News & Blogs
How are the Knicks different from last season? NBA coaches weigh in – The New York Times
Timothee Chalamet Calls Knicks’ 2025 NBA Playoff Run ‘The Most Fun Period of My Life’ – BleacherReport
Knicks set for NBA Cup Semifinal meeting with Magic after win over Raptors – SNY
More than 75 NBA players just became available. Will the Knicks fish? – Posting & Toasting
Hart sparks Knicks after ‘honest’ chat with Brown – ESPN
Knicks use complete team effort to cruise past Raptors in NBA Cup Quarterfinals – SNY
Jalen Brunson breaks the modern NBA mold – Posting & Toasting
Knicks vs Spurs Preview: NBA Cup Finals Breakdown & Key Matchups – Knicks Fan TV
Knicks vs Spurs NBA CUP FINAL Preview w/ Matthew Tynan of Corporate Knowledge | PREGAME POD – Knicks Film School
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94 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2025.12.16)”
I am honestly a little surprised that we are the betting favorites in this game. Spurs have a lot of really quality wins (OKC, Lakers, Denver, Houston, etc) and we… do not really. I don’t think Orlando without Franz and the Raptors really count.
Regarding the cup and the game not counting – in order to really make it something worth playing for, I think winning the cup should count as the 1st tiebreaker in conference. Question in my mind is whether just getting to the cup final should count that way too (ie Knicks get first tiebreaker for EC playoffs just for getting to the Cup finals), and winning the cup counts as 1st tiebreaker overall.
Knicks should be slight favorites, their advanced metrics are mostly better than the Spurs. ESPN analytics predictor has the Knicks with a 58% chance of winning tonight.
Both finalists should get the tie breaker but whoever wins the cup gets one extra home playoff game that they can use at any point during the playoffs.
Imagine the intrigue. A team has that extra home game in their back pocket and can pull it out at any point. It would be amazing and they would never do it.
I like the extra home game idea with tweaks for the unlikely possibility that a non-playoff team wins the tournament. But I also think that the finals teams should have no games for at least 2 days after the finals. The SAS and NYK games on Thursday should be postponed and played at some convenient time later in the season.
As to the finals being on Tuesday, I’m okay with that because it won’t be competing with either pro or college football. Although there’s lots of college basketball on the slate.
Not giving the winner any kind of advantage definitely seems like a major oversight. It raises some weird questions. Like, is this a prime load management opportunity, or the biggest game of our season until the playoffs?
The league office would obviously be furious if teams really did treat it like an exhibition, but it’s weird they haven’t done any of the many minor things you could do to prevent that.
Yeah, they need to give both finalists team a bit of a break.
The extra home playoff game idea came to me last night and I got really excited thinking about the possibilities. Imagine the cup winner is down 3-2 in the playoffs and the team that is up thinks they’re going back home and they pull that extra home game out of their back pocket to get to play an elimination game at home. Or a team is one win away from closing out a series but has to go on the road, knowing if they win the next game they’ll have more time off before the next round so they pull the home game card out.
Or a team saves it until the finals. It could be really cool and would add real intrigue.
I also like the idea of just giving the winner and extra pick in the draft. They get an added pick at the end of the first round (and they can do whatever they want with it regardless of whatever picks they’ve traded, etc.)
As long as money is on the line, players are going to care about the game and coaches are going to play for the win or else the team is gonna be pissed at them.
They should still do something more interesting for the fans with it.
Josh has watches to replace
I think that’s something they got right. All these tiebreaker ideas diminish the cup. It’s like having Bobby the Brain Heenan work with a wrestler because he has no personality.
If you want the cup to be prestigious, it needs to be able to stand alone.
The major oversight is putting the game on a random Tuesday in the middle of a busy December schedule. They made it no different than any other TNT weeknight game. In fact they did such a bad job that they made it a little embarrassing to care too much about it in public. Some folks have even expressed shame over the idea of raising a banner.
That’s the real problem.
This game should be on pedestal.
FWIW I intend to be one one of those people that cares too much about it in public tonight. I like the cup a lot. The Friday night games with the courts have a real vibe. And Saturday night in Vegas was awesome. Those games felt elevated and special.
But this game needs some space and it needs some attention. The travesty is the timing.
And as you might imagine, I have a solution….
I haven’t heard anything mentioned about possible lingering bad blood between Mike Brown and De’Aaron Fox. One would think that that could add some juice to the publicity of this game.
Idk maybe I’m being naive, but why can’t the final game just count? That’s really my only issue with it. Then a future game between the Knicks and Spurs gets removed from the schedule and the league reimburses Dolan or Spurs guy for one home game. Ticket holders also get reimbursed. Both teams get extra rest. If those teams don’t meet again, push it back to the next season.
The answer:
1. Stop trying to resuscitate the all star game. It’s dead.
2. Still name your all stars.
3. Call out some legends every year, too.
4. The stars and legends come, but they don’t play a stupid game no one cares about. They do the stupid skills competitions no one cares about instead.
5. Then… on a boring Sunday night in February… when the NFL season is over… in front of the global audience that already broadcasts the all star game… and after a weekend full of hype… then you play the Cup Final… with all the courtside seats full of NBA all stars and the legends these guys grew up worshiping.
That’s a game the players will show out for. It’s a game fans can go wild about. And it doesn’t fuck you by happening two nights before a back-to-back.
totally agree with hubert and basically said the same thing over the weekend having semifinals on a saturday and then regular games on sunday and monday before the cup finals on tuesday makes the final game anticlimactic just take one night off from regular season games and have the semifinals and finals maybe on a wednesday night and friday night respectively trying to stay away from competing with sunday and monday night football
or huberts february idea when nfl is done is good too
Hubert raises good points and it may well be the case that there are just some growing pains here. “The cup matters, because it’s the cup” unfortunately doesn’t quite resonate in year 3 of its existence, but it might be uncontroversial by year 10.
I agree the quality of play has been above average compared to the “normal” regular season, and hey, the Knicks haven’t won much of anything in my lifetime so I won’t apologize for celebrating a win they’ll commemorate with t-shirts. I’ll even get a shirt!
The Tuesday evening thing is definitely annoying though. I watched Saturday’s game at a bar and the atmosphere was great, almost playoff like. For a single elimination tournament it’d be super easy to schedule the games on nights that kind of thing is more feasible.
One other modest change I’d make: get rid of East vs West when you get to the knockout stage. Just seed them 1 thru 8 so there’s a chance you can get a good rivalry game like Knicks/Celtics in the final. (Knicks/Spurs is kinda cool but Bucks/Thunder and Lakers/Pacers were real duds.)
Every team in the NBA currently has 8 days off during the all-star break. It represents a time of rest, rehab, and communing with family for many players. I don’t think the idea of two teams having a high-stakes bloodbath game that counts for something during the all-star break will fly, and if it is low stakes, then it becomes a glorified exhibition just like the current all-star game.
The main point of the Cup series is to juice up the beginning of the season, precisely to better compete with football. There’s no need to do that after football season is over, and that’s doubly true in February, when it’s the gap between football and baseball seasons.
Yeah, its crazy this is on a Tuesday night. I like Hubert’s idea also.
I am still going to trick myself into caring a lot about it, although there is really no rational reason to do so.
I’m with TNFH, if the Knicks win tonight I’ll also get a commemorative NBA Cup champions shirt!
I agree that ending on an early weeknight is weird but it’s not unprecedented. The NCAA finals in both football and basketball are always held on Monday. I think the game tonight will have a broader audience than it would have last night in competition with NFL’s Monday Night Football, especially now that the most marketable player in the NBA will be featured.
At the end of the day, Adam Silver’s mission has largely been accomplished. They are getting better ratings than normal for this time of the year, and the games have largely been both competitive and marked by all-star level performances by some of the best and most marketable teams in the league. My guess is that tonight’s game is gonna be widely watched and enjoyed.
I want to thank Director NYC for turning me around on this. I was all set to skip this game but his enthusiasm swayed me and now I’m treating this like Tottenham are at Wembley for the FA Cup.
What has meaning other than what we give meaning to anyway, right?
Maybe this will be like Super Bowl III, i.e. the first one anyone really gave a fuck about because the Jets gave a fuck about it.
They can still have the all-star break, just have the cup finals be the last game before the break. They can hold it whichever city hosts the all-star break.
Extend the cup by adding more games to group play so it lasts till February. Have cup games be every other Saturday with each team playing their group opponents twice.
I remain immune to the charms of the IST. It seems like such an artificial, pointless construct to me. Nobody is ever going to remember who wins it, and it really functions as a penalty for the two teams who make the final.
It’s sort of fun that we’re in the final, I guess, but the final has less impact on the regular season than an actual game against like the Charlotte Hornets or whoever. I could do without the whole thing.
I actually cannot believe that the Bucks are tripling down and are “showing interest” in adding Zach LaVine to make a playoff push. I now feel bad for Giannis!
the nba has always tried to make the christmas day games into a “signature” day just as the nfl has always done for thanksgiving i would have suggested making the nba cup finals game the signature christmas day game (its only nine days away anyway) except for the fact that starting last season the nfl has coopted christmas as well with a thanksgiving-like schedule of one early afternoon one late afternoon and one night game so that wouldnt work anymore
its probably not worth it for the nba to attempt going directly against the nfl on christmas anymore because even if they only tried it once they would stand to lose an awful lot of $$$
Hollinger breaking down various candidates to be traded by the deadline:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6892624/2025/12/16/nba-trade-deadline-team-giannis-chris-paul/
Regarding us, he says:
If we trade Clarkson (or another vet minimum) & Dadiet for Alvarado at the deadline, we end up $851 short of being able to sign a 14th player that day. So we can wait a few days after the trade, then sign a 14th player at the prorated vet minimum and at the end of the season still sign a 15th man.
Dadiet is expendable given our win-now team and 2 decent draft picks (plus another 2 late 2nds destined for 2-way deals or trade).
I can get behind trading Dadiet but why Alvarado? I’ve never seen him play… the stats are meh… what am I missing?
(I used my “ask ptmilo” card over the weekend so can someone else get this?)
think someone already nailed this one: demographics…
‘sides, let tyler try to create in a knick uni…who knows, maybe he has something…
Alvarado has had multiple exceptional defensive years by DEPM/DBPM (he gets tons of steals and NO has always been better defensively with him on the floor, usually much better), and this year he’s actually hitting enough shots to not be an offensive liability.
He’s listed at 6’0″ and is probably shorter, so he’s a pure POA guy. But he’s a good one, and generally brings a kind of controlled chaos to games that I think we’d benefit from.
looking forward to OG and josh try to defend wemby down low…
josh try to out rebound champagnie and johnson…mikal versus vassell or fox…
the spurs competitively are a handful…
over/under on wemby blocks: 5 maybe?
mitch feels like a total X factor, no idea how he might play in this game…
The NBA cup gives ALL the teams a chance to win. We all know that in a best of 7 series, SAS have no business beating OKC but in one game take all, – it just happened. Wemby gets it and he’s the new face of the league now. Watch his emotions tonight and tell me it doesnt really matter.
This one game win or go home style, gives starving fanbases a chance at tasting victory over a beheamoth dinasty type teams and it gives underrated players and coaches with a competetive spirit and a winnning style of play a special platform to shine.
I’m buying a tshirt and a hoodie. GO NY, GO NY, GO!
You know who we should get? TJ Fucking McConnell (that’s his birth name).
He’s going to be 35 years old by next year’s playoffs, and the Pacers aren’t the kind of team that lets assets diminish on their watch.
We could offer Yabu, Dadiet, Kolek, and the Washington picks. We also have some convoluted rights to Indiana’s own second rounders in ’27 &’28.
I know that doesn’t sound overwhelming but I don’t think anyone’s giving up a first round pick for a backup PG in the age of OKC. This ain’t the all in era.
I’m an Alavardo fan. I’m not sure how keen I am on moving Dadiet for him. I’d be against moving Diawara. I’d rather be patient with players like that because we also need a long term development plan. I’d be more apt to try to trade Clarkson who still has a positive reputation around the league (that Leon fell for) even though he was always overrated and is now bad.
Sign me up. I’ll go pick him up myself.
I think we may have to play a lot of 5 out and be hitting our 3s tonight or Wemby is going to cause a ton of problems in mid range and in the paint if allowed to roam around inside. Barely 6’0″ unathletic Jalen Brunson is going to have to use his big head and big brain to get shots off tonight.
i’m going to reiterate my recommendation (are you listening, Commissioner Silver?) that the four NBA Cup finalists be awarded with 4 new draft choices that come immediately following round 1 of the draft
reward franchises and fan bases for NBA Cup success. the players are getting money, great, and maybe it’s cute for some people that Kolek’s mom got a car out of all this. i cannot imagine caring less about any of that
as a bonus, you get a reason to plug/stroke the NBA Cup in June, revisit highlights, make it seem cool, inspire some jealousy in the teams that failed to achieve etc
On a different but somewhat related note, after the last 9.8 seconds of the OKC-SAS semi took 12 minutes in real time Jowles popped in to once again promote the idea of the Elam ending. It just so happens that Eric Koreen of The Athletic penned an article on the topic, focusing on the strategy of teams leading by 3 fouling intentionally to send players to the line for 2 shots.
First, I will never be swayed in my utter disdain for the Elam ending. In my opinion, the most exciting event in basketball by a country mile, or several light years if you prefer, is the buzzer-beater. Eliminating that would be one of the worst ideas ever instituted.
That said, I agree that there is a problem with intentionally fouling, especially by the team that is ahead. That should never be a sound strategy…in particular because it dramatically lowers the odds of the highly desireable buzzer-beater having a chance to occur.
As pointed out in the article, both the NBA (the away-from-the-play foul) and college basketball (the double-bonus) have changed rules to lessen the efficacy of intentionally fouling down the stretch. The problem is that they haven’t gone far enough.
Koreen mentions the most obvious idea: to give teams fouled intentionally down the stretch one shot plus possession. I like that idea, but think that it only partially solves the problem. The shooting team will still have to inbound the ball and risk turning it over before getting another crack at it, and also eating away some of the clock. Then there is the issue of deciding whether a foul is intentional or not, which could cause replay delays. But it would definitely be better than what we have now. It could also be applied to any foul that occurs outside the 3-point line, intentional or not.
Other possible variations:
-Give one shot and the ball at midcourt with a “defense-free zone” to inbound the ball, either in the entire backcourt or some designated area of the frontcourt.
-Give teams the option of 1 FT and the ball, 2 FTs, or a single free 3PT shot by any player on the court.
Whatever, #SAYNOTOELAM
Spot on, Strat. Thank god for his big head. Think the key delta is going to be in the non Wemby minutes. We need to win those minutes by a large margin. Saw a stat somewhere that when Wemby is on the floor, SAS are the highest net rated team in the league.
Uh oh:
“He’s going to New York for sure.”
— Isaiah Thomas on Giannis
Why would guys play harder to acquire more potential replacements for them?
Off season?
Yeah, unfortunately giving finalists more draft picks would create some dicey incentives for those teams’ fringe players…
I like the Elam ending and see it as the only way to guarantee the end of close games resembles actual basketball. Not sure I understand the buzzer-beaters point–the Elam ending guarantees there’s always a game winning shot. Everything about the buzzer-beater besides the literal buzzer remains, and their frequency goes up exponentially.
would players on teams good enough to be in the knockout stage of the NBA Cup intentionally underperform to offset the risk that the 31st best incoming rookie will cost them a job next year?
isn’t playing poorly the greater risk to their career? don’t they lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars by not advancing in the NBA Cup?
I am getting that same queasy feeling about Giannis that I had about Melo before that trade.
do we have any evidence to tell us that isiah thomas is a source that we should be paying any attention to
I am not getting that feeling about Giannis
He’s twice the player Melo ever was.
There is a prize, interviews and a trophy thats waiting for the winner at the end.
$3M dollars cash on the table. It’s like the YMCA giving away $3k to whoever wins the next game for most of us. Trust me they all want to go home, walk in with that loaf of bread and tell a story.
I don’t think they need to play harder. They’re playing for money and also bragging rights and they are competitive.
The extra draft pick would be something for the franchise and fans to get excited about.
If Giannis wants NY badly and has the leverage to force it, it’s a matter of Leon getting a deal we can live with.
I just can’t see Mikal or OG being included partly for basketball reasons and partly for political reasons. It has to be Towns plus other moves/swaps.
Giannis’ latest injury “could be” part of his strategy to force a specific trade now. Maybe I’m seeing things but that looked more like a WWE injury than a real one. Obviously I could be way off on that, but if he does get traded, don’t count out a miraculously quick recovery. 😉
“I like the Elam ending and see it as the only way to guarantee the end of close games resembles actual basketball. Not sure I understand the buzzer-beaters point–the Elam ending guarantees there’s always a game winning shot. Everything about the buzzer-beater besides the literal buzzer remains, and their frequency goes up exponentially.”
The game-ending shot is not the same as a buzzer-beater. There is a drama created by the game clock ticking down that would be totally lost. There would also never be an overtime game, just games that were artificially long because both teams got cold.
Look, it’s not a new idea, and it has been tried (most recently in the NBA all-star game and the G-League in overtime) yet it doesn’t seem to be getting any traction whatsoever. If it happens, I’ll adjust my thinking accordingly, but I would greatly prefer that other solutions to the end-of-game fouling issue be tried to minimize the issue, if not eliminate it. The transition take foul rule greatly minimized that concern. Seems like discouraging fouling at the end of games is not rocket science.
Think our case best trade is Giannis & Portis for OG, Hart, Deuce, Yabu & fugazzi picks. If Leon pulls this off, – he’s the GOAT.
The Eastern Conference is toast for the next 4yrs if Giannis plays with two All NBA type all-stars + Mikal.
Fuck that.
If Giannis is forcing his way here, then Leon needs to commit highway robbery.
I wouldn’t even do KAT for Giannis straight up.
I’d offer OG + Mitch + Dadiet + the Washington pick, then hold the line.
Who cares if Milwaukee can do better? I’m not blowing up this team because Giannis finally winked back at us. Either we dominate this trade or we walk away.
Even this is a bad trade IMO. I would be pissed off if we gave up so much.
While Giannis would be fun, that trade would make me very sad, as OG, Hart, and Deuce are my three favorite Knicks to root for (sorry Jalen, you’re the most amazing to watch, but your game is a trifle grim…).
For clarity, in my book ‘root for’ is an emotional connection having little if anything to do with skill set. For example, as you may have noticed I’m rooting wildly for Huk, partly because I think he solves a problem for us (Yabu), but also because I think there may be an NBA player in there, and I’ve inexplicably come to like him. A touch point might be Frank, who many of us rooted for (to be good), although it helped that most everyone else on those teams was either irritating or sucked, or both.
It really depends how much presure Giannis is putting on Milwakee + how much short term bad publicity he’s willing to endure and how greedy Leon really is (no one likes working with Danny Ainge anymore) but…
Giannis
KAT
Mikal
Shamet
Brunson
with Mitch, Portis, Kolek, Clarkson + signing vets like CP3,
Like I said, Eastern Conference is BBQ Chicken for next 4yrs.
I hear you Raven on the rooting for aspect and it does matter…I felt that way when we traded RJ and Quickley. Loved rooting for those two but especially IQ. Then Knicks went undeafeated in January & I got over it real quick.
Giannis is obviously a great defender (though he declined a bit in the past couple of years), but I don’t know that this team can function defensively without OG. He covers so. many. holes.
I’d rather send out Mikal, and think he’s also more valuable than OG so the rest of the package would not be as painful.
Obviously none of this is likely to happen, unless Giannis is truly pressuring them.
Unless it is a clear win, I’d rather wait until the offseason before making any major trades. This is a fun group to root for. KAT has been showing better defensive effort and execution lately. Mitch looked healthier in our last game than he has all season and actuallly executed a FT within two SDs of normal. Kolek is showing more with each game.
I get that this is a unique window with the Hali and Tatum injuries and the mere availability of a player like Giannis. An in-season trade might be the last, best chance to win a championship. But it would be so disorienting to me as a fan, and I can’t visualize a trade that the Bucks would be willing to make that improves our chances much beyond where they are right now. Giannis is an old-ish 31 and he gets banged up more and more these days. His next contract might age horribly. So you would be gambling the next decade on his health plus the ability to put enough around him and Jalen to hang at least one NBA championship banner in the rafters.
In any case, there will be a lot of agita between now and February 5.
I would much rather do Mikal, too, but the math requires you to throw in Josh if you use him instead of OG.
All I see if 40 mpg of Jordan Clarkson if Shamet doesn’t come back, and I can’t unsee it.
I just think we’re really good and there are not many Giannis trades that actually make us better. Your trade is great from an asset POV but the resulting team is top heavy and dependent on bad players.
We have to factor in the cost of mid season upheaval, as well.
i hate all those trades i dont want to give up og hart or deuce so no
I also do not see a trade that works that makes us better.
We wouldn’t trade Brunson, so
We can’t then trade Hart, so
We’d have to deal KAT, OG, or both (with more players involved), so
We couldn’t play the kind of offensive unit that would benefit Giannis the most or
We couldn’t play the defensive unit that would benefit Giannis the most.
In short, there is no trade that makes us definitely better unless multiple teams are involved and lots of players. I don’t like it.
Pray tell, Oh Swami! What is a deal Leon could do that “we can live with?
You just shattered all credibility by saying, “I wouldn’t even do KAT for Giannis straight up.” I mean what in the everloving bleep! What is the 3rd best player in the NBA worth these days. According to you, clearly not a fellow who is around the 25th best player, lol…jesus, man.
I’m sorry, but this lineup is not good. KAT and Brunson are liabilities on D, Shamet is ok but may not return, Giannis is apparently somewhat fragile… It’s a starf#cker starting 5 with little depth that is likely to age poorly and soon. Again, I don’t like it.
The only two in-season deals I would consider are either KAT plus non of the other top-7 or OG and Mitch and non of the other top-7. Anything beyond that will not make us much better than we are right now.
Obviously the Bucks don’t do these deals, so best to just wait, and if necessary, to pass entirely.
Giannis arguably the best player in the world right now, at the very least, he’s top 5 and we want to steal him for a bag of peanuts….it’s a little greedy but OK.
Imagine being Leon and taking this call from Giannis himself. “My agent is telling me that he got Milwakee to agree but you won’t trade OG for me…is that true?”
I think if Giannis is extorting the Bucks, then try to get Turner too so that you have a KAT replacement (and they don’t need Turner if they get KAT):
Giannis + Turner for KAT + Hart + Yabu + Dadiet
Brunson
Mikal
OG
Giannis
Turner
Bring me the championship.
I don’t care what Giannis is worth.
Luka was worth adding Austin Reaves, but they’re both Lakers right now.
Either rob the Bucks blind or walk away.
I have a much harder time arguing against this, inconsistent as Turner can be.
Edit: though I still think it’s unlikely they’d deal Hart when Brunson means so much to the franchise
I don’t disagree, which is one of the many reasons why I think it’ll be hard for them to get Giannis.
But Giannis and Hart do not fit well together at all, especially if KAT is out.
I’m actually excited about the game tonight. Winner takes all, two teams that could meet in the finals, what’s not to like? I bet it’s going to be very competitive.
So Giannis for KAT heads up isn’t “robbing him blind?”
I always thought the idea of making trades was to maximize long term out come. Silly me. I forgot evil Leon has to pass some sort of Kobyashi_ Maru exam where Hubert is the examiner.
Oof, Marechal’s trade looks really good, too… I’m just a little skeptical of Turner and hesitant to give up Josh.
Wasn’t Reaves already on LA before Luka arrived, or am I mistaken? Not sure what that has to do with swapping Giannis for KAT.
You’re very wide of the mark, Bob.
I’m not looking for Leon to pass a test. I want him to end up with a team that can win.
KAT for Giannis looks like a steal but it leaves Mitch and Huk as the only two centers on the roster. To get a better player but end up with a team that’s fatally flawed is a fail in my book.
Bob, the idea is the Luka trade could have been both AD and Reaves, but they kept Reaves (which made it robbing the Mavs blind).
We are allowed to make another move for a backup C and can also play Giannis at C against some matchups.
Can the Luka trade really be used as a market comp?
I think people here are saying the Leon winning the trade 60:40 or even 70:30 is not worth the short term pain of a tipsy-topsy roster.
It must to be a criminal Luka type 90:10 trade + Silver guarantees them a 1st overall pick the first year they can keep it or Leon must walk away.
In my view, that’s a little ambitious but OK.
Reaves and Davis for Luka would have been robbing Nico blind, too, to be honest.
But the idea isn’t just to win the trade. The idea is to make the trade on your terms so you end up with what you want.
I started drinking early to get ready for this game. I don’t have the focus to explain all of my reasoning, but I’m against any trade for Giannis that includes OG.
IMO, OG is the perfect 3a option on this team, a good spacer, an elite defender and gives us enough efficient usage. Giannis is obviously a much better overall player, but the combination of Giannis, Towns and Brunson is likely to get diminishing returns on offense. Someone is going to score less. They’ll probably all score less and not be much more efficient.
If we trade Towns, the spacing gets hurt and we need a backup C, but we get beast mode Towns from Giannis practically every possession and upgrade the defense significantly.
Lineups with Giannis, OG, Bridges will be elite defensively and with Brunson, Giannis, OG and Bridges we still have an elite offense.
Leon has to figure out a way to add value to Towns without touching that core.
Yes, but….
^ this is not quite the criteria I’m using, though I get why it seems like that.
Right now we’re favored to win the East and a long shot to win the title, right?
The goal isn’t to get Giannis. The goal is to change that.
Most of these trades don’t. They get Giannis in the door with too much going out and leave us with the faint hope that maybe he can make a miracle happen.
My thing is I would’ve totally understood trading whatever it took for Giannis in August when the Knicks apparently had an exclusive negotiating window. But now that the season has already started and the Knicks after a slow start are playing great while blowing teams out consistently I don’t see the point in making such a huge upheaval right now.
I wonder if Giannis would accept Brooklyn? He clearly wants the nyc market, and Brooklyn could put a terrific package together.
But the Nets have been burned by trades like these many times, so idk if they’d go for it once again.
i daresay that we are indeed the best team in the east yes better than detroit despite a slightly inferior record right now i think that only okc houston and denver are better than us lets not blow things up and make a mess please
It will be very fun to see tomorrow’s thread if we lose tonight, to see how many people pile onto the ‘Trade for Giannis now’ bandwagon.
Sadly I must miss the game because of damned holiday demands, which I think is true for all of the next three games. I hate the holidays…
“My thing is I would’ve totally understood trading whatever it took for Giannis in August when the Knicks apparently had an exclusive negotiating window’
This. We did not trade for Giannis when we could have, as Leon and the Bucks drew red lines. Today we are in a much better position to assess our needs given our great start while the Bucks are in a weaker position given their shitty start. Bringing in more teams should not alter Leon’s stance because it was always the likely outcome of rejecting the Bucks during the exclusive window.
if you haven’t watched a lot of spurs this year one thing that’s probably going to jump out is how much dylan harper is obviously for real
The Nets could trade Claxton, Clowney, Demin, Mann, Wolf, 4 FRPs, and 4 SRPs for Giannis and Thanasis and still have at least one 1st and one 2nd every year through 2032.
Plus, they’d still have MPJ as a #2 guy and Sharpe to play center.
“if you haven’t watched a lot of spurs this year one thing that’s probably going to jump out is how much dylan harper is obviously for real”
He was very impressive vs. the Thunder. So was Stephon Castle. That team is gonna be a problem for many years unless they fuck up.
ess-dog, that trade would not make Brooklyn an immediate contender. I would also say with only minor reservations that the Barclays experience is not nearly as alluring as the Mecca experience. So while it makes way more sense for the Bucks, Giannis probably wouldn’t be happy.
I’m just curious who this matchup that KAT is going to cover that you wouldn’t prefer Giannis covering? Head’s up trade. Mitch backing up w/OG and Bridges at the forwards.
I’m a little worried about the prevalence of schizophrenia med commercials on the prime broadcast