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100 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.06.18)”
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6432390/2025/06/18/nba-free-agency-2025-shooting-guards/
Hollinger’s shooting guard preview is up. Here are some notable names he lists as potentially gettable for either the taxpayer midlevel or the vet minimum. You’ve got to read the article for the blurbs and for his system’s estimates of what they’re each worth:
Luke Kennard
Sam Merrill
Gary Harris
Josh Okogie (Charlotte team option)
Tim Hardaway Jr
De’Anthony Melton
Cody Martin
Alkaline Burns
Garrison Matthews
Malcolm Brogdon
Dante Exum
Bruce Brown
Landry Shamet (if we want to keep him)
Alkaline Burns? Is this a real person? (I feel like Doogie now)
We could use a guy like this but unexciting overall.
Tim Hardaway Jr, the Three-dux
I googled Alkaline Burns and one of the results was “what is worse – an alkaline burn or an acid burn?”
Sounds like we might wanna stay away, this guy could be toxic in the locker room
Would people prefer Delon or Payne back?
It’s Alec Burks 😛
Payne by a wide margin but most likely cannot afford him.
delon by a wide margin
If we can keep Shamet, I would argue Delon is the preference. If we’re keeping Brunson and KAT, we need as many defensive players in the rotation as possible. I also think Delon, while not as good of a scorer, is more of a table setter as a PG and maybe that is more needed with this team.
Kolek stepping up would be huge. I hope he’s hitting the gym this summer!
I’m guessing Hollinger’s numbers are still mostly indexed to the previous CBA.
It’s possible some other players become available for the taxpayer MLE and some of these guys fetch the minimum. It’s what we saw last year with Tyus Jones.
Cam was great for a backup PG before crapping out in the playoffs for all but one quarter.
I’m not sure Delon can hold up as a rotation piece for a whole season. He’ll eventually get the Hart treatment, but turned up to 11. I love him as a situational guy in the postseason.
Yeah, Delon was listed in yesterday’s article as a PG, even though Hollinger himself admitted he’s more of a combo guard these days. He’s definitely someone I’d like to see brought back on a minimum if he wants to stay here. But he’s a back of the rotation guy, not the one we’d want slotting into a revamped starting lineup. If we run it back, plus whoever we get for the taxpayer midlevel, then the goal has to be finding a wing or a big who will push Hart into a sixth man role and allow us to play five out more often.
Is Brogdon just totally cooked? Seems odd to see him in that company. He could be useful as a stable bench piece if there’s any gas left in the tank.
I also wouldn’t mind Bruce Brown, he’s a cromulent defender unless I misremember.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6429504/2025/06/17/knicks-coach-free-agent-trade-search-mailbag/
FWIW, James Edwards said in his mailbag that he’s heard we’re interested in Luke Kennard, who can shoot, playmake a little, and is a CAA client. No idea how he is as a defender.
kennard is not much of a defender but he at least tries between he and payne kennard is such an easy choice that it is not even funny .631/.609 ts/efg over .532/.506 for payne
Alkaline Burns? Is this a real person? (I feel like Doogie now)
you’re such a basic bitch owen
I have no idea how the defense works with Kennard in there, especially if Kolek does secure the backup PG spot. We have a lot of bad defenders.
That said, I really like him. We could really use an elite shooter. Let the coach work it out.
He was cromulent, but in the last two years the various AIOs have not thought highly of his defense. Maybe he’s just been playing for crappy teams, but I’m not sure how good he still is on defense. Maybe someone who watches Toronto can comment.
There’s also a lot of Josh Hart to his game, and we already have a Josh Hart. Heck, we may have 2 Josh Harts with McCullar.
Brown does set good picks, and that is something we could really use after watching our guys over the last year.
Anyways, I’m intrigued but skeptical.
Just use Deuce as the backup shooting guard
our defenders are mitch og deuce does huk play defense does mccullars play defense we need to try to find a way to have at least two defenders on the court at all times
The Knicks need to decide what position they want to play KAT primarily next year, because that well dictate what roster pieces they need to prioritize.
In theory McCullar will be good but hard to tell if his defense translates from college to the pros without seeing it.
Hukporti has the physical tools and can block shots. I think he’s too block happy right now at the expense of good positioning. His rebounding was underwhelming last year but he was one of the best in Australia, so hopefully we see that this year.
i finished a call and rushed straight back here to see if i had maybe 70 or 80 thumbs for the best alkaline burn of all time and wtf
start brunson deuce og kat mitch
bench wright bridges hart precious huk
others shamet kolek mccullar
I don’t think we can get Kennard for the minimum, and we need to save whatever portion of the MLE we retain for a big wing or a 4. So I’m out.
The ability of this board to pickup on basic wordplay was the real bitch all along
Mike Brown is the betting favorite for next head coach.
I guess I agree with that odds line, but I think that would be a mistake.
IMO Mike Brown is the guy you hire if you want a coach to ensure the team plays hard, makes the playoffs and is very competitive. He’s not the guy you hire if you want to win a championship.
If you want to win it all you have to take a risk.
Taylor Jenkins comes out of a winning organization, did a great job in Memphis, and is younger and more apt to evolve on offense.
There’s one other potential benefit. He also supposedly has an especially good relationship with JJJ who I believe is represented by CAA. We also know at least one major decision maker on the Knicks covets next to Towns (probably WWW).
+1
you do not need to do a +1 anymore ostensibly that is exactly what the like button is for one click instead of two keystrokes
Seems like Brown/Jenkins is split down the middle between fans
I would lean Jenkins but I don’t mind Brown, I think he would be fine.
Slight lean Jenkins, fine with either.
sorry milo, was slow logging in…truly a comment worthy perhaps of a different digit facing in your direction…
I guess sometimes I forget Alou Barks is still in the NBA
after we trade mikal for some picks and a backup power forward and/or small forward, we could just start deuce next year no matter what…he can keep up with most opposing guards…good match with jalen in the backcourt…
from now on, and until something changes – I’m gonna keep using OG and mitch as examples of us being able to shore up any defensive roster deficiencies…love having them both on our team…
take a chance on another defensive minded guard with some more height (delon seems to fit) in the backcourt…
Edit: emoji testing: 🖕
okay, it works…
hmmmmmm, i don’t know Mike K., maybe we do need 2 feedback options…
+1
low hanging fruit, is still fruit you know…
Edit: you can not mind fuck me in to counting keystrokes…no sir…
Two keystrokes, then tab and enter to post, so that’s 4. That’s if you’re on a laptop.
Mobile it’s 3, because you have to hit the ?123 key in the keypad to bring up the symbols/numbers.
city of richmond
Me, too. I can’t see anyone going above the TPMLE (or even using it) on Cam Payne. He’s as vet min as they come, and the 20% raise we can offer without penalty seems like it should enable us to outbid anyone for him, Shamet, or Delon, if that’s what we want to do.
I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t want to bring them all back, tbh.
If we give them the 20% raise does that make them not count as a minimum player in the “you can only trade one minimum player” rule? Bc that in and of itself would be very significant.
Kennard’s defense seems awful, but getting someone who can legitimately change games offensively with the TPMLE would still be a coup. If Thibs were still coach I’d worry about banishment, but someone like Jenkins (my preference as of now) would likely be much more amenable to deploying him strategically. He’s probably too good for the TPMLE, but these days you never really know.
If he’s out of our price range, Avon Barksdale still gets buckets.
If I were Leon, I would hire Jay Wright as an off season consultant. Let him give advice on dynamics between his players plus an opinion on Rick B. For all I know he might have already reached out (perhaps a chat or something more substantial and even perhaps last year prior to each of the trades) but the locker room seems to be right below who is the new coach as something to address
payne or shamet pick one to keep i cannot decide and keep going back and forth i think i’ve landed on payne but could easily be convinced otherwise
i do not think jay wright has any interest in that whatsoever
i do not think jay wright has any interest in that whatsoever
He has no interest in advising/ helping/giving guidance to the persons who are taking them to the next levels of their careers if asked? Unless you know something specific, 100 out of 100 people in that situation would offer to help.
If I can’t bring back all three, I’m bringing back Shamet and Wright.
the civ engineer will not be on site for you over there until 14:00 on monday july 21
I just listened to a podcast with Melo and Shumpert talking about the Knicks.
They had some ideas about how Towns could adjust his game to be more of a factor.
They seemed to really like the Mitch/Towns combination.
Shumpert said that Brunson’s game has to evolve. He said he should cut out about 12 dribbles per possession (lmao) and make a pass earlier just so other players feel involved because he’s likely to get the ball back anyway. Then at the end of the game do his thing.
Both Melo and Shumpert loved the idea of trading for Lonzo Ball and starting him next to Brunson. They felt that would take some of the pressure off Brunson and he could run the offense perfectly fine when Brunson was out.
Lonzo Ball seems SO risky with the injury history, though.
I mean maybe he’s past it but he missed almost 2 seasons with that injury. That is a lot.
This is exactly what Mikal Bridges was brought here to do.
Remains to be seen if he’s incapable of doing it or Thibs was just incapable of imagining it.
No argument here.
They brought that up but thought he looked good enough last year that the knee must be OK. He’s got 2 more years at 10m with a team option in the second year. I’m not sure how they could get that done even if the Bulls were willing to move him.
They didn’t say anything negative about Bridges, but I got the feeling they see him as more of a high level role player and he should stick to that instead of trying to be more.
Lonzo for Mitch should work.
If Lonzo could stay healthy, that’d be an interesting 5 out team. I’m happily keeping Mitch though.
I think Mikal is better suited for the 3, not 2, and, as has been pointed out by many here, may not be the best option for guarding a quick PG.
There are basically 2 paths. One is helping out Brunson on defense and the other helping out KAT. You get a high level defender at SG who can guard 1’s and stop to POA before they blow by Brunson and slide Mikal down to the 3.
Or you get a high level defending 4 (who can shoot 3’s) and can be help KAT with the last line of defense/rim protection and slide OG up to the 3.
Neither completely solves the KAT/Brunson problem but both would help.
This is, of course, if you don’t start Mitch at the 5 and have KAT play the 4 full time except in spurts when Mitch sits. Go this path and you can then focus on getting another good piece for the bench (a back up big?), which might be easier to do given our limited assets. The other two options might involve trading a core player, which creates more problems.
All three paths seem like they would improve things
You could maybe squint at Mikal’s career and see a guy who can take some of the scoring load off JB, but then we got Karl Towns, who is much, much better at that. Mikal basically was at his career high in assists last year. He’s just never been much of a playmaker. Lonzo at least used to be great at that and he’d help out with the rebounding but that injury history is terrifying
I think we can also S&T Precious alongside Dadiet and Kolek for Lonzo.
Doable with other cheap contracts, but I’m not going to check all of them.
Ok so I gave a thumbs up to walkerandbendercornerstones last post, but he doesn’t know it was me so I’m giving him a +1 also. 😉
yeah the thumbs up are a little bit useless if they are anonymous and we have to tell people that we used them anyway we might as well go back to the old way where we just tell people that we agree or disagree with them since we end up having to do that anyway
I didn’t see Lonzo play last year. Before his injury and before we added Brunson I was “all in” on trying to add him. I was a big fan. Given the injury, it would have been a disaster, but I tend to agree with Melo/Shump that he might still be a very good fit. The one question I’d have is how much has he lost defensively due to the knee. If he still defends well, it makes more sense. One other thing that Melo and Shumpert added was that the Knicks supposedly have the best training staff in he NBA now which would only help Lonzo.
Yeah I’m not a fan of the new thumbs up. To me, it adds small engagement while taking away larger engagement. Like I can thumbs up someone I agree with but now don’t need to actually write a post saying that and possibly expanding on their idea.
NY Post is doing Mt Rushmores for all the NY teams and today was the Knicks. There’s the obvious 3 but was curious who their 4th member would be and they went with Brunson. Think its probably too soon to go with Brunson, would’ve probably gone with BK but by the time Brunson retires he’ll definitely belong on the Knicks Mt Rushmore.
it is incorrect to say that brunso will definitely belong on the knicks mt rushmore he could have a career ending injury in practice in october or he could get traded and never play another minute for us obviously there is no reason to think that either of those things will happen but you have to be very careful with using the word definitely
The bar for Mount Rushmore is noted one-termer Teddy Roosevelt, so can’t argue with Brunson even if Doogie does decide to injure him come October.
LeBron they don’t want you in LA anymore why not take the MLE and fulfill your destiny?
Brunson’s actually played more games for the Knicks than Bernard already.
yes teddy roosevelt only won election to the presidency one time but was six months shy of serving two full terms from 1901-1909 so that is a pretty egregious error on your part he served for 90 months while someone like nixon who won the presidential election twice only served for about 67 months
After all this time together, you still just don’t get me at all.
never watched the old highlights – isn’t ritchie guerin though one of the knicks best ever?
– ritchie
– willis
– clyde
– pat
jalen has some work to do…bernard is probably not top five…
Pat, Clyde and Willis? The fourth is tough. Brunson can definitely make it if we just continue to make the playoffs and get to the semis for the next few seasons.
Hi everyone, I’m too lazy to tap on all the thumbs, but just know I’m +1ing and thumb upping you in my mind
you are too lazy to tap the thumbs but not too lazy to type that, which takes much longer ok
Not a bad option for a 4 who can shoot the 3
Doogie may not survive the thumbs
😊
We’re back to like 90% full Doogie at this point minus the grammar and spelling.
How does Dave DeBusschere not get any love. The Knicks were 19-18 the year Dave was traded to the Knicks and were 35-10 the rest of the season. They won 2 chips in the next 5 years with him.
He was first team defensive all NBA team 5 consecutive years with the Knicks. All 75th NBA Anniversary team. Was such a thoughtful and cerebral player he was named head coach of the Pistons while a player at the ripe old age of 24 for 3 years. Just for shits and giggles he moonlighted with the Chicago White Sox pitching to a 2.90 ERA over 36 games in 2 seasons.
Bernard King? Jalen Brunson? C’mon on…
LOLOL*
*you’re very funny and deserve more keystrokes, Geo! 😉 😀
Already reading people asking if the Lakers are worth 10b imagine how much the Steinbrenners can get for the Yankees…
#yeah the thumbs up are a little bit useless if they are anonymous#
They seem Rigged!!!
😄
Just checked if i can upvote my comment!
I can
The 4th Mt Rushmore spot is definitely tough and I’m not sure Brunson should have it yet. Has he actually done more than Gallatin, Guerin, deBusschere, Pearl, or King?
So now that we fired Thibs Do we still need to play Tough D?
😄
Idk if it’s illegal or anything but it would be cool to have 3 options in comment voting to make it more spicy and challenging:
The thumbs up, the GFY and the Vildoza
Speaking of the Yankees, this is one epic Mad Dog rant:
http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/45538533
Year 8 of the Aaron Boone era 🙄
As for the coach searching not thrilled with anyone yet but remember being surprised by MBrown’s brand of bball in Sacramento.
The way his team played with the roster that he had wasn’t something that i expected to see..
I know his contract in the end put a major dent in his legacy but Allan Houston should also get some consideration. He’s 4th all time in scoring behind the Big 3 and he’s had some of the biggest moments in Knicks history.
The Yankees have been great this year until this past week, assuming they get back on track I’m not gonna turn on this team after a poor 5 game sample.
Its also easier to stomach mistakes from homegrown kids who are in their 2nd and 3rd years, Yankees have 4 young players getting significant playing time and all so far have been above average offensively so I hope they continue to play and improve.
they moved the planning phase meeting up to july 11 at the midlothian office
That is a big big number for the Lakers
I think coaches often learn new things working for Kerr. Look at Atkinson for example. Brown coukd have better because of his years as an assistant coach there.
The posting internal emails here is a nice new wrinkle, though
Kerr, Lue & other Champ coaches haven’t convinced me yet of their elite coaching talent.
The most admirable aspect of a coach for me is not Having a dream team roster and creating a dynasty but simply Overachieving.
Getting an X roster and making it play at an X++ level
When I see suddenly sales like the Lakers one, I think to myself, maybe they aren’t expecting a great team for the next few years. I mean, if there was a good chance of a championship next year in her judgment, do you think Jeannie Buss would sell?
Maybe the second apron costs have really spooked the traditional owners – that’s the Celtics, Mavs, and Lakers in the last year.
That’s an interesting thought. It could be.
Kenley Jansen has possibly gotten more undeserved run out of being a Proven Closer (TM) than anyone in baseball history.
https://www.thestrick.land/strick/the-knicks-broke-up-with-tom-thibodeau-before-he-broke-their-heart
that was a really good article pepper…encouraging look inside the front office…
seems more and more likely this roster will remain intact…
was thinking we may get our coach prior to the draft, I don’t think we’re scheduled to make any picks though…
Thanks for the link, Pep! Good piece that mirrors my feelings and those of many here.
Yeah that was a great article and laid everything out nicely.