Friday Night Non Sequitur: Hasn’t it been too long since you listened to Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite from start to finish? Treat yourself this holiday weekend and recall the days of Knicks 1996/97 when John Starks was Sixth Man of the Year and the Knicks made the playoffs for the 10th(!) consecutive year.

Enjoy the weekend, KB.

I’m not sure what to believe in terms of what was offered and what was asked, but personally I didn’t see a single deal I would have signed off on. If some of the supposed deals we are offered are true, it lowers my estimation of our current management.

I’m all for trying to improve the team. Im even willing to overpay a bit in some circumstances. Heck, I think reasonable people might say we overpaid for Brunson. But IMO there’s a huge difference between overpaying a bit in salary to get a very good player that fills a critical need and overpaying for a one way player that’s a very poor fit defensively.

At no time did I ever want Mitchell. The only reason I would ever traded for him was if we stole him and I could get a free look and easily flip him when/if it didn’t work out. Nothing about this deal made sense to me.

I’m happy with this team. I don’t really care if we make the playoffs this year or not. If we don’t, we have our picks and some extras to try make something else happen. We are young, better than last year, still positioned well to improve, and I like almost all of our players. The only tweaks I would make would be moving on from Fournier to make room for Grimes to strengthen the defense and move on from Randle just for my sanity. If we can do it now without surrendering picks that’s fine. If not, start Grimes, play Fournier off the bench, and try to improve Randle’s value for a few months.

Let’s go Knicks.

I’m not ready to sing a ballad of Leon Rose, either. What he does with the rest of this offseason will be somewhat telling, but he’s just so damn hard to read. My hope is that he takes further steps to Thibs-proof the roster by getting rid of some combination of Randle, Fournier, and Cam (it does not sound like DRose is going anywhere, unfortunately) and just accepts whatever fate Brunson + Kids gets him.

I too hope Evian and Randle start off hot. I’m still sipping pernod on L’Isle de Fournier, so I’m genuinely happy he’s still around (sorry Cyber). And Julius must know by now that dervish-ball is no bueno, so he may surprise all of us. The (boring) post game mantra from Thibs and all the guys last year was, “Take the right shot.” Now with Brunson, the “right” shot should be more apparent, even to Julius. Can’t wait for the games.

over the next seven drafts, the Jazz hold the rights to 13 unprotected first-round picks (incl 6 of their own), as well as a 2026 pick swap with the Timberwolves and two more pick swaps with the Cavs in years that are still to be determined. That’s quite a haul. And there are several players on the roster, including veterans like Mike Conley Jr. and Jordan Clarkson, who could be flipped for additional picks as the roster turns over towards youth.

They also picked up THT, Malik Beasley, Walker Kessler, Leondro Bolmaro, Colin Sexton, Lauri Markanen, and Ochai Agbaji.

That’s not a bad result for a team we were told would have to accept our offer because they had no leverage.

whether that deal would have been a good thing is a different story. some of the rumors seem like bullets dodged, others i would have been tempted. none were homeruns. time to pivot to complaining about the kiddo minutes. the thing about the east being tough is no myth. atlanta and toronto are really strong 7-8 type seeds, if that’s what they are.