Knicks Morning News (2026.02.16)

A couple of weeks ago most of us were in some level of despair about squandering a roster spot and $5+M of cap space on Yabusele, especially the seemingly insurmountable obstacle of his player option for next year. Many of us were anticipating that we were either stuck with him or would have to part with that WAS protected first/likely 2 juicy seconds, and/or Dadiet or Kolek to dump him.

Lo and Behold, Sochan and Alvarado are on the roster, with only Yabu and 2 shitty seconds going out.

We’ve already seen what Alvarado can do. If you just look at it as an Alvo for Yabu + 2 seconds swap, it was a massive coup.

And it is 100% due to Yabu agreeing to forego his player option, which seemed utterly impossible prior to the deadline. I still can’t believe that happened.

Now, whatever we think about Yabu, he did in fact hold a roster spot at a theoretical position of need…a bench big who can spread the floor a bit. We all knew even in our rosiest projections for Yabu that he was a poor defender.

Enter Mohamed Diawara. I’ve been his staunchest fan since draft day, and no way I thought he would become this good this fast. He’s not out f the rookie woods yet, but there was no reason to play Yabu even a minute now that he has emerged.

And now on top of that, we get a player who some here (including me) hoped to trade Yabu plus Dadiet for, for the price of…nothing? (Other than the opportunity to sign someone else who shakes loose, although, as previously pointed out, we can do that in 28 days? If he gave us absolutely nothing more than situational defense, he’s a better use of a roster spot than Yabu ever was.

Bottom line: This is the 90+ %ile outcome for what I hoped for prior to the trade deadline. Maybe 99th.

“Several of those videos were made before this season. He’s been unplayably awful this year and that’s not all that hyperbolic. The Spurs have relegated him to a garbage time only player….If we get the Sochan of last year, he’s a rotation player for us. If we get the Sochan of this year, he may get cut a 2nd time this season.”

These are very fair points, EB. I don’t want to be guilty of overhyping the signing as I did with Clarkson. But I’ll play some devil’s advocate.

First, nearly all of Sochan’s minutes this year came before the first week of December. In the ensuing 2 months he’s played less than 90 minutes, most of those in garbage time. He started the season with a sprained left wrist and has had calf ancd back issues recently. Folks have noticed a dropoff in the athleticism component of his play. Is that permanent or just a result of a long recovery from these maladies? It’s hard to believe that a player is in “athletic decline” at age 22. One thing I read is that Sochan actually did lots of offseason work on his body. We have seen this kind of thing backfire….most notably with Mitch, who looked stiff and slow after Julius referred to him as “brolic.”

Second, the Spurs are a weird team for a guy like him. They are loaded with (currently) poor 3pt shooters. They are very young, long and athletic. He doesn’t really fit there. The Knicks can surround him with vets who know how to shoot. His length should be a plus for us, we are not very long or athletic as a team.

Third, he actually does fit a glaring need here…a backup long defender who can be useful against guys like Cade, Harris, Tatum, Brown, Siakam, Wagner, and others.

Fourth, his 3pt shot is not necessarily a hopeless cause. We’ve all seen players improve enough after age 22 to not be left alone in the corner. He did make 39% of his corner 3’s this year on very low volume.

Fifth, he’s got an edge to him, and that might be something this team needs. This team tends to get punked by physical teams like Detroit and Orlando. Maybe he can play a bit in the enforcer role, at least situationally.

In any case, he’s the very definition of a make-good flyer in a “second draft” situation. At worst, he gets permabenched. Maybe he’s the guy who gets waived in 28 days to sign someone else, if that’s allowed. I’m thinking he sticks, and that he will benefit from knowing that nothing is promised to him. At worst, he’s a good player for Mo to learn from in practice.

Two things are pretty telling:
1) The Spurs, who are at least by reputation have one of the most competent FOs in the Association, cared so little about Sochan’s Bird rights that they chose to waive him rather than keep him on the roster.
2) It’s pretty clear that the Spurs were willing to take back anything of value that didn’t muck up next year’s cap to dump Sochan with his Bird rights, yet there wasn’t a single taker. This suggests that his Bird rights were almost universally perceived as worthless.

I also don’t see the least bit of logic in believing that sending Hukporti out just to secure Sochan’s bird rights makes a lick of sense. Huk is really the only Mitch insurance we have, Sochan or no Sochan. He may actually have more future value for us than Sochan, considering that we can probably re-sign him at the minimum, whereas we’d definitely have to go into the second apron for Sochan’s Bird Rights to have any value to us. My understanding is that we could still offer him something like Yabu’s salary (TPMLE) to keep him, and maybe he actually chooses to stay for the minimum on a make-good deal like, say, Dennis Schroder did.

Bottom line: if this team doesn’t win a title, there are going to be big changes during this next offseason. If that happens, retaining Sochan will be an afterthought.

I just wanted to point out that he’s quite possibly not the guy described in the videos.

In one video, Vecenie said he thought Sochan could go for $16M or $20M. Maybe that was way off to begin with, but I suspect that’s way too high based on his performance this season. He’s been that bad.

I agree, he’s not worth anywhere near that amount, even if he reverted to last year’s decent numbers.

It will be interesting to see how much of his “decline” is due to role, fit, coaching preferences, attitude, injury, variance, off-court stuff, athletic decline, or just the NBA moving further away from his type of game.

Great actor, great career! 🙏🕊️

One of my faves, especially as Tom Hagen. “Can’t do it, Sally…” and ” I love the smell of Napalm in the morning…” are killer lines delivered by a killer actor.

Yeah, geo, very accurate. Unless you are thinking that Kolek and Mo can reliably fill those roles. I like those two much better as “in the mix” than “we need to rely on them” kind of players.