News & Blogs
Knicks’ Jalen Brunson on recent struggles, MSG crowd boos: ‘I’d be booing us too’ – SNY
Fans give Knicks earful as struggles continue vs. Mavericks – ESPN
Game Thread: Knicks vs. Mavericks, January 19, 2026 – Posting & Toasting
Mike Brown disappointed after Knicks ‘laid an egg’ in latest loss: ‘You gotta do your job’ – SNY
Knicks Postgame: Scenes from NY forcing Leon’s hand – Posting & Toasting
Knicks’ trade deadline watch: Five deals and why they would or wouldn’t work – The New York Times
Knicks Talk and Trade Rumors – Knick of Time
“The Knicks Are Spiraling, I’m Spiraling!” – KFTV Caller Crashes Out – Knicks Fan TV
The Knicks’ Towns Experiment Just Collapsed | HHT 75 – Hot Hand Theory
Pod Strickland Episode 561: Implosion – The Strickland
Knicks vs Nets Preview w/ Evan Roberts of WFAN | PREGAME POD | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
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139 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.01.21)”
IQ with 40 points on 13 shots. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player average more than 3 points per attempt.
IQ with 40 points on 13 shots. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player average more than 3 points per attempt.
TS of 1.121% highest in nba history for a 40+ pt game.
imho, it should be points per possession and not points per FGA, because depending on the number of FTA, the number can get super inflated versus the FGA (eg, foul baiting Harden). Quick had 11 FTs and made them all, it still is a remarkable performance, i’m happy for him.
Ok but did Steve Kerr give him a big hug afterward?
I do miss IQ.
I was fine that RJ Barrett left, although he’s improved, but IQ was tough to lose. I mean, his name alone….Immanuel Quickley…is a perfect name for a basketball player. We would have had to resign him for a much bigger number but there is a part of me that wonders if he had settled into the back up Brunson role a bench guard duo of him and Deuce would have been quite lovely.
Yeah surprised to see that IQ is having a pretty good year. He’s more of a complete player than Deuce, but Deuce has become better at his 3&D specialties. And of course Deuce is so much cheaper that Quick. Now hopefully OG will keep proving that he was worth the price of IQ.
imho, it should be points per possession and not points per FGA,
ts is ppp
and kuminga has 20 points in 21 minutes 7-10 fg what a waste that he is only being used because of butler being out 23/7/3 per 36
I think that a shooting foul should count as a “virtual” shot attempt. A player is, in fact, attempting a shot, and if it goes in, it counts as a shot. If you want to leave it out of shooting percentages, that’s one thing, but the notion of “40 points on 13 shots” is misleading. Why is is any better for a player to shoot more FTs than to shoot no FTs but make more shots from the field?
EXAMPLE:
Player A: 30 points on 15-25 shooting from 2 but no FTA is a .600 TS but folks will criticize that a “he scored 30 points on 25 shots, that’s not great!
Player B: 30 points on 5-15 shooting from 2 but 20 FTs on 24 FTA is a .587 TS% but but folks will be impressed that “he got 30 points on 15 shots!”
I guess I don’t care for the language of “he scored X points on Y shots” in general.
Apparently Dink Pate wants to go to college so he’s not willing to sign a 2 way NBA contract.
It really feels like Leon derailed his rebuild train with the pivot to Mikal and KAT. That train was hardly perfect, but it was sort of chooglin’ on down in the right direction. Now, there seems to be no clear way forward to the promised land.
“Apparently Dink Pate wants to go to college so he’s not willing to sign a 2 way NBA contract.”
I suggested that a few days ago, it seems like a smart move. He could maybe even get into the first round, although his G-League stint might hurt him because he’s no longer the same kind of “unknown” that a typical NCAA star would be.
do we lose his dink pates rights then
We never had any rights to him, Doogie. He was an undrafted free agent, who was never even on a 2-way contract.
Nice game by IQ, but this was the first game he has shot 50 % or better since Dec.5th .
It’ll be interesting to see if core NCAA eligibility rules on things like (1) time you can spend in college competition; (2) whether you actually have to be a student to play sports for a university; and (3) whether playing in the NFL or NBA makes you ineligible, actually hold.
Using the purely business and soulless logic of the anti-NCAA fanatics, there’s no reason they would hold. This was all eminently foreseeable, but the thing about stridency is that the natural results of the “logic” applied are never considered.
Such a weirdly bizarre — one might call it “enshittifying” — “cause” this was. Strange admixture of woke, libertarian, soulless, and silly.
Definitely. And I think the only way forward would be to undo these trades by sending them out. You’ll never get the same value back but I do think KAT and Mikal if traded in separate transactions could potentially get us some decent rotation players back, maybe even someone pretty good.
Dink Pate has got NIL $$$ written all over him. A couple of years in NCAA ball is the way to go, regardless of how or if he develops. Good for him and his advisors.
Macri did a list of his ten worst contracts in the NBA yesterday
Had IQ and Towns on the list
And I guy I forgot existed – Dejounte
Nil money>>>> G league money
Easy choice if he gets the chance
Fare thee well, Dink:
https://youtu.be/VXcYp7dLHms?si=wXdBM1oivA7BqLhK
I was always a big IQ fan, but I’m not so sure I love his contract. He’s good, but I’m not so sure he’s gotten noticeably better since he’s gone to Toronto. Injuries may have stifled his development a bit. We’ll see if he can get back on a upward track.
I hate to say it, but I’m almost rooting for the Knicks to lose to the Nets tonight. The resultant media and fan meltdown would be wildy more entertaining than a Knicks win over the Nets. 😉
I’ll never understand the Mikal hate. He might be the best two-way player on the team except for when OG is in a grove or Deuce is having one of his A games.
The hate might be him never trying to attack the rim and avoiding contact at all cost.
*he was also number 1 behind the firing of the last coach
Remember in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when Steve McQueen was bemoaning his lack of luck with Sharon Tate and Connie Stevens pointed out that Sharon absolutely has a type — “Cute, short, talented guys who look like 12 year old boys”?
Some people absolutely have a type.
We all go through our formative experiences in life and we develop and mature and grow and so we then kind of have a way of going about things “seriously” and then we have a way of going about things when it’s talking about sports or TV or whatnot and a bit like the “two worlds of George Costanza” we kind of keep them entirely separate almost like we’re two different people.
In that spirit, I can and will solemnly testify:
Mikal is a wuss.
when og is in one of his groves we seem to be almost unbeatable those oranges are coming fewer and farther between tho
love the dylan home recording ess
Yankees going to join in on this . Never would’ve believed that
“MLB owners are “raging” and will “100%” push for a salary cap after the Los Angeles Dodgers landed All-Star outfielder Kyle Tucker in free agency, a source told Evan Drellich of The Athletic.
“These guys are going to go for a cap no matter what it takes,” the source added.
The two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers stunned the baseball world last Thursday by agreeing to a four-year, $240-million deal with Tucker, who was widely considered the top player available on the open market.
However, the New York Mets also ruffled some feathers after pivoting to Bo Bichette via a three-year, $126-million deal after losing out on Tucker, adds Drellich.
Owners reportedly believe the Dodgers and Mets might be the only teams unwilling to support a cap in the next collective bargaining agreement”.
https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/3460444
I don’t have any problem with Mikal’s play or his contract. It’s all about the opportunity cost of his acquisition. Since it’s a sunk cost, I’ve moved on.
The guy we desperately need to move on from is KAT. It’s probably not a great idea to trade him now because his value is at its nadir, and I think once the deadline is behind us and all the trade talk dies down, his game will come back around. But he’s not a good fit here and his ginormous salary slot is 2-3 good players in waiting if used correctly.
So then all that stuff about how great it was that the Knicks beat the mightly Celtics and made the ECF and how the consensus of the basketball world was that the Knicks were clear preseason favorites to come out of the East and how pretty much everyone on KB predicted mid to high 50s in wins … all that stuff was misguided BS?
That seems excessive.
100%
“So then all that stuff about So then all that stuff about how great it was that the Knicks beat the mightly Celtics and made the ECF and how the consensus of the basketball world was that the Knicks were clear preseason favorites to come out of the East and how pretty much everyone on KB predicted mid to high 50s in wins … all that stuff was misguided BS?
That seems excessive. ”
There is a lot in this, isn’t there? Let’s take it piece by piece.
“how great it was that the Knicks beat the mightly Celtics and made the ECF”
It was actually great to experience as a fan, wasn’t it? But did anyone think that it meant that we were fundamentally better than the Celtics if Tatum returned to full health? Or did they feel that we caught some breaks with KP being sick, Brown being banged up, and Jrue and Horford showing their age, and finally, with Tatum blowing out his achilles?
“and how the consensus of the basketball world was that the Knicks were clear preseason favorites to come out of the East”
Why wouldn’t they have been? Indy and Boston were presumed to be dead, and Detroit and Orlando were presumed to be too young and playoff-hardened enough. But some of us here were more skeptical, and the KAT-Brunson pairing was a big reason for that. There was also irrational exuberance about the acquisitions of Yabu and Clarkson (my bad!). Point for Strat!
“and how pretty much everyone on KB predicted mid to high 50s in wins”
This isn’t actually true, but whatever.”
“… all that stuff was misguided BS? That seems excessive.”
I do think that some opinions going into the season were in fact misguided.
-expecting that Brown would be some sort of revelation, or even an improvement, over Thibs was misguided. Brown has a track record very similar to Thibs. No reason to expect better results.
-expecting that the KAT-Brunson pairing would work at the highest levels of NBA competition without extreme good fortune i.e. a cakewalk due to opponent injuries.
-expecting that Yabu and Clarkson would fortify a weak bench.
-expecting that chemistry issues (specifically unnamed players being frustrated with KAT’s defense as noted by Katz and Edwards III in the post-mortem after losing to Indy) would not fester.
None of that seems all that excessive to me.
At the time I thought the KAT trade was a lateral move – didn’t hate it, but we exchanged one set of weaknesses for another. Now that we know what Julius re-signed for, I feel less sanguine about it, but he was also an infuriating player at times, also argued with the refs to the detriment of the team, also got lost on defense, etc. It’s hard to believe that version of the team would be better than this. But … he and Divo might be more tradeable.
Doesn’t really matter, as we are where we are, and the only hope is that the team pulls together, or that KAT is traded for something useful. Even expiring salary would be useful…
I watched my first Seinfeld episode with the kids. “The Fatigues”
“It killed! (Jerry)”
Can’t believe my kids are old enough to kind of be able to get Seinfeld.
IQ had some amazing defensive splits when he was here that were difficult to really believe in. I am happy that he has reestablished his value a bit. I always liked him and would have been delighted if we could have kept him at a low number.
I said the other day I think Deuce has a good case for being our best two-way player and I don’t think that’s crazy.
We know who those guys are and all I’ll (continue to) say about that is that your C-plus performers really have no standing to criticize your all-NBA caliber stars.
The proper way to look at the “fit” issue, to the extent it exists, is that it’s the C-plus performers that don’t really fit that well. (*) Which they don’t. I’d move them far before I’d move my all-NBA star even though I have a massive and misguided sunk cost investment in them.
(*) I consider it the residue of previous, more “manly” eras in days gone by that a guy who can play defense (allegedly) but sucks on offense is always seen to somehow “fit” better than a guy (**) who’s a meh defender but a star/superstar on offense. When you actually apply brainpower to the question you see that it makes no sense.
(**) Or do the “little things better,” or “be better in the clubhouse,” and all the rest, yadda yadda. Truth be told, Wingstop have been quite poor “in the clubhouse.” They’ve in fact turfed the team’s chemistry.
😉 Yes!
How old? Keep ’em going. Mine are 12 and 14 and have plowed through all seasons on Netflix. I’m sure they’re ruined for life. I often catch them mock bickering:
A: “I know what a reservation is, sir.”
B: “I don’t think you do.”
“We know who those guys are and all I’ll (continue to) say about that is that your C-plus performers really have no standing to criticize your all-NBA caliber stars.”
I think this is a silly assumption. But beyond that, it’s hardly a simple matter of The Great KAT’s jealous and ungrateful underlings criticizing him rather than thanking him for the privilege of riding on the coattails of his all-NBA star play. EVERYONE criticizes KAT for the same shit, and has for years. The notion that Brunson, Mikal, OG, and Hart don’t have standing to criticize KAT when he fucks up on D, like, EVERY FUCKING. GAME, is absurd. They should be right at the front of what is an extremely long line to call him out!
Lil Penny,
None of us can predict the future, so not sure what your little rant is supposed to prove. We’re all just working off the information we have at the time and making predictions and it’s largely supposed to be just a fun thought exercise, not a future opportunity to say “gotcha!” when someone’s predictions turn out to be wrong. And, those predictions, may not, in fact, turn out to be wrong because we’re only halfway through the season! Maybe the team turns it around and this was just the low point. WHO THE FUCK KNOWS!
A lot of us didn’t see Detroit taking this big of a leap so quickly but for all we know, they could be this season’s Cavs.
A lot of us didn’t think Boston would do this well without Tatum. Again, could just be a regular season mirage. Or maybe Tatum comes back and he’s bad and that hurts them in the playoffs.
We do not know. We won’t know until it happens.
I believe that Macri mentioned that KAT was the Trae Young of centers. Seems pretty spot on to me. Well, except that Tray is tiny for his position, so one would expect him to have problems on D.
When the best two performers on your team, be it basketball, law, marketing, anything, like the boss and say so out loud, and the boss gets whacked because of a poor performer’s whining and tattling, it’s weird to then say that one of the best two performers, who liked the boss and did his job well, is the “chemistry” problem in lieu of the whiny poor-performing tattletale.(*)
Jalen Brunson is probably actually pissed at the poor performer, even though they were college teammates. Looking for all the world like the poor performer ruined a good thing in JB’s eyes.
But Mikal’s a plus for “chemistry”? Come on, now. Let’s be serious.
(*) And all this after he needed his own personal “coach” brought to the workplace.
Jeanie hated LeBron..
https://x.com/Fullcourtpass/status/2013986324361961622
It’s the literal polar opposite of a “gotcha!” People were right to predict great things for the Knicks, because no one actually seriously thought that KAT didn’t “fit” here.
That’s all after the fact material, after the sixth-choice coach came here and unnecessarily ripped up a bunch of stuff and alienated the guy.
In the case that I am not being clear or fair, I should also point out that so long as KAT is on the team, his teammates have an obligation to be as proactive as they can in bringing out the best in him. Whatever their frustrations are, they still need to try to maximize his contributions and minimize his detriments. But that goes two ways. KAT has to pick up his teammates as well.
I would love to hear what was said at the players-only meeting. Was it all platitudes? Was there a lot of screaming and yelling? Was it at all about Brown?
Can’t wait to see how they come out tonight. The Nets can definitely beat them if they show up flat and dispirited.
Detroit and Orlando were presumed to be too young and not playoff-hardened enough
Fair, that’s part of being on a team, but the actual reality is that KAT has far more reason to be “frustrated” with a Mikal than a Mikal has to be frustrated with him. Yet, KAT doesn’t get that way — because he’s a better teammate and better for chemistry.
“It’s the literal polar opposite of a “gotcha!” People were right to predict great things for the Knicks, because no one actually seriously thought that KAT didn’t “fit” here.”
I have, and have said so a million times since the day he was acquired. And so have others, both here and in the media. Stop saying stupid shit. Oh wait, that would be like asking KAT to stop fucking up on D or commiting stupid offensive fouls or falling into the stands on drives so his team has to defend 4 on 5.
The consensus is what the consensus was and it was obviously something completely different than “KAT isn’t a good fit and it will massively harm the Knicks’ 2025-26 prospects.”
And it’s still not even right even after a relatively bad start. The chemistry issues lie elsewhere.
“Fair, that’s part of being on a team, but the actual reality is that KAT has far more reason to be “frustrated” with a Mikal than a Mikal has to be frustrated with him. Yet, KAT doesn’t get that way — because he’s a better teammate and better for chemistry.”
Mikal is far from perfect, but this is a bonkers statement.
It’s not bonkers in the least. Mikal got a boss JB and KAT liked and performed for, whacked — mostly for emotional, self-centered reasons. On the court, Mikal plays like a wuss. Plenty of very objective reasons for a KAT or a JB to be “frustrated” with him.
My kids are 9 and 11 so a lot of it slipped past them but the Ovaltine bit really got them….
I think it’s good to remember we also had a lot of dispiriting regular-season losses last year under Thibs (maybe not as long a stretch as this one, but still).
We all knew this group had its flaws, some of which any GM would be hard pressed fix, but it also has a lot of potential (exhibit 1: cup champs).
What no one could have possibly known, except the omniscient Strat, is that other teams with younger players could potentially improve more than the Knicks’ players (how did he know?!?)
So here we are. But if we can steady the ship and remain a top-3 East team, I think this group’s advanced age (wisdom?) could turn into a blessing in the playoffs. And please try to remember the wise words of Paulie Walnuts: “Nobody knows what the future holds, my friend.”
E spent how many years here lamenting the existence of Tom Thibodeau, and now that Thibodeau has been let go, he’s mad at Mikal because… the Knicks got rid of Tom Thibodeau? And then on top of that, he’s inside of MIkal’s head and says it was “mostly for emotional, self-centered reasons.”
I dunno, E, maybe Mikal is a lot like you and just thought Tom Thibodeau sucked.
My son’s first Seinfeld kick (still the case) was, “Bread? THREE DOLLARS!!!”
There were better coaches than Thibs, but there was no sense in which I wanted Thibs to go because of the whining and tattling of a Mikal Bridges. And I certainly didn’t want him to go for a worse coach who came in and almost from the get-go alienated Karl-Anthony Towns.
The Knicks didn’t get rid of Thibs just because of Mikail. That’s silly.
It’s also silly that they got rid of Thibs without having someone as good or better to replace him. The players on the floor need help from the coach but it looks like we have none of this right now.
People around here put way too much energy into the regular season . The last time the Knicks had something to play for they won the Cup. Take a breather and wait until April .
“The consensus is what the consensus was and it was obviously something completely different than “KAT isn’t a good fit and it will massively harm the Knicks’ prospects.”
This is an intentionally misleading statement. “Harm the Knicks’ prospects” in a vacuum was never the benchmark. It was all about whether trading for KAT would be a significant improvement over not trading for KAT. in a way, it is a very similar situation to whether swapping out Thibs for Brown would lead to significant improvement.
Has KAT improved the team compared to what they would have been without the trade? What was the consensus on that back then, and what is it now?
I felt then that it was at most a slight upgrade, but probably a wash and possibly a downgrade. However, I thought the trade was sound because KAT housed more trade value than Julius, Divo, and the pick we gave up for him combined. It now seems that things have settled at the lower end of my expectations for play and below expectations for trade value.
That’s far different from “he massively harmed the Knicks’ prospects.” The opportunity cost of acquiring him was minimal (i.e. reversing the trade right now would not do all that much to improve our position beyond possibly better chemistry). In that sense, acquiring Mikal was much more “massively harmful” to our prospects. But now that those costs are sunk, KAT is by far the bigger problem in going from wherever we are to a championship. Minny hasn’t missed a beat without him, and neither would we.
the knicks definitely didnt get rid of thibs just because of mikail
“The opportunity cost of acquiring him was minimal (i.e. reversing the trade right now would not do all that much to improve our position beyond possibly better chemistry).”
you might be underestimating the importance of good team chemistry we are seeing the downside of bad team chemistry right now
we are more alike my friend than unalike
The problem with KAT in Minnesota and the problem with KAT here is that he is offensively best at center but is a putrid defensive anchor. You can somewhat correct for his defensive deficiencies by moving him to PF, but he doesn’t have enough secondary skills to really justify playing at PF, given that he is not fleet of foot, can’t blow by smaller guys, is an erratic passer and a glacially slow processor more generally. Since we already have a great volume scorer in Jalen Brunson, most of KAT’s marginal value is generated (I think) by spacing the offense, but since he’s not taking and making many 3s, that marginal value is mostly notional. So he’s a weird player: he puts up max level counting stats, but can’t defend and has a two-dimensional offensive game that is easily counterable. These sorts of things, it should be added, matter far more in the playoffs than the regular season, since teams are relentlessly focused on hunting weak links in the playoffs, and KAT is a weak link at by far the most important defensive position. For these reasons, he’s not really a max player, despite commanding max money.
What I’ve gathered from this whole affair is that you really cannot replace good rim protection, even if you had 4 OG Anunobys at the 1-4 spots. And our defensive struggles can be traced entirely back to this lack of rim protection, since poor rim protection has knock-on effects on the other defenders (in particular, Mikal and OG) to hedge closer to KAT’s man and try to cover for his repeated mistakes. Note that none of this is fixable by coaching, so blaming Brown for the defensive performance isn’t really appropriate. It is and always has been a KAT-specific problem that was only solved before by pairing him with one of the best rim protectors of all time in Gobert.
Re: KAT and Mikal: KAT was better than Mikal last year. But Mikal has been far, far, far better than KAT this year. I don’t know why we’re arguing their comparative merits when KAT has been pretty awful this season and has done almost nothing right. He deserves all the criticism that is being heaped upon him and should be traded if there are marked improvements soon.
Z-Man, I’m talking not about the consensus around the trade but the consensus of preseason 2025-26. Yes, you were lukewarm on the trade, but that was a year prior.
But in any event I’m going to be fair to the “process” and proper basketball evaluation here, and note that, similarly to noting early in the ’24-’25 season that Mikal had lost a half step (*), KAT’s 30 and it’s possible that he’s begun his downslide from prime. Very possible.
Writ large, it’s possible that the team in general has. They’ve never been that fast or athletic and at this point they show no inclination to want to play at pace and their transition defense sucks.
This could simply be the team slowing down and aging out. It happens.
(*) There were some others here who agreed. He has in fact lost a half step. If not more.
Thibs was fired for a lot of reasons, but chief among them were the underperformance of the starting 5 and his unwillingness to change it before it was too late.
And in addition to Mikal, Precious Achiuwa stated he refused to return to NY if Thibs was there. Hardly a player you fire a coach over, but the issues ran deeper than just Mikal. There’s likely other grievances we didn’t hear about.
OG hasn’t played on a good defense since Marc Gasol left the Raptors six years ago. He’s now been “let down” by like half the known basketball universe.
The core guys are all in their late 20’s/early 30’s. The idea that they’re slowing down seems dubious to me.
Their window is not big because they are all at their “peak” but they are hardly in decline either. Players don’t just turn into pumpkins the moment they turn 30.
Now could you argue that mike brown’s offensive system is not well suited for a team that lacks the athleticism of this team? absolutely. But that is a different argument.
K. TOWNS – O. ANUNOBY – J. HART – M. BRIDGES – J. BRUNSON
The starting lineup Thibs got blamed for isn’t doing much better under Brown
117-off rating
117- def rating
143 minutes together
The lineup that has played the second most minutes this season
K. TOWNS – J. HART – M. BRIDGES – J. BRUNSON – M. MCBRIDE
133- off rating
117- def rating
118 minutes
K. TOWNS – O. ANUNOBY – M. BRIDGES – J. BRUNSON – M. ROBINSON
This lineup has played only 51 minutes due to Mitch ?? 107 def rating
Precious Achiuwa wanted to play more. Well, I won’t go into his deficiencies. I will only remind that after leaving the Knicks he signed with Miami but got booted soon after. Perhaps, Spoelstra was also unable to appreciate his talent. He then singed with one of the worst teams in the league. Even there, he was coming off the bench.
He was moved into the starting five a few weeks ago due to injuries and had his best game of the season recently because the all-star center of that opposing team failed to impose his will, and the coach of that opposing team would not scheme to protect from corner threes. Yeah, those were KAT and Mike Brown.
Except he’s already doing that now and is being guarded by PFs everytime Josh Hart starts. This is why Mitch must start or just go small and start Deuce or even Shamet.
KAT is essentially playing center on defense and PF on offense. That’s why he’s frustrated.
Towns/Brunson/Bridges, most played three-man (654 minutes): +3.0
Towns/Brunson/Anunoby (475): +0.8
Towns/Brunson/Hart (388): +3.4
Towns/Brunson/McBride (267): +6.1
OG and Mikal defensive impact go up in the 5 man units when you don’t have a complete waste sitting under the rim
Alecto, I mostly agree with everything you said, but you left out a few important things.
First, it’s not just about rim protection. The league is now featuring young, athletic guards and wings running out in transition on every missed shot and even after made shots. KAT hurts us by being slow to get back in transition, and it’s not his rim protection that hurts there, because those 4-on-5’s often lead to an uncontested 3 rather than a layup. KAT’s issues on D in the halfcourt also lead to open shots away from the rim.
Second, KAT’s offense is very on paper and good no matter how you look at it, but he has some fundamental flaws that can be exposed by the best teams with the smartest coaches. He is easily goaded into offensive fouls, and when he misses 3’s, especially when being guarded by a wing, he is not in position for getting offensive rebounds, which he is very good at. In that sense, it’s more about fit. beyond KAT, when he’s at C we are a relatively small team.
And Bellinger gets 5 years..
He can opt out after year 2 or 3
Okay
“But in any event I’m going to be fair to the “process” and proper basketball evaluation here, and note that, similarly to noting early in the ’24-’25 season that Mikal had lost a half step (*), KAT’s 30 and it’s possible that he’s begun his downslide from prime. Very possible.
Writ large, it’s possible that the team in general has. They’ve never been that fast or athletic and at this point they show no inclination to want to play at pace and their transition defense sucks.”
This is at least fair and measured. I would note that it is less about KAT, Mikal or anyone else losing a half-a-step, and more about a) the league gaining speed and athleticism, b) the league tilting more towards relentless transition play, and c) every team in the NBA running offenses that are geared to generating good looks from 3, making playing defense more taxing, which adversely impacts guys like Mikal and KAT.
In other words, I don’t think Mikal has lost a step as much as the league has made it harder for him to play his best on defense for 37 mpg. However, when he needs to turn it up, the burst is still there. In KAT’s case, it never was and now it is getting all the more exploited. I’m clearly speculating here, but that’s only as a counter to your speculation.
Good point – very similar moves in that they were logical, but lateral
That’s a nice signing by the Yankees.
Relatively team-friendly deal for Bellinger, probably won’t look great in years 4-5, but you’re paying for the front end of the production on a longer deal like this. For a guy coming off a 5 WAR season, it’s a very fair contract.
Bellinger has never had elite batted ball data, but he has a low K rate, puts the ball in play, and was a plus defensive player last year. Would have been a good fit for the Mets because of his defense, but the Mets really needed a RH hitter and I think ended up with the right guy in Bichette.
the yankees and mets both seem to be good on their singings in this offseason thus far
It was never about the coach getting more out of that lineup, it was about the coach riding a lineup that didn’t work. There were lineups that worked, and that wasn’t one of them.
Nobody is saying Precious deserved more time or that he didn’t want more time. Lots of players want more time and don’t deserve it. Few players say they’ll never return to a team willing to pay them because they disliked the coach.
The Yankees pushing for a salary cap is like the Knicks waiving Jalen Brunson.
I want to reiterate that when I said Mikal lost a step way back when, it was not an evaluation of his overall game but that he’s slower at 29 than he was at 23. This shouldn’t be controversial. Players slow down as they get older.
Being slower means Mikal can’t stay in front of PGs like he once did. We can debate on his ability to stay in front of PGs then or now, but virtually every player is slower at 28 and 29 than they were at 22 or 23.
JK, thoughts on the Louis Robert Jr. signing? I really liked Acuna, and worry that Robert Jr. is a one-year wonder…
This player had one of the best, if not the best year of his career under Thibs. Still, referring to his stint with the Knicks he said “you can’t evaluate the bench if you don’t play the bench.” This shows lack of appreciation and lack of self-awareness of who he is.
Coming to your comment: the reasonableness of a player’s complaint is what counts when you judge whether or not to boot your coach, not to mention such a successful coach as Thibs had been with the Knicks. You may argue other players had a point — I get that. Precious Achiuwa, however, was just ungrateful.
If you put KAT’s trade value on a chart it’s been consistently trending down for a very long time, with one notable spike for part of last year that ultimately didn’t change its trajectory.
So yes, KAT is currently at his nadir. But he’s likely to keep establishing a new nadir because that’s all he’s been doing since the wolves gave him that extension.
To get a real sense of KAT’s long term trend, consider how surprised folks were when he got him “so cheap” combined with how quickly the wolves would hang up if Leon offered him to them for Randle, Donte, and a pick today. It’s been a steep decline predating our acquisition of him.
At some point in the next two weeks, the choice in front of Leon might be to prioritize this season or the Brunson era. The risk of KAT’s value hitting zero soon is very real.
I don’t believe that is true about KAT, any more than I believe it was true when many were clamoring for salary-dumping Julius even if it cost assets. Not that I think it will be all that different, but even an extra second is a thing, and at his current level of play, there will definitely be a hit of at least that much in trade value.
That said, the opportunity cost of keeping him on board in this current win-or-else situation should be considered, as should the opportunity cost of trading him during these predictable dog days based on correctable underperformance.
Leon has three major core assets whose value is pennies on the dollar compared to what he gave up to get them. It’s not just KAT, and KAT is the least bad of the three without question.
The big matzoh ball with KAT is his $61 million player option for 2027-28, his age 32 season. If he’s in fact in decline from prime, that’s virtually impossible to swallow in an aproned league.
But the big picture hasn’t changed, really. While the team has had its moments, Leon was never going to break the rules of building association basketball teams via a top heavy, thin benched, aproned team acquired by virtue of his friends-and-family relationships and punting on the draft. That was extremely arrogant and the ultimate cause of the current malaise.
@UnderdogNBA: https://x.com/UnderdogNBA/status/2014035001671594368
Knicks actively talking to multiple teams about trading Guerschon Yabusele, per
@SbondyNBA
12:58 PM · Jan 21, 2026
This, to me, is the long and short of it, and is what makes me wholly unsympathetic to whatever grievances KAT has with Brown.
Mike Brown isn’t telling him to shoot 36.6% on open threes or 37.6% on wide open threes, and if Mike Brown had his druthers I don’t think the self-described “greatest shooting big man of all time” would have 191st ranked 3PAr in the league.
KAT’s numbers at the rim and from other areas of the floor have ranged from fine to good-not-great for most of his career. Shooting and making threes is always what made him a special player given his size. If it’s an advantage he either no longer has or is no longer willing to push (or both), he’s a decidedly middling player who wouldn’t fetch half his current salary.
If he’s so upset with Mike Brown over role changes I still haven’t seen articulated clearly that it’s affecting his open shots, I mean, I typically avoid these kinds of cliches but that sure sounds like something a “soft” player would do.
His value right now is probably at something like a career low–he’s in the midst of his worst season with plenty of time left on an expensive contract–so it’s very hard to think of a realistic trade I’d support. But it’s starting to feel like a lot of the critiques of him going back years I usually wrote off as unfairly speculative have some truth to them.
My read is he’s playing badly and backfilling an explanation related to his role. In other words, he’s sulking.
I wasn’t thrilled with the Yankees just running it back but this late into the offseason I was dreading losing Cody with nobody anywhere near as good as him available so I’m pretty glad he’s back.
OG can def bring back the value that was traded for him. He would have plenty of suitors .
No GM blames OG for any of the Knicks issues
Mikal isn’t getting the pick haul back and Towns on his contract with his defensive issues won’t have many lining up.
brunson has held one of those famous players-only meetings now
Would you do this trade?
KAT and Yabu for RJ and IQ.
I kid! but seriously…just for fun…would you do it?
It gives me no pleasure to point out that my 48 win prediction looked bang on right and if anything, too optimistic. Also as predicted, DET has rocketed past us with ORL not far behind.
What sucks about our very poor asset management is that there really isn’t any path to getting back to contention in the Brunson era. KAT is is a negative asset at his price and Mikal is worth 40% what we paid.
The real choice before us is:
1) Stick with Brunson and whatever mediocre core we can keep around him for a couple more forty-something win seasons
2) Fire sale including our one extremely valuable asset — Brunson — and prep for the real rebuild cycle we’ve never had. You know, the strategy that multiple teams executed to build multiple contenders in less time than we’ve sucked for while trying to win now for most of this century
We’re the Knicks though, so #1 it is.
In other news Pagliacci actively talking to multiple individuals about trading a bad case of gonorrhea. No takers thus far
Yes, but Toronto wouldn’t. Their plan is working very well, though I still don’t trust Ingram’s health, they’re something like 16-6 with Himself in the lineup, and that’s the package they’re going to use to try to get Anthony Davis. Don’t trust AD’s health either, but healthy, he’s always been better than KAT.
If somehow TO could be convinced that KAT is a reasonable facsimile of AD — he isn’t, but whatever — I’d definitely make that call.
With improvement, but not The Leap, from Ausar Thompson.
I’d recommend to all the WingStop stans a project involving turning on a representative number of Pistons games and watching Ausar, Ron Holland, Beef Stew, and Javonte Green (and even to some degree Cade Cunningham) play defense. Engagement with honest eyes will rather quickly set things in their proper perspective.
Acuna probably wasn’t going to make the Mets’ roster and was likely to be subject to waivers. He really hasn’t hit at all since the Mets acquired him and doesn’t have a lot of positional versatility, as he seems to be a natural 2B without the arm to play short. Has the elite speed tool but he looks like a bench player in the majors to me. Maybe a change of scenery revitalizes him, but he’s coming off two seasons where he just didn’t hit.
Robert is pricey at $20M but since Acuna is a post-prospect sort of player who was a likely waive-and-DFA candidate, Roberts didn’t really cost the Mets anything except money. Roberts is an instant upgrade over 5th outfielder type Tyrone Taylor, as good in the field as Taylor but a better hitter even at the 85 wRC+ level he has produced the last two years. He was a 1.5 WAR player last year, but is only two years removed from a 5 WAR season in which he won the Silver Slugger.
Robert has loud tools: elite bat speed, Gold Glove caliber defensive ability, elite sprint speed. He hits the ball hard when he actually hits it. What kills him is poor plate discipline, and a tendency to chase.
The good news is that he upped his walk rate quite a bit last year, to an almost tolerable 9.0, and his K rate was lower than it was in his 2023 season. He suffered from a poor BABIP for the first time in his career despite his other metrics looking decent.
The White Sox have been brutally bad, so perhaps the Mets feel that they can tinker with his swing, get him to lift the ball more, and get those HR numbers up. It’s not at all a bad bet. He’s a high floor (because of his defense) and high ceiling player.
Plus the Mets have a club option on him. If he manages to find his form, they can bring him back for another year. If he doesn’t hit much again, they can simply let him go.
Good trade for the Mets. He fits their needs and has a non-zero chance of a huge breakout.
You were surprised Leon acquired KAT for “such a low price”, right?
That means KAT declined from Point A (say, a year before the trade) to Point B (the time of the trade). And you believe (rightly IMO) KAT is at his nadir now, so that’s Point C. That’s a three year downward trend.
The reason people were wrong about Randle (and recall I argued vehemently that they were wrong) is because they were overreacting to short term performance. But KAT’s short term performance isn’t the reason his value is declining so sharply.
KAT’s trending towards zero (like Trae Young) because he is a fatally flawed player with a pre-apron contract in a second apron economy. And unlike Julius Randle, that’s not going to change if KAT starts shooting better.
Congrats 2 Detroit
I’ve seen bickertsaff teams in the playoffs
Regular season and playoffs are two different animals
First round draft picks are also worth relatively more in a second apron economy which was eminently foreseeable, which is why I (and probably others) wrote that like 2-3 years ago.
Leon botched that value exercise, too.
I come out in the discussion, after hearing and reviewing, that the hits on KAT the player and the teammate are a bit of an overbid while confessing that I didn’t fully realize or pay close enough attention to the fact that he had a $61M player option for 2028.
I’ll also note, again with fairness to the process and with the ripping of other players, that he was extension eligible last summer. There are minor rumblings that he’s perturbed about not getting one. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, my best guess would be that he isn’t, but if he is, that’s certainly a massive demerit. There’s no serious case to extend him and any proper planning of the future of the franchise and roster would involve him opting in for 2027-28.
Shams: Giannis discussing with the Bucks whether it’s best to stay with them or move to another team.
Giannis and either Kuzma (I think they want to get rid of him) or Portis for KAT, Bridges, all possible picks, 30% of MSG stock, Dolan’s favorite guitar, and so on.
Daydreaming.
The other problem here is that while he is best at C he’s not the kind of center Jalen Brunson works best with.
Counterpoint: The Wolves went to the WCF and had the best defense in basketball with KAT not at C.
Yes, this is why they spent a billion picks to get Gobert.
Problem is we don’t have 2023 Gobert. We have Mitch. Mitch might be a better offensive rebounder than Gobert but when you compare 2026 Mitch with 2023 Gobert, it’s not close. Gobert is the better defender, better offensive player and also can play starter’s minutes and doesn’t miss half of the games.
If Mitch was able to start every game and play 30 minutes a night and wasn’t completely one dimensional on offense, KAT and Mitch might work. But alas…
To his credit, he almost did. That 2024 team was a thing of beauty. I was writing mea culpas and saying he should be executive of the year.
Everything he’s done since then has proved he didn’t understand what made that team great. It was a lucky accident, like when injuries forced Mike Woodson to discover a death lineup 3 years before death lineups disrupted the NBA.
We’ve now had two idiots fall down a mine shaft full of gold and climb out of it with their eyes closed.
What’s the team’s DRat with KAT and Mitch on the floor together?
The board kind of bounces back and forth. I thought Mitch was an excellent defensive center (and he is). That’s what we’ve heard for years. He’s at least 80% of Gobert. First overall with a 100 at C, 19th with an 80 doesn’t add up.
Maybe, just maybe … it’s the other players???
… checks notes …
In 187 minutes, the pair of KAT and Mitch have a DRat of 109.0. If that was the team’s overall DRat, it would be second in the NBA.
You don’t trade away KAT because Mitch can’t stay healthy. You get yourself another Mitch.
Oh, that should be easy! Why didn’t they think of that!
Mitch only gives you like 1000-1200 or so minutes, due to a combination of always having some nagging injury and poor conditioning. He looks like a 40-year old out there.
He’s still a good defender, and an effective player, but I just don’t know how possible it is going to be to scale up his minutes. Then there’s the whole 37% free throw problem. If you could get 2,000 minutes out of Mitch, this team would probably start to look pretty different pretty quickly.
Only 92 minutes, but the three man of KAT/JB/Mitch has a DRat of 110.7. Perfectly acceptable.
Only 87 minutes, but KAT/Mitch/OG have a DRat of 102.2 and a net of +10.2.
That’s the answer. Not really sure why Brown hasn’t played Mitch and KAT together, but there’s your answer.
Nor is it clear, given the obvious record in Minny, why this organization ever thought it was a good idea to play KAT at center.
https://www.thestrick.land/strick/knicks-lineup-problem-mike-brown If you’re a KAT fan you might like this
Might be simple as pick a wing and trade the other.
Well, it’s a whole lot smarter than trading KAT for Joe Bagadonuts and Heywood Jablome.
They have to pick between Deuce and Mikal and the choice is obvious. It was obvious last year.
The choice isn’t and has never been Deuce or Hart.
This is why I don’t get how people can be married to the idea that if we trade KAT the window is over. Phoenix and Boston both sold expensive talent for fit and look great for having done so. Detroit’s been avoiding the kind of high end talent grab that we made to maintain their fit and they look great for having done so, too. And let’s not forget Indiana was a “fit” team, too.
Fit and depth is in right now.
Ill-fitting “Big Fours” like New York and Cleveland are out.
From UK’s cite:
That’s because they’re … cough, cough … duplicative. Again foreseeable.
OG’s better than Mikal. No real dilemma there.
They need another big they can plug into the minutes Mitch can’t play, they need to play KAT almost entirely at PF, and they need to bench Mikal for Deuce and play Mikal with the second unit. They do that, they’re back in business.
Just set Huk loose.
“But it’s starting to feel like a lot of the critiques of him going back years I usually wrote off as unfairly speculative have some truth to them.”
KAT is one of those guys for whom box score stats really don’t tell the whole story. The eye test is not perfect, but his imperfections are (and always have been) so glaringly obvious that it exposes the gaping holes in purely box-score based metrics.
Minny traded a massive haul for Rudy Gobert. Even if you want to criticize that FO in general, the fact that they would do that to acquire a player at KAT’s natural position should have raised colossal red flags about the magnitude his deficiencies. It is very similar to when the Hawks acquired Dejounte Murray to paper over Trae’s issues. The difference is that KAT looks the part of a generational player…such a great size-length-skill package. His problems are 100% between the ears.
That’s a good idea but who do you want to sign with the roster spot?
Center isn’t KAT’s “natural position.” He’s a quintessential modern stretch 4. (*)
There’s no problem with “fit” here. There *is* a problem with the lineups the coaches have been using.
(*) I was among the early on advocates of five-out, open lane, KAT at C. That was stupid of me. Mea culpa for me.
Touché.
The idea that we’re going to play KAT at the 5 and paper over the defensive deficiencies with WingStop™ is an idea whose time has come and gone. That doesn’t seem to work. We tried it last year and it didn’t work, and we’re trying again this year and it’s not working again. I think you do need to just park KAT at the four most of the time alongside a defensive-oriented 5.
I think you try to move one of OG or Mikal. Unfortunately the salary cap system in the NBA makes it almost impossible to make trades, but ideally you move one of those guys for a defensive C that can play 2/3 of the time while Mitch takes the other 1/3 of the minutes.
This was one of the key elements of the 2024 team: we had 48 minutes of rim protecting bigs holding down the fort. We need to get back to that.
JK, I agree but what sucks about that is then you’re basically turning KAT into Randle but he’s getting paid twice as much as Randle. Is KAT at the 4 a better player than Randle at the 4, especially when considering their contracts?
you get better 3 point shooting. Probably still worse defense at the 4 with KAT than Randle. Rebounding is probably about the same.
DAMN YOU IHART!!!
Jon Hamm is a good looking guy. He gets parts where he plays good looking guys. Sometimes he gets cast to play funny good looking guys. Though he is not a comedian, he is funny when he plays funny good looking guys. He is given funny lines to say and he doesn’t fuck it up. This a skill. If you don’t fuck up good shit, people will think you are good. This is NBA coaching in a nutshell.
KAT has averaged pretty much half again as many boards per 100 possessions in his time here than Julius did. He’s eighth overall in the association in that metric this year, ahead of every power forward in the league.
Julius’s true shooting percentage in his time here was .553, below league average. His very best year was .581. KAT is .629 for his career, .630 last year, and even in this off-putting year where he’s being badly misused, is at .599.
There’s really no comparison between the two.
Hartenstein was also an offensive lynchpin, though. Someone like Turner or Wendell Carter with Mitch might give us 48 mins of rim protection but if none of them pair with Brunson like iHart did it’s going to be more like the 2021 Knicks with Mitch & Noel than the 2024 Knicks.
Hartenstein is such a one of one player. The only guy I can think of who might be close to him is Zubac, and I keep proposing that trade bc I’m waiting for ptmilo to slap me down and explain why Zubac is not the droid I’m looking for, and every time he doesn’t do that I get excited thinking he may be the one, so for the love of god milo please tell me I’m wrong already or I’ll spam the board with three-way Zubac trades from now til Feb 5th.
Get Zubac without giving up KAT and they’re in business. Dude was second-team all defense last year, DPOY-6.
I vividly remember arguing that Thibs needed to play KAT at the 4 and Mitch at the 5 because that’s what worked best in Minny and getting a lot of pushback. My opinion on that hasn’t changed, except for what JK pointed out…that Mitch is flawed in ways that Gobert was not. Especialy in the realm of availability.
I also felt that that combo would work best with OG at the 3 and Mikal at the 2. Still do. That is a lineup with a lot of positional size.
Then you have a bench of Hart, Deuce and……no one.
That’s the main “fixable” problem with this team. Sure, there are issues with all the starters, but in truth, we have maybe the thinnest bench in the NBA. Every good team’s 8th, 9th, and 10th men are better than ours…in some cases, dramatically better.
It doesn’t help when 3 of your top 7 are very undersized for their respective position.
glad you like jon hamm so much
“You were surprised Leon acquired KAT for “such a low price”, right?”
Sort of, but not really. Randle was a 2X all-NBA player in his prime. DDV was on what was viewed as one of the best contracts in the NBA. I thought more draft picks would be required, but seems like Minny was anxious to dump KAT’s salary. But as you and everyone else knows, I was not a fan of KAT on his contract at any price, beyond the business considerations.
“That means KAT declined from Point A (say, a year before the trade) to Point B (the time of the trade). And you believe (rightly IMO) KAT is at his nadir now, so that’s Point C. That’s a three year downward trend.”
Fair. although I think before last year’s deadline, KAT was putting up MVP-type numbers, so maybe his trade value was higher then.
“The reason people were wrong about Randle (and recall I argued vehemently that they were wrong) is because they were overreacting to short term performance. But KAT’s short term performance isn’t the reason his value is declining so sharply.
KAT’s trending towards zero (like Trae Young) because he is a fatally flawed player with a pre-apron contract in a second apron economy. And unlike Julius Randle, that’s not going to change if KAT starts shooting better.”
Here’s where I most vehemently disagree. I dont think KAT is fatally flawed in the way that Trae is. KAT (similar to say, Julius) is a very valuable player with the right guys around him. I would compare him more to a guy like Zach LaVine or maybe even Devin Booker than Trae Young, who I think is an injury away from being Kemba’d. Or maybe AD, who is on a similar deal but with different concerns.
Impossible.
And quite frankly it might be impossible to get Zubac for KAT.
kat for naz reid or kyle filipowski. done.
“Acuna probably wasn’t going to make the Mets’ roster and was likely to be subject to waivers. He really hasn’t hit at all since the Mets acquired him and doesn’t have a lot of positional versatility, as he seems to be a natural 2B without the arm to play short. Has the elite speed tool but he looks like a bench player in the majors to me. Maybe a change of scenery revitalizes him, but he’s coming off two seasons where he just didn’t hit.”
He’s only 23 and you can’t teach speed. Seemed to have some pop in his bat for a short guy. I wouldnt be surprised at all if he turns into a late bloomer. As to Robert Jr., he’s definitely better now and maybe he still has room to develop, but man does he whiff a lot.
I can’t find that team other than maybe the Magic or Hawks.
I only think he’s valuable to a team that wants to get to the middle, i.e. a team like us in 2019 when we signed Randle. Teams without title aspirations like the Hornets, Kings, Pelicans, or Wizards, would love KAT because they’ve been in the gutter and need a playoff team to sell tickets. Most of these teams have nothing we need.
https://x.com/NBA_NewYork/status/2014106325387505822
While the article does draw that conclusion, it’s a strange conclusion given that the duo work very well in other lineups. Meanwhile, the lineups with only one of them have the net margin they do because of an unsustainably high ORtg around 135, which is around 13 points over the league record.
Who doesn’t like the Hammaconda?
still going through the thread…had a thought reference KAT contract and that huge 61 million dollar salary he’ll collect on in a couple of seasons…
if KAT is still performing fairly well (he may not fit great with jalen – but he’s a top 10 center and a top 10 power forward) – that just might be one heck of a valuable expiring contract…
don’t seriously he will get to that point, he’ll most likely re-sign either here or somewhere else next season…
by the end of this thread – the vibe will be we can’t get rid of this guy soon enough…
feed the KAT – helping to fuel an offense, and grab a lot of defensive rebounds (cuz he’s tall) is what he does best, figure out how to reduce his time at center…
memo from coach: jalen/clarkson/tyler if he ever plays again – keep giving KAT the ball, for as long as he’s still here…
The Raptors scored 145 points. It seems like losing Butler had a big effect on their defense.