BUT… KAT’s a more potent and efficient offensive player than Randle. And maybe having plus defenders at the 2, 3, and 4 when he’s the 5 can allow the team to play 5-out or have shooters at every position.

Again, my biggest issue is the incoming salary. But they added the kind of offensive firepower that can allow them to truly beat anybody.

there’s a huge shooting drop off from Donte to Hart.

Donte is being replced by Bridges and Deuce, who can both probably shoot.

But I also need to note two things, one cultural and one personal:

– Culturally, KAT is a Dominican guy from Edison New Jersey. I know we can’t be overly wedded to location, otherwise we would have brought “home” Donovan Mitchell (when it was way too expensive to do so). We all know how the return of Starbury went for us. But I think there is something to be said for seeing how KAT responds to a return to the NY area. And there are a LOT of Dominicans in greater NYC, which will feed both ways.

– Personally, I’ve had the shoulder dislocation. Yikes. Mine dislocated when I was in college and then subluxed five more times and thus I needed to have surgery on it. It’s never been the same and I don’t play anything at a near-professional level.

I am far far far from a serious athlete. But I know enough about sports medicine to know that anyone who has had that surgery will likely never be able to pound down low, on the blocks, the way that they did before the injury.

(Please don’t ever do this, but) if you were to pick me up and throw me out a window, I would think twice before I grabbed the window frame with my left arm. Even at the cost of my life. I’m just reflexively more cautious with that shoulder, and I can’t imagine that the #PoundingandRebounding part of Julius’ game will be unaffected by the injury.

That being said, Julius deserves a lot of respect for all his did for the Knicks and for NY. I’m not one of those to reflexively criticize him as soft. I appreciate all of the effort Julius put into bringing back my beloved Knicks and making NYC a destination again. I’m still rooting for the guy.

I also CANNOT watch that play with Miami where Julius goes down. If you’ve ever dislocated your shoulder, you instantly know what that means. I almost passed out when it happened, it’s that visceral.

(And I still despise the Heat, in all ways, since the 1990s and Rileyball.)

KAT is also an accomplished screen setter, and will be our go-to guy in that department.

Deuce takes over as the backup 2, and should handle that job just fine. Payne/Kolek will duel it out for backup PG minutes and I’m not too worried about those guys either.

We’re good, guys. This is awesome.

Is KAT really a 5, though? I mean, he’s tall. But he’s been the 4 on Minnesota for years now. 100% of his postseason minutes came at PF (with either Reid or Rudy at C).

Teams with him at the 5 historically have been swiss cheese.

IMO you either need a great rim protecting C to anchor the defense or a great perimeter defense.

The Knicks are going play OG, Bridges and Hart. That’s a damn good perimeter defense. Would I prefer that Towns was also a great rim protector? Of course, but then he might be the best player in the NBA. I don’t think he’s nearly as bad defensively as his reputation. He’s just not going to anchor the defense inside. But he’ll be competent enough.

This is the deal (minus DDV) that has long made sense. I’ve talked about this deal a LOT of times. The only reason I haven’t been talking about lately is that I kept reading that the Knicks loved Randle. So it seemed like they weren’t going to move him.

If you want to argue he should have been playing instead of Bridges I’ll give it a sympathetic listen but it wasn’t going to happen

Huh??? No one wants to argue that.

I’m saying if you want to play 5-out there’s a huge shooting drop off from Donte to Hart.

Is KAT really a 5, though?

According to BB Ref, he’s played 86% of his career minutes at 5 and virtually 100% of them prior to the last 2 seasons when the Frenchman showed up (and he has zero positional flexibility).

Plus… Mitch when healthy will be a viable option as a defensive 5 with KAT to the 4 for the bulk of the game and we can have a viable alternative to avoid the hack- a Mitch black hole conundrum.