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96 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.07.31)”
I’m thinking about who starts and who gets minutes. My hypothesis is that Brown will start Mitch and play a ten man rotation. I say start Mitch because this prevents Hack a Mitch. Hart can sub for him and actually play more minutes. We had terrible bench scoring last year and it wasn’t just that they played few minutes. So I expect Clarkson and McBride to be the two guards off the bench (along with Hart). For big guys off the bench, I pick Yabusele and Dadiet. That’s ten players.
dadiet isnt a big hes 6-8 210 and is listed as a shooting guard altho i guess he could also play small forward
starters: brunson (34) bridges (30) anunoby (32) towns (34) robinson (24)
dynamic bench: mcbride (20) hart (18) yabusele (16) clarkson (12) hukporti (12) dadiet (8)
the rest: mccullar kolek beauchamp diawara
pg: brunson 34, mcbride 14
sg: bridges 24, clarkson 12, mcbride 6, dadiet 6
sf: anunoby 32, hart 8, bridges 6, dadiet 2
pf: towns 22, yabusele 16, hart 10
c: robinson 24, towns 12, hukporti 12
have two of anunoby robinson mcbride on the floor at all times except for of course blowout minutes thats where mccullar kolek beauchamp diawara come into play
i know that the minutes for hart yabu clarkson are low but realistically who are we going to take minutes from to give these guys more we basically have 11 guys who all deserve some minutes
I’m thinking of Dadiet as a three. My general observation is that coaches tend to play the best players even if the fit isn’t perfect. Yabusele is probably a better player than Hukporti so I expect him to get minutes. But centers tend to get banged up, so I’m sure Hukporti will get playing time sometimes.
I’m not bc there aren’t any.
We went 7-6 against Detroit, Atlanta, and Orlando.
And I see no reason to state definitively that Toronto and Philadelphia “will clearly be better.”
This is a really down year for top teams in the NBA, especially the East. It’s a lot like the perfect storm in the American League last year that enabled the Yankees to be a World Series team.
I think there’s basically no chance chance either Dadiet or Hukporti are in an opening night, fully healthy rotation.
From my POV, Brunson, Bridges, OG, Hart, KAT, Mitch, Deuce, Yabu, and Clarkson will be guaranteed minutes every night if they’re healthy. Everyone else will be fighting for scraps, filling in when guys are injured, etc.
I remain somewhat agnostic as to the starting lineup. I think last year’s could’ve been much better if we actually played to its strengths i.e. shot a ton of 3s and incorporated more switching.
That said, a fully healthy Mitchell Robinson is simply too impactful to not play him as much as we feasibly can. When we account for the need to keep him healthy though, I could be convinced the “feasibly” there necessitates a bench role for the first 82.
But Brown also shouldn’t view his opening night starting lineup as handed down by god. If we get meaningful data on whatever he goes with and it’s not all that impressive, I beg of him to make one of the many changes available before the damn playoffs.
I don’t have an opinion on the Mitch minutes distribution, but he will miss a lot of games–he habitually gets injured, when he does he tends to be out longer than expected, and the medical staff rightly will be conservative even if there is just a tweak or a little soreness.
id like to think that dadiet can make a leap as he seems to have some eyetest moments for sure but his stats are beyond horrific other than maybe being able to contribute a little defensive rebounding
Okay, Knicks2025, I’ll play your little game…
But noble already basically laid out how I feel:
pg: brunson 34, mcbride 14
sg: bridges 28, clarkson 16, mcbride 4
sf: anunoby 34, hart 14
pf: towns 26, yabusele 14, hart 8
c: robinson 30, yabusele 4, towns 8, huk 6
The positions matter less than the minute distribution IMO. Huk and Daddy will get their chances if we have injuries.
Highly skeptical that Atlanta will “clearly be better.” They’re gambling on KP, which usually doesn’t work out for teams. KP was a luxury (most of the time) for The Celtics. For The Hawks to work, he has to stay healthy for most of the season.
I agree with Noble about the first nine guys. My supposition was that Brown would prefer to play ten guys. That leaves Dadiet, Kolek, Hukporti and probably Diawara to choose from for the tenth guy. Maybe Brown will decide none of them is good enough and play nine guys, or maybe he’ll experiment and they will all get playing time in one game or another. If it has to be one of those four as the tenth man I picked Dadiet because I expect him to be better this year than last year and he does a little bit of everything
I guess the dark horse is McCullar. I didn’t think about him because he isn’t actually signed yet, but he also does a little bit of everything and he looked pretty good in summer league.
I’m betting a nickel that Huk gets 5 minutes here, 4 minutes there as part of a semi-regular rotation, rather than just an end-of-game blowout showcase. Which I absolutely think Dadiet will be. At least until late in the season or come injuries to our wings.
Pretty much ess-dog’s rotation, but with Mitch getting more like 24-26 minutes, the rest going to Huk (not because he’s so good, but because he’s a perfectly cromulent time filler big guy).
The potential wrench in there is if Yabu turns out to be stellar, he could steal those minutes, in which case good for him.
Rim-running, defense-oriented centers shouldn’t take all that long to get up to speed. If we can’t get reasonably decent, “Jericho Sims plus” kind of minutes out of Hukporti this year then maybe he isn’t going to stick. He’d be a great luxury to have as a guy who could fill in for Mitch in a pinch. He even made 65% of his free throws in the NBL.
He seems like the 10th man to me, simply because the position and role he occupies needs the least development. I’d be looking to work that guy into the rotation and trying to develop him into a reliable piece. Dadiet seems to be a year away and is still very young as he just turned 20 a couple of days ago.
We still have a vet minimum slot open. The 10th man is likely that player unless one of the sophomores really step up
Good point EB.
The 76ers may have been the most injured team in NBA history last year other than Memphis a couple of years ago. Even if Embiid and Paul hardly play again they will be better given the rest of the injuries they had and the addition of a lottery pick. If those two play 50 games I hope none of them are against us.
Toronto was in all out tank mode early on. Quickley was hurt for much of the year and held out of many games because they were tanking. RJ was held out of games. Brandon Ingram never played a minute for them. They were actively trying to lose games. They also added a lottery pick.
This not about whether they will be better than us. They are not. It’s an issue of what our record will be against all those 2nd and 3rd tier teams that imo have closed the gap a little.
For someone that has spent so much time complaining that we rolled picks out, you seem be poo pooing the fact that the Knicks didn’t add any 1st round talent and much of the rest of the league has younger talent with upside and added more this year. That’s makes all of them better.
JK I agree we can get Sims type minutes from Hukporti this year. He is basically Sims’ replacement and he is as good as Sims. But Sims basically only played when someone was injured. That could happen to Huk.
That’s a proven feature of KP. Only time he plays most of the season is during a contract year. Look at that last season for the Wizards. 65 games @ 32mpg.
It’s strange to find myself in the position of beating the drums for Huk, because I don’t even think he’s that good, but it seems strange that people don’t seem to remember his play right before he got hurt last year, where he was getting real minutes and looking quite good at rim protecting and general defensive positioning, at least for a kid. And doing some decent rim-running and put-backing. It was really quite effective back-up center play.
Maybe Brown won’t value really large, rim-protecting bigs the way Thibs did and will play more five-out type lineups with Yabu. Who knows. But from last year’s minutes, Huk was already well above Sims in terms of skill level.
Injuries and deadline trades are a MAJOR factor in under/over results. That’s what makes them so tough.
We could have said that about OG the last 2 years.
One year we traded for him and imo he added wins over RJ/Quickley and last year he stayed healthier than we even hoped.
KP’s injury risk is a problem for them to be much improved, but whatever they get out of him and Kennard will be a plus on top of adding a 1st rounder.
Again, I am not saying any of these teams will finish ahead of us . I’m saying that imo Boston and Indiana are getting all the attention because they are the contenders we will leapfrog. But a lot of the rest of teams are likely to improve more than us and close the gap.
The west is so ridiculously strong I dread almost every game.
Soooo…what will it take to hire David Stearns away from the Mets? I love what Leon has done, but Stearns had a DAY yesterday with plenty of room left for a big move. Well..I’m a Mets fan too, so maybe Cohen can buy the Knicks and have Stearns do double duty? LOL
Meanwhile, fingers crossed for health through camp and the season. This team has a chance to be special, even if the C’s were healthy and didn’t need to shave something off the ledger. Yabusele and Clarkson are super smart additions to address the biggest weakness on the team. Now we just have to hope Brown can cook up a defense that makes KAT more useful.
I like starting and playing Mitch a ton of minutes at the begining of the season. Lets see what Leon & Gersson actually put together. Get some net data with both starting and reserve lineups. Would love to see increased 2nd unit offensive production with Hart, Deuce and JC running a much faster pace. If Mitch gets hurts early, we pivot. It’s actually ideal and better off than getting hurt closer to the playoffs.
Knicks either defined the odds last year or NBA’s injury prevention statistical models may have some flows in it. Not convinced that the marginal 6 minutes between 24 and 30 materially effects injury odds. I may be leaning towards the inverse camp, where it could actually be preventative & our training team and Leon are on to something here.
i love love love the pickup of yabu im a little bit concerned about his weight at 6-8 265 tho
Same. Not exactly suited for the faster pace 2nd unit, mob deep 2.0 that I have in mind. Can Brown hold the training camp in Slovenia?
Stearns acquired three good bullpen arms and didn’t trade a single prospect who would rank in the top 150 in MLB. He acquired a lefty, a fireballer who gets lots of K’s and a sidearmer groundball machine who never walks anybody.
If he was to make another move, I’d be looking for a solid SP, and then move Clay Holmes back to the bullpen. That bullpen would be truly elite.
Now the Mets just need to stop losing…
I’m sure i had something insightful to say, but now that early bird has written – what’s the point…
I’m going home now…
EB you need to schedule a few errors in to your posts, just to make the rest of us feel a little better about ourselves…
when i said i was worried about yabus weight i meant more in the sense of injury risk than i did about his ability to play fast he seems pretty nimble agile for a man of his size geo i already feel ok about mice elf
Same here. Thought playing fast may increase his injury odds.
I mean..they do call him “Dancing Bear” lol…
Strat just bc I like using first round picks instead of incinerating them doesn’t mean I expect them to add wins right away. They often take 1-3 years to develop.
Adding Yabu will likely be more impactful this season than any East team’s first round pick.
I haven’t checked in on Clay Holmes since the start of the season… 3.5 ERA, 9-6, 111 ERA+. Not bad! Not bad at all. League average starter is a great outcome for him, more valuable than a closer by WAR iirc. Glad to see him do well.
Highly skeptical that Atlanta will “clearly be better.” They’re gambling on KP, which usually doesn’t work out for teams. KP was a luxury (most of the time) for The Celtics. For The Hawks to work, he has to stay healthy for most of the season.
hawks have embedded comp tailwinds. jalen johnson missed more than half the year. risacher started 73 games as a very raw 19 year old. okongwu sneakily improved during the season and was pretty confidently shooting threes and fucking up pnrs on defense by year end. daniels was 21 and naw is a pretty good fit with trae.
kp was marvelously horrendous in the playoffs, but has otherwise spent 4 seasons as a very good player averaging 1600 minutes. he could give the hawks two thirds of that and still be a significant plus vs a hobbled looking capela last season. seems like they are better.
Begley has a new mailbag, though it gets off to a rough start with him mistakenly saying McCullar is eligible for the rookie-minimum. Tidbits:
https://x.com/The_BBall_Index/status/1949947976245268981/photo/1
Am I reading this right? – Accoding to LEBRON, we had the best hald court shooting team in the league but we were 12th in creating 3FGA?
Seems like the search for our top assistant coach is displaying the same hallmarks of our head coach search, albeit with much less attention.
If there aren’t other teams looking to hire an offensive lead assistant at this time, then the Knicks FO can continue to shoot the moon all they like. It’s not my online approval ratings at stake.
Any thoughts on pole splitting? Superstition or subtle prompt…
Got to assume that if we really really want a Brown assistant Leon finds a way to get him. Not worried.
Any comenta on the Yankees trade announced today?
This is kind of interesting, from the links above: why the Wizards probably aren’t interested in regaining control of the fugazi pick.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6526077/2025/07/31/wizards-2026-first-round-pick-knicks-suns/
i just see a headline that they are finalizing a deal for Bednar..a relief pitcher for the Pirates..probably got fast tracked approval after another vintage Devin Williams performance last night…
Well we really really wanted Borrega and Leon couldn’t find a way.
Not sure what happened with Pablo but we wanted him, too, and for whatever reason he turned down a promotion to stay where he is.
If it’s true we’re now setting our sights on a defensive assistant bc we can’t get any of our offensive guys I think that says a lot.
Super glad batting average doesn’t mean anything anymore, otherwise .229 would kind of suck.
just under max extension for mikal
Okay Mikal.
I’m just here for the big time panic reactions to the Bridges extension news…
4 years $150 mil…
First glance , not a fan of this
Ingram, Maxey, LaMelo, Bam, Fox.
Players in that range of annual salary.
Weird mix.
Edit: Most of those guys make more as salaries increase over the years (e.g., 4/168). Bane’s another. 4/163.
not a fan
my baseball prospect friends think the Yankees made some nice moves today so that’s something I guess
I think Cashman did ok, bullpen seems a lot better now
the propaganda machine is praising Mikal for taking 6 million less than his max like anyone else was going to give him anywhere near this much money
It was either this or trade him this summer. There were no good choices. We couldn’t risk playing it out.
Between this and the OG trade it’s pretty wild how eager Leon is to have his balls in a vice.
Yankees loaded up the bullpen with guys who are all under contract for future years so no rentals. Plus they’ve upgraded the bench which is something the Yankees haven’t done in ages. Now all we need is Judge back healthy enough to play RF…
The starting pitching is shaky . They really need a healthy Gil
Jesus he got a player option and a trade kicker, too. We were pretty desperate to get this done.
All I ask is that the team extended Bridges because they believe in him. Not because they gave up 5 picks. But in all honesty, the pretty much had to extend him to keep that salary slot should they need it. I’m not as down on Bridges as many of you are, but I’m not super high on him right now either. If used properly, he’s a tremendously great fit on this team. We’ll have to wait and see how Brown deploys him. Still tho- it’s a good value for him on this market. This is another extension Leon & Co wins. We only win these deals if guys buy in, and Thibs’ culture is owed alot of thanks for that. Randle did it, Mitch did it, Donte did it, Brunson did it, Yabusele did it, and now Bridges. That says alot about the kind of guys the new Knick culture attracts. These mofos wanna win and I love that. And now it’s time to bring that energy to the basketball court
Mikal played for Nova, but he doesn’t seem all that close to the other Nova dudes and doesn’t connect with the fans at all. The contract will only make more hate come his way when he doesn’t show up
Mets made great moves too. Unfortunately, our regular lineup only has 3 guys who bat from the right side with the Mullins get. And they all have bad splits- with the exception of Soto..but his aren’t much better
Don’t knock till you lock it.
Not a fan either
$80M/year AAV for Mikal & OG.
So much winning.
Who cares what we think. What does ChatGPT think about the Bridges extension?
thirty seven and a half million a year for Bridges feels very full price for his talent level, even including new TV money…
him, KAT and OG ain’t cheap…
so, what does this mean for extending mitch?
do we have the money (apron wise)?
no joy in mudville over this contract….let’s hope mike brown has some secret sauce..
My Take (Chat GPT, not mine):
Bridges took a strategic compromise: he forewent the chance at a $296M max, but earned guaranteed security—and the Knicks retained flexibility. For a team paying a hefty price in picks, and a player acutely aware of his value and physical limits, locking him in at $150M is a balanced, calculated approach.
While not a home-run max signing, the deal reflects a smart blend of long-term commitment, financial prudence, and strategic maneuvering—both for the Knicks and for Bridges.
Mitch isn’t a fortunate son so he’s not getting an extension unless he signs for a discount.
where’s Early Bird, I need to have my feelings validated…
That’s like giving up a lottery ticket for a million dollars.
EDIT: Sorry, I misread your post, Raven. I thought it was your take.
Hey, complain to ptmilo’s kid, not to me…
As i understand it, when players get a max contract it usually means their salary goes up with the cap. But if they get less than the max, the year to year raises are whatever is written into the contract. So I hope that Bridges getting a slightly less than max contract means his salary could eventually decrease as a fraction of the cap.
Seems like this is going to happen
Your feelings are always valid.
Mikal costs too much even though I see his name and part of me wants to believe he’s still an elite defender and that half year Brooklyn stint was real.
I don’t love this contract, as it feels like we bid against ourselves somewhat, but just out of curiosity what do we feel would have been a better, realistically achievable number?
I don’t think a lower number was on the table. It was either meet my asking price or I’ll leave as a free agent. Leon backed himself into a corner after the trade with the Nets.
I also suspect this may have been the case, I’m curious to see if anyone else feels differently
Yeah, I’m hoping this is a descending salary situation. Like OG, it’s a “strategic” overpay, but it puts the core four in place for this championship window, I guess.
The scope of Mikal Bridges contract does not bother me. Four years at $37.5M is market for the 3rd/4th best veteran on a contender.
We will see if Bridges merits that salary slot, but that is the price.
If Bridges makes an ASG during the next five years, it is a fair price. If he makes more than one ASG, it is a bargain.
Now that I do things like “watch Eddington with my lovely girlfriend” I am sometimes a bit behind on Knicks news, so sorry if some of this has been covered already (I will catch up on the thread after posting), but:
1) this is better than not extending him, IMO. If he’s a standard deviation better than he was this past season, he’d likely get more and maybe a lot more.
2) if we want to, I’m 100% sure we’ll be able to trade him for some amount of value if we need to, as is the case with OG. The skillset is just too sought after for anything else to be the case.
3) realistic improvements could make it look like a relative bargain, but if he doesn’t get better it will be very mediocre, though still tradable, value.
4) for the above reason, I’m not certain this was a better idea than trading him for the best package this offseason, sunk cost and all. That said, there’s a good chance it was because even if we took no money back it wouldn’t open up a ton of flexibility for us.
5) as of now the trade still looks bad.
How was Eddington?… it’s next up
The salary cap provides a strong incentive to extend players, once you are an over-the-cap team. If Bridges had walked after next season, the Knicks would still have been committed to $173M in salary, so they would not have had any cap space. At best, they would have had a mid-level exception.
I liked Eddington a lot but felt like it dragged towards the end. Definitely worth watching though
Eddington could’ve been 25 minutes or so shorter for sure, but I thought it captured the essence of…the 2020 moment, for lack of a better term, better than any other piece of media I’ve consumed.
agreed, it did a stellar job of capturing the insanity of online nonsense becoming “real” for normal people during COVID
The figure for Bridges is reasonable when compared to those around the same price. I’d prefer his overall game to LaMelo and his 36%usage and .536 TS% and Ingram’s similar usage and inefficiency. Bam can’t be includes as a comp because his salary rockets after this season.
In a league where IQ is extended at 32.5M….
Yay. Good to hear it’s worthwhile I’m a fan of Ari.
I’m fine with the deal. Hopefully he’ll up his 3p% a bit and we’ll find a way to relieve him of guarding quick PGs as often so we get the benefit of his more productive wing defense. That may also save a little more of his energy for offense. I’m not sure starting Deuce is the solution, but it might be. I’m also not sure this team is a finished product. Leon may make another move before the deadline.
Bridges is a solid two-way starter on a contender. This is fine.
It’s fine except for the trade kicker, though I suppose that was the cost of the “discount.”
In other news, Cashman had a pretty ideal deadline – managed to address areas of need and shore up the team for next year. Still don’t think they’re doing much this year, but it’s pretty much win-win.
Yeah, his bullpen was so overworked he needed Yeery De los Santos to salvage the season after Stroman tried to combust a 7 zip lead. Fresh arms for the manager to use 5 relievers a game.
watching knickfantv, it’s hurting my ears to hear the words: team friendly deal…
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