07/06/2025 11:00:00
07/06/2025 11:00:01
07/06/2025 10:49:46
07/06/2025 09:34:17
07/06/2025 05:06:00
07/06/2025 02:31:00
07/06/2025 02:16:07
07/06/2025 01:17:11
07/06/2025 00:34:42
07/05/2025 22:43:08
Categories
Knicks Morning News (2025.07.06)
07/06/2025 11:00:00
07/06/2025 11:00:01
07/06/2025 10:49:46
07/06/2025 09:34:17
07/06/2025 05:06:00
07/06/2025 02:31:00
07/06/2025 02:16:07
07/06/2025 01:17:11
07/06/2025 00:34:42
07/05/2025 22:43:08
13 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.07.06)”
So barring another UFA signing or trade, the next thing on the Knicks agenda will be summer league. Even without a first rounder to dream on, I’m sort of excited to see Diawara, and hopefully Kolek, Dadiet, McCullar and Hukporti. Oh, and Dink (he looks terrible, so less excited about him, but hey, who knows?)
I’m pretty settled on who Kolek and Huk are, but Dadiet is still so young that dramatic improvement is not out of the question. He has good defensive footwork, decent ball skills with both hands, and a nice (but not perfect) shooting stroke for a guy his size. Definitely had that deer in the headlights look, even in G-League, so hopefully he’s ready to make some kind of leap by putting the work in. It would be great if he could be at least serviceable as a situational player.
Same with McCullar, he’s got good size as a defensive wing, just needs to refine his offensive game.
Summer league is pretty helter-skelter so not expecting much revelatory stuff but it would still be nice to have something positive to think about.
I agree. I would add that since we need two more two-way players and have to fill at least one roster spot with a first year minimum salary, the summer league team has something to play for.
(I’m assuming that since the Knicks made McCullar a qualifying offer that he is likely to get one of the three two-way slots available.)
McCullar will probably get our 14th or 15th roster spot, since he’s eligible for the rookie exception deal that would keep us under the apron. It has to be used on someone we have draft rights to, so the options (ignoring all the random old guys Aller collects like it’s his fetish) would be him, James Nnaji, Diawara, or Rokas. And I don’t expect Rokas to ever play for us.
Alan, can you please explain a little further? The standard first year minimum salary is a little less than $1.3M. I don’t think you have to be a draft pick to get that. You just have to be a rookie. Does McCullar no longer qualify for it since he was a two way player last year? And I couldn’t find anything called the rookie exception, so I’m not sure what you mean by it.
It’s an exception, so the salary amount is not the issue. I don’t entirely understand it, but Katz and Jeremy Cohen and others have talked about it. The point is 1)Anyone we use the rookie exception on allows us to stay under the apron (which we have to), and 2)We can only use it on players we have the draft rights to. McCullar qualifies. Dink Pate does not.
With the final two roster spots, it appears that one will surely be reserved for a Brock Aller Special vet’s minimum.
As Alan pointed out, McCullar would have the inside track, and he’s not a terrible use of that spot. However, I’d like to see how far Diawara looks from being an NBA player. Nnaji looks beyond raw to me, i.e at least two years away, and Rokas is tuchas. I know that Diawara is more likely a stash candidate, but I’d rather see him develop in the G-League. His statistical profile is not good, but beyond his outstanding physical profile for a big wing, I like things that he shows in film…good defensive awareness, off-the-dribble finishing ability with either hand, rudimentary “unbroken” 3pt shot that has potential to be tweaked and refined. Plus he’s friends with Pacome and they can push each other in workouts, practice, and G-League stints.
Just looking over current rosters and man, most teams just played musical chairs with little or no improvement. In the east:
Cavs probably got better with Ball and Nance over Ty Jerome and Okoro…
Hawks got nice pickups with KP, Kennard, and Alexander-Walker, but lost Capela, LaVert, Nance, Niang, and Mann. We’ll see.
Celtics — whatever.
Nets — whatever.
Heat — whatever.
Bulls — lost Ball, got Okoro. Snore.
Pacers — Turner for Huff. No Hali. Whatever.
Bucks — hot mess. Wild turnover, hard to predict any improvement. Got Turner, Harris, Micic, lost Dame, Lopez, Connaughton. Did sign Sims for two more years…
Pistons — got LaVert and Duncan Robinson, lost THJ and Shroder. Maybe an upgrade…
Magic — got Bane and Tyus Jones, good pickups, but lost Cole Anthony, Caldwell-Pope, and Gary Harris. Maybe better?
Hornets — Kneuppel might be the big get; lost Nurkic and Williams, got Plumlee – eck; got Sexton, Dinwiddie, and Connaughton, so some improvement there…
Sixers — lost Yabu, got Watford. Love their mad backcourt (Maxey, McCain, Edgecombe, maybe Grimes), but man oh man.
Raptors — got Mamu. Whole lot of nothing, sorry IQ.
Wiz — massive turnover, could be fun, but not breaking .500.
Magic are definitely better. Hawks are definitely better. Bucks probably got worse, but Turner is a big upgrade on what Brook Lopez was giving them last year, and Dame wasn’t really Dame with them. Celtics obviously worse. But feels to me like the top 4 in the East in some order will be us, Cleveland, Orlando, and Atlanta.
Yeah, Alan, I tend to agree with you. Although some of those ‘betters’ are definitely health-related, even if that’s always the case, just a bit more so with, for example, Ball and Nance. Or KP.
Interesting to compare us to the others, as we lost nobody, but gained Yabu and Clarkson. Although I presume Precious is wandering off…?
Alan, can you please explain a little further? The standard first year minimum salary is a little less than $1.3M.
that rookie minimum bumps to the 2 year minimum for tax and apron purposes if you didn’t have draft rights to the player. it’s called the tax variance rule.
“Cavs probably got better with Ball and Nance over Ty Jerome and Okoro…”
Not sure I agree. Nance is not all that good, Ball is a season-ending injury waiting to happen and kinda sucked last year anyway, and Jerome was a huge reason for their regular season success. I think the Cavs will continue to have injury issues as well, with guys like Hunter breaking down at some point. Even Spida always seems to have something nagging come playoff time.
“Hawks got nice pickups with KP, Kennard, and Alexander-Walker, but lost Capela, LaVert, Nance, Niang, and Mann. We’ll see.”
They have a good young core but are they ready for prime time? I don’t see it, but as you say, we’ll see. I personally think they are being overrated and would put the Pistons ahead of them until I see more.
“Pistons — got LaVert and Duncan Robinson, lost THJ and Shroder. Maybe an upgrade…”
I think their success will be totally dependent on further development from their youngsters…Cade, Ivey, Ausar, Duren, Holland…don’t see them being good enough to get past second round at best, but who knows?
“Magic — got Bane and Tyus Jones, good pickups, but lost Cole Anthony, Caldwell-Pope, and Gary Harris. Maybe better?”
I think they most certainly got better, and they have enormous room for internal development of young players.
I don’t expect much from the Celtics, Pacers, or Bucks. The two unheralded teams that I will be watching closely early on are the Sixers and Raptors. The Sixers obviously are entirely dependent on Embiid’s knee holding up (a very bad bet) but if it does, they have enough theoretical talent to make the playoffs and scare anyone in the first round. The Raptors will have a projected opening day lineup of Poeltl, Ingram, Barnes, RJ, and IQ, with a bench of young players with upside. That seems like a borderline playoff team to me.
The Bulls, Nets, Wiz, and Heat all look pretty terrible. The Hornets maybe a bit less so but despite some young talent they seem low on b-ball IQ. And who knows what the Bucks, Celtics and Pacers have in mind?
Having like a center or even a center to start the season is a good thing. Having like a four or even a four other than KAT is a good thing. having like fresh papaya juice or even papaya juice is a good thing. We got better and younger fresher minds up top. Barring a hero dose of penis envies we were not going to improve without a coaching change. The drama is going to drip this season.
Not sure if someone has mentioned this already, but Bondy is reporting that Yabu will take a haircut off the full TPMLE, allowing us to sign both a vet-min and a baby-min without having to play proration games during the season. That’s not a small deal, thanks Yabu 🫡
Nnaji is the baby-minimum candidate I’d trust most to give us NBA quality minutes in a pinch. He’s been productive in the second best league in the world and has some pretty ridiculous physical tools. But we’re pretty well-covered at center so it makes sense to just retain his draft rights and use it on McCullar, who fills more of a need.
We might want to hold onto the vet-min slot until the situations of best-case scenarios like Beal are resolved. The risk is some options coming off the board while we do that, but I mean, losing Landry Shamet may well be a risk we should be willing to take.
This site uses User Verification plugin to reduce spam. See how your comment data is processed.