Knicks Morning News (2023.06.12)

Very long post, sorry, but:

We can see by the limitations of the current conference finalists that the Knicks really are one move from being a legitimate contender, but they also need to make a move now (or before the trade deadline), before the new CBA l destroys their flexibility. So I’ve been thinking about how they could make the leap to true contender, and a few things have become clear:

1. Paying max rates for a one-way star is a ticket to oblivion. KAT is amazing on offense but a significant liability on defense. He hasn’t been and probably can’t be the centerpiece of a great team, and at that salary, is poison. Gobert is (was) amazing on defense but a huge liability on offense, and while he was a centerpiece of a great team, in Utah it took an equally transcendent offensive talent to balance out his deficiencies. And even then they had a hard cap as to how much they could achieve when it mattered. You simply cannot pay this kind of star the max.

2. The Knicks as currently constructed do not have any two-way force; fortunately, their great one-way players are not being paid anywhere near the max, which is why they have real flexibility…for the moment.

3. If you don’t have that two-way centerpiece, all the parts have to fit perfectly to truly contend. Miami is the obvious model – it boggles the mind sometimes how they get as far as they do most years. The Knicks are actually pretty close to their model – a team of relative cast-offs where the sum is greater than the parts. You couldn’t have Randle without someone like Mitch; you can’t have Mitch without someone like Brunson. And even if Grimes remains just 3-and-D, that’s essential to the team working – he takes the hardest cover, and he provides spacing to make it more possible for the creators (Randle, Brunson, and RJ) to work. So, any move we make has to take that balance into consideration.

4. Because very few two-way players ever become available, most trades would have to be accompanied by other moves to maintain the balance. That is, you can’t trade Mitch + whatever for KAT without trading for a defensive forward like OG. The problem is that multiple trades are not easy to pull off – and even if they did so, changing over 40% or more of the starting lineup is asking a lot in terms of chemistry, which is also clearly a necessary ingredient for a contender.

5. The only single player to be an exception seems to me Mikal Bridges. He alone checks so many boxes that he can be the one piece, the one move, that solves every problem. He can guard the big wings; he can shoot the 3 exceedingly well; he has shown he can sustain much greater usage without sacrificing efficiency; he can be a tertiary creator. Brunson, Grimes, Bridges, Randle, and Mitch would be very strong on both ends, with the similarly two-way IQ and iHart and the more limited but still useful Hart being a very strong bench.

Conclusion: we should make an offer for Bridges the Nets would be insane to turn down – something like RJ+Obi+every pick (and pick swap) for the next six years. Bridges in a vacuum is not worth that much – it’s not like you can build around him: he’s a complementary player. But there’s no other player that would fit the Knicks so well, and the resulting core would be so well-balanced they could conceivably compete for 3-4 years. Bridges has unique value to this particular team at this particular moment. If I were running the Knicks, that’s the move I’d make. I’d accept the derision for paying way too much for him knowing that he could be the final piece that makes this team a genuine contender.

On their own, OG won’t do it, KAT won’t do it, Lavine won’t do it…basically no one other than prime Kawhi would do it: a two-way wing that can score on multiple levels and guard like a mofo. The closest thing to that, the youngest and healthiest version of that, is Bridges.