Knicks Morning News (2025.09.22)

I am not the biggest James Edward’s III fan but mostly agreed with his takes in the Q&A article posted above.

I disagree on who would most likely be traded…Kolek has to be the guy precisely because Dadiet has more value, not to mention he would be the more valuable depth piece. But nothing should be done until after preseason anyway, at which time Leon and Brown will have more answers.

I also think that Dadiet, Diawara, and Huk will all be valuable depth pieces beyond this season when major trades are back on the table, either to include in the trade or to have reasonable depth post-trade.

“That said, if the coaches and FO have been watching him for a year-plus and feel like the theory isn’t going to be a reality — or isn’t going to be a reality until he’s on his second contract — then maybe you just punt him as part of going all-in for this year.”

Yes, but I’ve seen enough of him to feel pretty strongly that he’s worth keeping. The game is still a bit too fast for him and his shot is still a bit variable, mostly due to inconsistencies in his form, but he is very skilled and has decent athleticism and excellent size. I would love to see him spotted in every 3-4 games.

The one caveat is in what Diawara shows. If he develops quickly and Dadiet stalls, that could make Dadiet on his larger deal more expendable. But I think there’s value in rostering these young wings, even in a win or bust season. Whereas at age 24, an undersized PG like Kolek would have to quickly become a TJ McConnell-like overachiever in training camp to justify having him on this roster.

I don’t think anyone here disputes that Mikal and OG are both overpaid. The question is: was the alternative of letting them test free agency preferable to signing them to their extensions?

There is also the question of whether the sunk cost issue is relevant. I think it is…the players were acquired at a high cost specifically to be starters on a championship-caliber team. It would be silly to say “Hey, I know we paid a fortune for them, but let’s bail on them after one season because they didn’t measure up to the extension they wanted…even though we have no way to replace them while remaining a serious contender and at the risk of losing them (and all that was paid for them) for nothing.”

At the end of the day,contending teams often have salary imbalances, overpaying some rotation players and underpaying others. In our case, Brunson, Deuce, and Mitch are all woefully underpaid, Yabu and Clarkson are probably underpaid, KAT and Hart are both market value deals, and OG and Mikal are overpaid. At the end of the day, they are still under the second apron even after acquiring a max player in KAT, a feat that some smart KBers thought would be impossible by now.

So as a whole, I don’t really care all that much about overpaying Mikal and OG…so long as they are healthy (remember the injury doom and gloom about OG that some here were forecasting? So far, so good!) and reasonably productive relative to expectations in their respective roles. I personally think that Hollinger’s concerns about Mikal being susceptible to decline is, at best, misguided…he’s the most durable player in the NBA and just turned 29! There is literally no reason to believe that he won’t be a top of rotation player at age 32, and if he opts in to his age 33 season, it’s an expiring deal. I don’t think they would have any trouble dumping that salary along the way, and he could be salary filler in a deal for a Giannis-type superstar. The second apron is going to force some teams to make tough decisions regarding their max players, so who knows who will become available?

I didn’t really have a problem with Mikal shooting midrange shots because he makes them more often than not….What I have a problem with is a) his microscopic FTr, and b) his 3pt%.

I wonder how much of his poor FTr is due to Thibs’ schemes and how much is Mikal just purposely avoiding contact on his own. I mean, it seems very weird that he went from the mid .200s down to .100 in a year’s time. I’m hoping it’s something he’s working on this offseason. Or that Mike Brown will have him cutting hard off ball so that he gets fouled more when teams rotate late to him at the rim.

As to the 3pt%, hopefully he has settled in to a shooting form and is not tinkering with it like he did last offseason.

But he should still be taking lots of 2’s because that is the most dependable shot to take under pressure…he made over 50% of them from all three ranges…3-10 ft, 10-16 ft, and 16ft out to the 3pt line. He actually shot better from 2 than SGA! And when you have Mitch and KAT in there to clean up his misses, it’s not a bad idea to put up soft shots.

That he ended up with a .585 TS% despite these two issues, along with playing the most minutes in the NBA while doing the grueling job defending the POA, seems more promising to me than alarming.

So by that logic, SGA should abandon the midrange shot, because that’s where he took 50% of his shots, and only made around 50% of them, while he shot 37.5% from 3 and 78.5% from the rim.

Of course, no one thinks that. Midrange shots are incredibly important to consistently winning basketball games, and even more important when you have the best offensive rebounder in the league on your team. Brunson takes more than 50% of his shots in the midrange and makes them at a lower % than Bridges does, and also shoots better from 3 than Bridges.

The prolbem with Bridges is that unlike Brunson or SGA, he doesn’t get to the line or create space by drawing multiple defenders or hedges and blitzes. He consistently gets guarded 1-on-1 and makes it harder for him to do anything other than either shoot or dump off. There’s no “fake guys up in the air and then step in to draw the foul” game that Brunson and SGA use in the midrange.

I’m totally fine with Mikal’s shooting splits in a vacuum. It’s the lack of FTs and dump-offs (14% asst%) that bugs me.

Personally I think Mikal’s best position would be SG, not SF…especially in a lineup with Brunson and without Deuce. He doesn’t really rebound like a forward. I think he was listed as a SF in our starting lineups last year, but is he really? Hart is more of a forward then he is, but B-R said that Hart was at SG 66% of his minutes, and that must have included all of the starter’s minutes…not to mention that Bridges was playing the POA on D vs. guards and Hart was being covered by opposing C’s…

“I suspect those additional fouls are coming from being under the basket a lot more often than when they take midrange jumpers”

I would very much disagree with this. SGA takes 30% of his shots between 10-23 feet. Brunson took 28% from there. Bridges took 23% form there, and only 4% from outside of 16 feet.

I would guess that both SGA and Brunson get fouled frequently (relative to others) in the midrange, either in the act or in the penalty, because they are so good at getting players off balance and causing them to lunge or reach. Since only the makes show up as missed shot attempts, those fouls actually raise their 2pt shooting percentages since misses don’t count if you are fouled unless you make the shot, meaning that your eFG% on those “actual” shot attempts is guaranteed to be greater than 100% (only makes are counted plus they are accompanied by FTs.

Example: Brunson starts a game by getting fouled in the act while missing the shot, converts both FTs, and then gets fouled in the act and converts the and-1. Statistically, that’s 5 points on 1 FGA. So it doesn’t matter that SGA and Brunson shoot at a lowish TS% from the midrange because their PPP is boosted by FTs. Whereas Mikal almost never got fouled in the midrange because he relied on fading away with his length and high release rather than shiftiness with the ball.

All that said, I would guess that PPP on all of their midrange shots not involving fouls is helped by having excellent offensive rebounders on the team. It seems that if despite shooting below average from 3 and never going to the line, Mikal still had a TS+ of 101 on moderate usage, he’s not really hurting the team with his shot profile.

Hopefully Brown will not change his shot profile beyond tweaks and Bridges is working on ways to draw more fouls without hurting his 2pt FG%.

All of this said, I do think the question of whether it was better to extend Mikal as Leon did vs. waiting until this coming offseason to do it is valid. I agree that there is significant chance that Mikal becomes a negative asset in a couple of years, but that is at least partially offset by his iron-man durability vs. a guy like, say, De’Andre Hunter who is always banged up.

That’s a bummer because I really like and admire FVV as an undrafted player who made good. They are deep enough to still be a force, but that definitely hurts their chances vs. OKC, etc.