David Aldridge did his “offseason rankings” of all of the NBA teams at TheAthletic (subscription required and recommended).
Aldridge is very much an “old school” guy when it comes to evaluating teams, but he’s also been around the block so long that it is still somewhat interesting to hear his thoughts (and I’d prefer there be a more recent post than Mitchell Robinson’s knee injury), so I’ll quote you a bit from his Knick write-up. He has them #19 out of 30 teams (strictly in how he viewed their offseason, not based on how good they are – he thought Memphis, for instance, had a great offseason even though they’ll likely suck in 2019-20 and he has the Warriors very low on the list despite them still being a good team, but because they lost one of the best players in the NBA).
No way this was a “successful” offseason, given the Knicks’ ambitions at the start of it. The idea/goal, no matter the spin of the team’s front office now, was to sign Durant and another superstar and start winning immediately, not to fill out the roster with the cap room for two max players on a bunch of solid if unspectacular vets.
Having said that, New York did a good job getting those SIU vets who will at least play hard every night, starting with Randle, while keeping maximum flexibility for 2020 and beyond by not signing any of them, save Randle, for more than two years. David Fizdale will at least be able to coach this team hard and not worry about future repercussions — but, there sure are a lot of forwards on the roster.
The jury’s out leaguewide on Barrett, with some not at all enthralled with his game, while others believe he’s built for the light and heat of Gotham. At the least, the Knicks should put out a product more worthy of the mega-prices fans in the Spike Lee seats — including, of course, Lee — shell out every year.
He also noted that Kevin Knox is the key man for the Knicks, as he is one of their few players who have upside still.