Knicks Morning News (2025.07.30)

The simple way I look at it is Brown is the coach. If there is a trade for Sabonis, Brown blessed it. If not, Brown wants KAT or the FO can’t find a Sabonis trade that makes sense. Happy to live with all 3 scenarios.

The Sacto front office has a say in this. But in the unlikely event this happens, it is a good assumption Brown blessed it.

I see no point to a trade for Sabonis. That’s like saying, “this size 10 shoe doesn’t fit so let me buy this other size 10 shoe”.

That is not exactly true, Strat. The differences in salary (~11M/yr) enables the Knicks to shoehorn a player like DDV (we signed him to a 4 year 10.9M contract) in addition to Sabonis.

I loved and still love the KAT trade as a pure value play, but his weakness are manifest. His Curry like range is fabulous, but his lack of awareness on defense and his inability to make teams pay for guarding him with a wing are fundamentally serious and seemingly insoluble problems for a team with championship aspirations. I look at Sabonis ( who I believe has a more well rounded game), more amenable to team play and a better BBIQ. Add the additional salary relief and I would do it.

Similarly, I would consider a player like Jalen Johnson. He is 23 and already gives 19/10 and 5 assists and should improve, maybe greatly. He is a vastly better defender who is switchable and makes 30M?yr for the next 5 years. That’s an average of 27M a year less than KAT and you can either get a quite good player or multiple players in that salary.

Also, KAT will likely be looking for a raise over his 61M 27/8 salary for 28/9 and 29/30 when Johnson will still be getting 30M in those 2 out years. Finances matter.

So who comes back with Sabonis that fits that description and why would Sacramento give him to us on top of Sabonis for KAT?

I don’t have any idea if Sacto would move Sabonis but if they would, there are things like 3,4 and 5 way trades. Other GMs seem capable of doing these things all the time.

On a different front, Strat, do you ever go to the Meadowlands for the trotters? The $1,000,000 Hambletonian Trot is this Saturday afternoon and I will be visiting my old stomping grounds for the first time in 8 years. Then off to Wind Creek Casino for some poker Sunday.

I never saw deBusschere play but I was always under the impression that he was a big “stats don’t tell the whole story” guy. And his box score stats on bbref certainly don’t matchup with the kind of reputation he has. Wouldn’t a modern equivalent be someone like Draymond or Herb Jones.

The game was played differently then but the two stats that tell the story about De Busschere were 6 time FIRST team all defense and 8 time all star.

He was remarkably consistent and had zero weakness in any phase of his game.

He was a fucking rock defensively. His match ups with Gus Johnson were legendary for 2 guys just hammering each other for 40 minutes.

One of his most impactful games was in Game 5 of the 1970 finals series where he didn’t score much after Willis went out, but he was the primary defender against Wilt and held him to 22 (with an assist from Dave Stallworth).

He was also an effective jump shooter from 18-20 feet (as were all the Knick starters then).

His BBIQ was so high he was named Head Coach of the Detroit Pistons for 3 years starting at age 24.

Just for shits and giggles, he moonlighted as a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox and pitched to a 2.90 ERA over 106 innings.

He is probably most like Draymond (without the bullshit) with a better shot. Amazingly his last season was one of his best statistically. He could have easily played at a high level for 3 or more years.

bbref similarity scores for debusschere are tobias harris thaddeus young derrick mckey antonio davis maurice lucas danilo gallinari armen gilliam eddie johnson michael cage tom sanders

Which only goes to show you the validity of Similarity Scores. Maurice Lucas is the only player on that list that is anyway similar to DD as far as being an upper echelon player.