year two.

That’s a big turnaround for me because just a couple of months ago I was screaming we had to sign him.

I specifically said I’d WAY prefer to sign YOUNG stars and get good right away. I am having reservations about Durant specifically right now because imo we’d still not be good enough (even with Zion). I’m less sure about Durant’s window right now than I was a few months ago when I said signing him was a no brainer and other people were arguing about his age. I think the beginnings of his very slow decline have begun. We might only have 2-3 year window with the first year being a give away other than getting playoff experience for the kids and then filling out the rest of the team going into year 2.

I’m not sure how much I like that scenario.

If the cap space is managed well with short term contracts and mostly young players, the timeline is longer but so is the window. Now if you could arrange Kyrie and Davis without giving up the ship, I’m all in.

There’s no world you don’t sign them if you get Zion. You have to do it.

If you draft Zion you immediately sign Durant and Kyrie. It will be the best Knick team in 30 years and a contender.

Durant and Kyrie would easily be the best Knicks team in a long time, but I don’t think it’s a contender even if we are fortunate enough to land Zion in the draft. There are some very deep and very good teams out there now. We’d still need a few more pieces and the youngsters would need some deep playoff experience. I’m not sure how long that window is because no one can say with certainty how long Durant will stay at an elite level, but I’m 1 guy that thinks the slide has already started. People just haven’t noticed it yet because when you used to be the greatest scorer ever and are now just super great, there’s not much to complain about. lol

In my ideal world we’d wind up with Zion and use the cap space to add a few players that are young enough to be around for 7-8 years. Preferably they’d be star caliber players, but if not, so be it. As long as the prices are fair.

This is not a very good idea. This sounds a lot like “In my ideal world I’d lock the Knicks into Pelicans-style mediocrity until Zion gets sick of it and demands to leave.”

If the Knicks win the lottery, all of a sudden they’re a hugely desirable situation, and you go immediately into win-now mode, you sign Kyrie and Durant and don’t think twice about it. It kind of blows my mind that somebody can think it’s a better idea to sign a bunch of non-star players to “fair” contracts, as if that is the best way to add wins.

I mean, I… Guhh. Sometimes I don’t know, man.

I’m even receptive to the idea that Zion’s development might not even be optimized with having to play behind two stars and I’d still do it in a heartbeat.

What better outcome could we have that wouldn’t still destroy our cap space?