News & Blogs
Nets to acquire Julius Randle, first-round pick in trade sending Nic Claxton to Bulls: report – New York Daily News
Jalen Brunson’s Mom Sandra Makes LinkedIn Post Celebrating Son, Knicks’ Win vs. Spurs in NBA Finals – BleacherReport
REPORT: Knicks in trade talks as Jose Alvarado delays player-option decision – Posting & Toasting
Bucks trading former Knicks target Giannis Antetokounmpo to Heat in blockbuster deal – SNY
Trading picks may help Knicks keep championship squad intact for next season – Newsday
REPORT: Giannis Antetokounmpo dealt to the Miami Heat – Posting & Toasting
Knicks expected to re-sign Mohamed Diawara to multiyear deal – SNY
Knicks Draft Preview 2026 – Knick of Time
Becky Hammon Admits She Was WRONG About Jalen Brunson! – Knicks Fan TV
Knicks NBA Draft Preview and offseason primer | The Putback with Ian Begley – Begley Putback
The case for Zuby Ejiofor #Knicks #NBADraft #StJohns – Knicks Film School
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319 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.06.24)”
Could not watch the draft. First time in years. Strange thread as what we expected to unfold unfolded. I kind of liked the Spanish kid but in Brock I trust.
Also, Donnie, indigo Park is definitely a high lottery pick for me this year, although it’s pretty weird and has a few tracks I don’t like. The Wallace Stevens shout out really activated my college poet self
I’ll explain to folks how being over provides more flexibility than being under:
Being over the second apron gives you a soft cap. You can keep your roster together, retain your own players, and even afford your first-round picks. You have more assets, you just can’t aggregate them.
Staying under the second apron gives you a self-imposed hard cap. It forces you to shed talent, let good players walk, and sometimes even dump picks because you can’t afford the contracts attached to them. You have fewer assets, but the freedom to aggregate what’s left.
We’re constantly told the team under the apron has “more flexibility.” But flexibility to do what? The team over the apron has the players and the assets. The team under it can’t even afford to pay a first round pick.
Dolan is a real cunt for this. God knows where he got this idea from. Probably someone at McKinsey again.
With a couple marginal exceptions, they haven’t first-round drafted since the first year Leon got here.
Repeating — the real question is how long the second apron mandate has been in place.
Not sure why you think that’s the real question. It never made sense to go over the second apron before.
Top o’ the mornin’, gents.
By the way, Clarence would like a word.
Because, among other things, it means that getting to a point where they knew they couldn’t draft was knowing, rather than accidental. And the “front loading” (*) of the future into the present therefore looks even more pronounced.
It’s one thing to not be able to draft and have to throw assets overboard haphazardly if ownership springs it on you last minute; it’s quite another thing if you’ve known all along.
(*) Actually, there’s no need for quotation marks there. Reads and communicates fine without them.
The only asset we’ve thrown overboard so far is our first round pick and we did get five second round picks in return. I hope we don’t have to throw anything else overboard.
We didn’t throw anything overboard. We shedded salary so we can bring dudes back, we turned one late first round pick into 5 second round picks and we picked up half a million dollars.
Shams says Knicks intend to move 31.
I’d probably take Isaiah Evans right now.
Baba Miller is the most interesting (not necessarily best) player for me: 6’11” with great rebounding and passing numbers. A solid handle. But is really skinny and can’t shoot at all.
A couple of other players I like:
* Aaron Nkrumah, Wing — Lots of steals. Decent 3p%. Small school.
* Tamin Lipsey, PG — Lots of steals. Holds onto the ball. Shooting?
* Ugonna Onyenso, C — Shotblocking… and, uh, a lot of shotblocking
* Brazile, PF — Can shoot. Explosive. Bad player & old but has tools.
* Nate Bittle, C — Shot-blocker & shooter. Slow & injury history.
They just threw the 24th pick in the draft overboard. No one seriously believes they’re actually going to use all five of those 2s — which isn’t close to sufficient value anyway. Memphis pulled in five 2s for moving down five spots in the first round.
They essentially incinerated the pick. If people want to quibble about the term, then ok, they deeply charred it to inedibility.
The great irony of all this is that is that moving your first round pick to the end of the round is the worst penalty for staying over the second apron 🤣
Multiple years out. Could be the top pick in the draft.
We didn’t need to shed salary to bring everyone back, though.
We shedded salary to appease our imbecile owner.
I agree that E’s assessment is harsh, though. 5 seconds is a solid return for a meh pick.
It’s excellent work by the front office to comply with a foolish mandate from the owner.
I suspect Dolan went on air having no idea what he was talking about. But it didn’t really matter until people started calling him an idiot. At which point Dolan insisted they stay under the 2nd apron just to pretend he knew what he was talking about.
Literally impossible now that they changed the lottery rules. You’ll never know what that pick could have been.
It’s a terrible return based on the market set an hour before. Memphis got 5 2s for moving down from 16 to 21.
And it wasn’t a “meh pick.”
There’s frankly not a lot of credibility there when someone rightly busts Leon’s chops for years for not drafting and then complains when other people bust Leon’s chops for … not drafting.
He incinerated another pick and threw another asset overboard. It’s starting to look very much like he massively front-loaded all of this. Worked out, at least for now. We’ll see about the rest.
Frankly, big picture, we need to see if Leon can even operate outside his front-loading, friends and family plan.
(NOTE here that if the championship ratifies everything and Leon just gets a pass for everything that happens before and after, we have a fundamental disagreement at the threshold of the conversation that probably renders fruitless any significant back and forth about it.)
We could have brought them back and made a pick, but Dolan and/or management chose to avoid the 2nd apron and save money.
Shams said last night they are also likely to trade the #31.
Personally, I think that would be dumb. We need more young talent for the future.
I think it’s more simple than that. Dolan is stupid, arrogant, and belligerent. When someone like that is in charge and they have an idea in their head, no one can even talk to him about. Reasonable counters never even get heard.
Trying to explain to him that going over the second apron isn’t really a big deal is like trying to tell Trump starting a war with Iran is going to be problematic after he’s already made up his mind.
?
You’d know in the year it gets downgraded.
It doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s (rightly) never going to happen.
It doesn’t have anything to do with basketball, from Dolan’s perspective. He literally told you that he wasn’t writing that big a check, and he couldn’t have been more unambiguous. A lot of us know, and you probably do too, that when a rich guy tells you the limit of a check he’s willing to stroke, he means it. (*) Most likely, he told Leon this years ago.
We don’t know if Leon concurs philosophically in basketball terms. He might, he might not.
(*) And moreover, Dolan isn’t entirely free to just stroke a check for a big tax bill; the Knicks are a public company.
Right, which is why I said that when Dolan first issued the mandate, Leon probably said something like, “No problem, boss, there are a lot of basketball penalties for going over that number, anyway. We’ll be fine.”(*)
There would be no point in pushing back and Leon probably rightly sensed he could get in trouble for pushing back.
(*) Which Dolan then turned into “suicidal” in his non-high-IQ brain when he bumbled and stumbled on the point on the FAN — before turning to his actual comfort zone and the real reason.
Second round picks have pretty good value. The Knicks have drafted pretty well in the second round. Mitch, Deuce, Tyler, Mo, etc. But, also traded 2 second rounders for Jose. So, by trading out of the first and getting a bunch of seconds, it might come in handy a few different ways for us. Drafting a player(s) and/or trading for a needed vet like Jose in the future. And who knows, maybe the Knicks add more to their stockpile by trading the 31st pick. But the main thing, is hopefully the cost savings helps us bring back all/some of the vets like Mitch and Landry.
Just for the record, if we give Mitch more than a 3 year deal with a team option in year 3 I’m going to be very upset. I love Mitch, but he’s a walking season ending injury risk that will have to be babied all season to remain healthy…until he breaks his own hand, foot or whatever. Plus, he relies on athleticism which will surely decline towards the end of that contract.
If we are doing all this 2nd apron avoidance and draft nonsense to keep Mitch and then give him 5 years, imo we are insane.
If we can keep him on a short deal that’s great, but we can’t act like we haven’t all lived through his constant injuries. The probability that he gets injured probably rises as he gets older.
If it’s the last pick in the draft it won’t be in the lottery. You’ll never know if it would have been a top 4 pick.
The way we flipped Yabu into GTA would not have been allowed if we were over the second apron. I’m confident Brock would have found a way but not as efficiently. So I disagree that being over the apron gives you more flexibility.
I’m still of the view that the mandate can be broken if things align the right way. Mitch’s FA value is the wild card. I am sure Leon has maximum number he will not exceed for Mitch–akin to IQ as non-starter rotation player. If a team like LA pay him lavishly because they need a starting C, he’s gone, mandate or no mandate. And in the meantime preserve as much space as possible.
Stiffing IQ was probably mandate driven. Brunson going low on the extension very well might have been, too.
Lots of moments of clarity now possible.
We’re going to bring back Mitch at the same or even slightly lower salary than what he is making now. Mitch is gonna stay because while he MIGHT be able to get a bigger pay day elsewhere, that team is also going to expect him to play every night and possibly start and he knows his body can’t handle that. He doesn’t want another injury that sits him out for a season or two and he doesn’t want to be limping around when he’s retired.
So he’ll stay with us for 3 years at the same or even slightly less salary than he has now because we will let him load manage, take back to backs off, etc.
We will lose Shamet but it won’t be that big of a deal. We’ll still have Alvarado and Deuce and the emergence of Diawara, who is now on an incredibly team friendly salary, will more than make up for losing Shamet because we now have another OG in the making coming off the bench.
Staying under the apron will allow us to aggregate salaries in a trade. Which might come in handy when we decide to get DDV back for our repeat title run. We’ll be able to do this by trading Alvarado and another player because Tyler Kolek will take a huge step forward this year and will take the back up PG position from Alvarado.
Seriously, though. The negativity, Hubs, is way overblown. Nothing has happened yet.
One more year.
who gives a fuck.
Dolan isn’t the sharpest or most reasonable knife in the draw, but we can’t be sure if this is all coming from him or his conversations with Leon, Aller etc…
I don’t want to make to strong of a judgement on the strategic implications of going over the 2nd apron vs. not. That’s not my area.
But just in basketball terms IMO we should be bringing back everyone except Clarkson and should have added a young talent to replace him for the long term.
The only other thing I would consider is making a choice between Shamet and Deuce and possibly trading Deuce for an asset or backup C because we are going to have to pay Deuce eventually and he’s likely to be more expensive than Shamet.
E you’re fucking ridiculous.
This isn’t mathematically possible.
I guess I have blind loyalty to Aller and Rose because, you know, they assembled this team that just won a freaking NBA title. These guys kinda know what they’re doing.
And my god, I can’t believe the word “incineration” is being used again. I thought we put a stake through the heart of that dumbass term.
That’s incorrect, BE. Both the terry and Alvarado portions would have been allowed. The second apron would have only affected the cash considerations.
I think Kolek will take a step up this year. He can even sometimes play alongside JB or Jose. I like having 2 ball handlers out there at the same time. In certain situations. I know it was garbage time, but during the playoffs when Kolek played his confidence level seems so high. I am hoping he takes a big step up this year.
Wow it’s very frothy here today.
You’d think Leon might’ve bought a little leeway with a frickin Championship, but I guess not.
Agree with Walker that 2nds have a lot of value in this ecosystem, especially for winning teams. Maybe we are slightly overrating our ability to “coach up” any prospect, but when these guys buy into the program like Deuce and Diawara did, you have the ability to sign these 2nd round picks for cheap, 4-year contracts, essentially getting their primes for very little money.
So Leon’s plan in a nutshell has been to hand-pick his stars and then build the bench around them with these 2nd rounders and vet mins. And guess what? IT FRIGGIN WORKED.
That people still have the hubris to think they know better is… definitely a choice.
walkerandbendercornerstones,
Once Deuce has to get paid we are back in the same boat. That’s why I’ve been throwing out the idea of trading Deuce, picking up a draft asset and keeping Shamet. Deuce will make more than Shamet, but it’s not 100% clear to me that there’s a huge difference between them given how well Shamet performed under pressure and the fact that Deuce gave us nothing in the finals.
Hubert, I was talking about the cash consideration in each trade. So you have to throw something else in to replace the cash.
I think these draft day maneuvers are mainly a Brock Aller thing. He loves the second round like algae loves the reflecting pool
https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2025/07/second-round-pick-exception-details-for-2025-26.html
Depends on what “WORKED” means.
“That people still have the hubris to think they know better is… definitely a choice.”
Seems like a bad idea to cut off all continued conversation about the Knicks’ roster on a blog called “Knickerblogger.” But maybe that’s just me.
Bruh, this is literally the only thing I said about Leon:
My esteem for the front office is actually going up now that Dolan is making clear how involved he is.
You should be banned for this comment.
Your arrogance is fucking ridiculous and only matched by your own stupidity. You’ve been wrong about so many things and now, oh look, moving the goal posts again even after we won a fucking title.
How can someone be this wrong all the time and still think they know better?
“Depends on what “WORKED” means.”
For you, out of purgatory. For the rest of us, a championship (and an NBA Cup to boot)
No, we’re trying to cut off one poster who continually is wrong about shit yet brings his negativity to the board every fucking day whenever anything doesn’t go the way he thinks it should go.
We just won a title. But here we are using the term incineration and yesteray you were fucking defending your Dejonte wet dream.
Dude, you are wrong. Admit it. You’ve been wrong about EVERYTHING.
you were wrong about Cam. Wrong about RJ. Wrong about Dejonte. Wrong about being in the mezzanine. Wrong about us not being able to win a title. You are wrong. And you are the worst kind of wrong. You’re arrogant about it.
Those aren’t inconsistent and the term fits.
They won a title and yesterday incinerated another 1. Both of those things factually happened in the last few weeks.
Think of walking and chewing gum at the same time. It is possible.
In terms of the “WORKED” definition — depends on how much was front-loaded and friends-and-family plan. We’re entering a fundamentally new era now, so we shall see.
“Mezzanine” is Hubert’s term. Off-limits to me for years.
1st Rd picks also come with exceptions that allow you to sign them. So do vet min players.
The Knicks have a starting lineup under contract.
The Knicks have most of a second string under contract.
The Knicks have dozens of future second round picks.
The Knicks can squeeze 1-2 years out of the roster as composed.
The Knicks don’t need picks until next year.
“1st Rd picks also come with exceptions that allow you to sign them. So do vet min players.”
First rounders can’t flee right away if they outperform their contracts, either. They’re tied to you at slot for five years even if they vastly outperform the slot number — as many do.
The second-round thing is nonsense. They can save you a little money over the vet minimum you’d have to put on your books to fill out a handful of your 14 slots with, nothing more.
Alvarado has a PO
Mitch is a FA
Shamet is a FA
Clarkson is a FA
We have only 1 second unit player under contract
🙂
No one is cutting off conversation, Hubie, and I know you like to entertain with strong opinions (and it’s fun!), but no one knows how Leon/Dolan truly feel about the 2nd apron.
Maybe staying under was Leon’s mandate? Dolan doesn’t just come up with those big boy words by himself.
And yeah, it’s not the only way to build an nba basketball team, but that championship banner unveiling on opening night sure is going to be sweet.
So at this point, I’m just happy to let Leon cook. Doesn’t mean we can’t have opinions. I love Cam Carr and can’t believe we didn’t take him, but I get that there’s a plan in place, and I think, unlike Leon, we’ve all sort of underrated “continuity” when it comes to team-building, so maybe bringing as many parts back into the fold while not limiting flexibility is actually a good plan? I’m at least going to give benefit of the doubt for a month or two.
No way that a team as close to the 2nd apron as the Knicks – and moving heaven & earth to remain below it – would commit to taking on the $3.3 million slot value of the 25th pick.
Trading out of the first round is not a bug, it’s a feature.
15 year old son whom is behaving like a human food vacuum, and is under the young and naive assumption that protein is the only way to grow likes his steak pretty charred…
trying to convince him that medium to rare is the proper way for consuming a decent piece of beef…all that blood oozing out, is actually delicious stuff…
to be honest though, i kind of got the affinity for charred steak from my ma…i have to check myself when dining out and just ask for it medium done…shoot, if I’m being honest, I like my meat almost like jerky, dark and dry…
ah, the day after the draft…another draft wherein we barely participated…
it is good to be king…
makes me smile to see you in your happy spot today E…
taking the day off, or just massively slacking at work…
We should let Leon cook, but if he brings me hockey puck filet, I’m telling the waiter I want it sent back.
My strong preference is to go into the second apron for a season or two while maintaining a clear exit strategy for reasons I’ve already articulated, but E is fighting the last CBA’s war.
In the Age of the Aprons, late first-round picks and their attendant guaranteed salaries are increasingly viewed as almost burdensome. Popper is reporting that we almost had to attach sweetener just to move off 24. That would’ve been really tough to swallow, even though we are champions.
In any event, all things considered getting 5 seconds for #24 strikes me as fine value, though like everyone else I do want to know the specifics.
Little bit of both for me today ….
That’s what happens when your negotiating partners know you’re desperate.
It’s way less than the market value of five 2s established less than an hour before.
I’m really not sure where we’re getting a backup C from at this point. We basically need to luck out with Huk taking a jump or hitting on someone being immediately viable in the 2nd rd of the draft.
I mean who’s to really say whether the people who won the NBA title really know what they’re doing? Maybe they’re actually incompetent idiots who frittered away the chance to build a dynasty around Dejounte Murray, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish.
I guess the backup C will have to be some sort of vet min signing? I’d be on the phone with Andre Drummond’s people right about now. Not as good as Mitch, but does give you like 90% of the rebounding, maybe 75% of the defense, and can actually shoot a little.
This is probably the sort of thing we’re looking at, vet min ring chasers to fill out the back of the rotation. Maybe GTA opts in and extends, then you have some sort of combination of Alvarado, Deuce, Diawara, a couple of ring chasing vets as the main bench pieces with Hukporti and Kolek as guys who you hope can step up their games a little.
Not ideal, but we did do some good work with vet min guys last year so maybe we hit on something again.
Thankfully this draft is just deep enough, and we draft well enough in the 2nd round to get a couple of rookies who can contribute. Am I correct in thinking we are allowed to cross the threshold to bring back our own? Mayne not Shamet because he’s had back to back non guaranteed 1 year deals, right?
Also, we definitely have to decide which 2 are more important between Alvarado, Shamet, and Deuce. I’m thinking- as much as I don’t like it- it’s probably advantageous to trade Deuce for future assets. Especially if we can’t find a Shamet replacement in round 2. Or trade Dadiet, but I’m pretty sure they not much interest in him, if any
We can. We’re choosing not to. There’s nothing but James Dolan stopping us from crossing the 2nd apron.
That’s not relevant to any cap issue.
We’ve had him for 2 consecutive years, so we have Early Bird Rights.
Hopefully next year this community won’t once again get needlessly sidetracked discussing the draft on the draft day discussion thread when that time would be much better spent exchanging lasagne recipes or debating the deep cuts of Pink Floyd.
Why are you assuming Mitch is gone?
The chances of a low 1st contributing to a championship drive next year, or even the following one are very small. If Leon has a plan to retain Mitch, and one of Shamet or Alvarado, I’m fine with trading out. If there are indications internally that one of Mo, Kolek, or Dadiet are making a leap to 8th of 9th player playoffs level, even better.
It seems that we were due some of that Dolan’s Razor. Probably if we had not won the title, then Dolan would force Leon to go into the 2nd apron by doing something desperate, like trading for Durant.
Two things annoy me:
1) The entire goal of an NBA team is to win chips. When you have a team that suddenly (and admittedly somewhat inexplicably) becomes a tsunami that destroys everything in its path, maybe it’s worth the ‘experiment’ to bring the boys back to see if that sticks. As any and all alternatives are less likely to lead to success, by definition.
2) Brock Aller dancing around the draft bonfire like a tweaked gypsy gives E the opportunity to make constant low, mooing sounds.
I understand why it’s easy to conflate me & E when we’re talking at the same time, but it’s still incorrect. We have completely different opinions.
I have been expressing two themes over the last few days:
1. Debunking commonly held myths about the second apron
2. Expressing my belief that the blame for this decision (if it comes to pass) falls squarely on Dolan’s shoulders.
I have not written one single word that is critical of the front office.
Nor I have suggested at any point that we’re doomed if we duck the apron.
If you see either of those ideas in my posts, it’s because you’re reading with bias.
Also, if the plan is to go to the second apron for a few years and then get out, we have to be preparing our “get out of jail” card in advance. Hoping they are just being careful with that…
I think EB has done a few of these calculations already, but FWIW:
-If Alvarado picks up his PO, Diawara’s 2026-2027 cap hit is $2.7M, and we sign 3 rookie minimums, we can start Mitch at around $9.75M while narrowly ducking under the second apron. With 8% raises that’s 4/~$43.7M, or 5/~$56.5M.
-If Alvarado declines his PO, assuming the same figure for Diawara and an additional rookie minimum, we can start Mitch at around $12.9M.
-If Alvarado picks up his PO, we trade Dadiet with no salary coming back and replace him with a rookie minimum, assuming the same figure for Diawara we can start Mitch at around $11.4M.
These are all estimates since the 2nd apron, minimum, etc. for next season haven’t been finalized yet, but they’re almost certainly pretty close to accurate.
I probably just wasted my time because the safer assumption is that Mitch is gone if we’re dedicated to the duck, but it’s not etched in stone.
Most of the front office appear to be excellent basketball people, who certainly know the salary cap very well and are smart enough to maneuver around it. They also do some pretty good to excellent work at the tactical, day-to-day lower levels — Diawara, the flyer on Reddish, e.g.
From a big picture strategic perspective, which is Leon or Leon/Dolan’s doing and not the day-to-day basketball people, they’ve front-loaded their future into now, potentially dramatically depending on when the mandate came down, and got somewhat lucky in the friends-and-family, almost entirely Brunson, outperforming market consensus. (To a pretty significant degree, KAT did as well; much of KB wanted him gone before this playoff season and that was pretty much the basketball world’s consensus. We’ll never know how much of that was shared by the FO.)
The cost of the front-loading, f-n-f plan, is yet to be determined. Luckily, that’s why they play the games so we’ll see. Maybe it will wind up being cost-free; maybe it will be very expensive. Can’t really render a final verdict until then.
Ugh..thinking about ways to keep the band together and adding 1-2 developmental pieces is a lil stressful. Thanks EB for the info. I think I should just not worry and let Brock Aller work his magic. But if we have to sacrifice Mitch this offseason, imma freak the fuck out. Mitch is a 1 of 1 in this league, and he highly contributes to winning. Now I’m convinced that both of Deuce and Dadiet need to be traded, and I hate it lol
That would be another 1 squandered and heaved overboard, and they’ll probably have to attach an asset to do it, though not necessarily.
If we jettison everyone except the starters, Deuce, Kolek, and three 2nd rd picks, we can offer Mitch $12.5M in yr 1. That’s already a paycut compared to his last deal unless we give him the full 5 years. That also ignores the possibility a team is willing to pay Mitch more money.
If we want to keep Alvarado, maybe we can workout a new deal with less AAV but a longer contract with more guaranteed money. That still cuts into the Mitch pricetag. So if Mitch’s price hasn’t fallen to $11-12M, then we can’t keep him and Alvarado. We can barely keep just Mitch and Deuce.
Or we could choose to exceed the cap and none of this would be an issue.
There are a couple of things to consider about Mitch.
1. He may want to stay and be willing to give us a small discount like Hartenstein before him
2. Like Hartenstein he may get an offer that blows us over the 2nd apron no matter what other reasonable things we do and take the bag.
Quick question for the CBA guys.
Can we sign and trade any of these FAs?
If you are executing a “win now” strategy, and you win an NBA title, you succeeded. Front loading was a good idea. We are now discussing how to defend an NBA title that we won ten days ago. More front loading please!
Can’t sign and trade if the transaction would keep you above the first apron, so no. It wouldn’t help the salary sheet anyway, you’d just be replacing the number on the salary books.
E just cited “the flyer on Reddish” as one of his few examples of a good move this front office has made, just so everyone is aware.
This would be nice, but no way Mitch does not receive almost double that elsewhere. And Alvarado will want to cash in also…
That’s fair, I just don’t fully agree. I’d define success more as maximizing the potential your players and assets give you over a period of more than just a single year. I’d certainly give massive extra points for a championship over whatever the next highest accomplishment in a season is, no question about that.
One other thought.
Everyone is focusing on the 2nd apron, but maybe Dolan is willing to exceed the 2nd apron but only by as small an amount as possible because of the tax implcations. A lot of what’s going may just be about saving as much money as possible and not totally avoiding the 2nd apron.
Sign-and-trades hard cap the team sending out the FAs at the second apron unless they get no salary coming back, so they wouldn’t solve any of our problems.
We could theoretically generate TPEs by getting no money back by trading guys into cap space or exceptions, but we wouldn’t be able to use them unless we changed our minds about the second apron.
Case in point:
I get that we’re both talking at the same time and we’re both contrarian, but we’re saying extremely different things, and a handful of you continually come at me for something he said. I’m sorry but you have to read less carelessly.
If a team gives Mitch 22+ over a lot of years given his injury history and minutes/games limitations, imo they are nuts.
On a team of players that loves playing in NY, Alvarado probably loves playing in NY more than anyone. That’s why he was willing to delay his decision date. He wants a raise, but he’s also signaling that if he has to to keep the team together and stay here he’ll opt in.
I guess I could be anchoring too hard on his last contract. Maybe Mitch just isn’t worth that much anymore.
It’s my fault, yall.
I basically implored E to not give up his shtick after we won the title for ol times sake. 😂
this is some real first class booolsheeet…..take a look at the last 8 years…who exactly would you say have “maximized the potential of their assets for more than a single year”? And don’t say the Spurs cuz they freaking used the tank which nobody will have at their disposal anymore to get their pieces in place…I mean dude….you are the master goal post mover…i’ll give you that…
I find it hard to believe any team is going to pay Mitch 20 million a year and if they do, they’re gonna expect him to start and play the majority of games, starter’s minutes. He’s not capable of doing that.
In reality, nothing I’m saying is even that controversial. They keep playing the games after the championship year and we all want the team to continue to be really good and contend for championships.
It might be “too soon” or something like that, I don’t know — I mean, the league carries on with business within like three days of the season ending — but that’s a marginal offense, if it’s even an offense at all.
The Knicks and the other teams are actively doing basketball business preparing to defend their championship nine months from now, and it’s being commented upon. Their owner has spoken on his de facto payroll limits. No escaping it.
Thanks.
I was thinking about signing a player, sending him into cap space and getting back some kind of pick compensation. That would be a way of staying under the 2nd apron but salvaging some value. That’s better than letting the player walk or nothing. I’m not worried about the TPE.
I don’t enjoy putting any energy into these CBA rules because they always change and I already spend too much mental energy on various other things. I’ll leave it to the smart lawyers like you.
I have mixed feelings about Mitch. He’s the best option we have available, and he only costs James Dolan’s money and I guess whatever other constraints come with second apron-ness. We’re not going to find a better defender and rebounder, and anybody else we bring in to replace him is very likely to be a downgrade.
At the same time, this is a guy who is not all that reliable, is injury prone, and is also apparently susceptible to the kind of bad decisions and emotional outbursts that very nearly rendered him a DNP-Broken Hand for the team’s most important series in 32 years. As it was he was hampered in that series, and while he had some important plays, he was kind of a liability. The Mitch minutes in the Finals were a white knuckle experience.
He can probably play better without a broken finger, and Hubert’s argument that the Mitch Minutes would have been a hell of a lot worse if they were the Huk Minutes is correct.
The problem is, the Mitch Minutes were a few pounds of wall punch force away from being the Huk Minutes anyway, and maybe next year it’s the ankle or some other injury or another wall.
I’d be happy if he returned, because he’s the best option for a backup C. But he comes with some substantial risks in his own right.
I love Mitch but paying him 20 million also seems unrealistic to me.
Of course someone paid Trae 50
I would have put the 1 they just … whatevered … above Mitch on the lifeboats, particularly given their relative salaries. Pinching pennies and burning assets to bring back a backup center with injury issues doesn’t strike me as great work.
The 16th pick doesn’t establish the market value of the 24th.
For the 26th pick, Denver got 35 & two seconds.
For the 25th pick we got 30 & two seconds. Seems good to me.
For the 30th pick we got three seconds. Also seems good to me.
I have yet to see what second round picks we actually got, though.
It establishes the market value of five 2s.
“I’m sorry but you have to read less carelessly.”
Hubert, I never confuse you with E because I get a chuckle every time I see your avatar. 2nd favourite to cdiggy’s.
I asked a different form of this question yesterday, but maybe I should rephrase it: why wouldn’t the team just select a player at 31? Do the 2RPs later in the round become less punitive from a salary standpoint?
There are some useful players still on the board.
Got a few a few Doogie – One of my close friends and nightlife legends who found me wandering around Limelight back in the day just died from Liver cancer. Doing a lot of just reading now.
They all cost the same in the 2nd rd.
Only reason to trade down is to collect additional assets in the trade.
I’m still reading the draft thread and it’s hilarious… Sergio de Larrea the new OAKAAK that hasn’t played a single minute for the Knicks! 😀
No it doesn’t.
The market value is different for every single transaction. This isn’t fucking Target where you go to the store and buy a pick off the shelf.
Every team and every GM has different objectives in every transaction and trade they do. One team trading their 16th pick for 5 seconds doesn’t establish a market value on the 24th pick.
That’s an interesting discussion. TNFH made a geat point about why that was a ridiculous salary given he was just salary dumped (was it yesterday?). Last night on the Bill Simmons podcast they were all laughing at the Wizards for it.
I think the value of small guards like him and Morant had been dropping a lot (there are also other issues in Morant’s case). Even Brunson had his doubters. Maybe it went a tad too far. I don’t know what Trae is worth, but if he recovers his best form he’s still a good offensive player and PG. You just have to build around him a certain way. Maybe Brunson’s win is changing perceptions back, but that deal made no sense.
Nah but seriously: this front office has built the team on maximizing flexibility between and around the margins. That’s the team philosophy, and you don’t abandon that when you win the title. Why? Because while yes they built a championship team (hallelujah!!!), what they’ve built moreso is a system, a method to support consistent success and contender-ship.
JK47,
100% agree with your previous note.
They didn’t trade the 16th pick for five seconds. They traded the 16th pick for the 21st pick and five seconds. Now compare what the Knicks paid for five seconds and things will become clear.
hi EB, hope your day is moving along smoothly…
so looking at Huk’s stat page, it shows his poor offensive performance, but he seems fine as a defender and rebounder…he’s got a good motor and good speed…knows how to play with the team…
where do you think Huk most needs to improve offensively to make him a viable backup center option moving forward?
bonus question for ya EB: is mo best at small forward or power forward?
Thank you for that, EB.
Given this information, I don’t understand why the team wouldn’t just go BPA here. It’s not like they need more 2RPs.
Thirded.
I might have been upset if Noble’s #9 guy was still on the board. Or maybe if the Kentucky guy was there. But I just didn’t care about any of the prospects. And if we’re serious about the 2nd apron, this move should let us bring Landry back. I can’t get worked up about it.
Huk seems to process the game too slowly, which leads to a hesitant style of play on offense and a ton of turnovers. I’m not sure if that’s really fixable given that he’s been in the league a couple years now.
This is where I stand. I would go a little bit further and argue that Mitch wasn’t as impactful even before the broken hand. He was good, don’t get me wrong. But compare the Mitch of the Cavs series 4 years ago with the Mitch of the Cavs series this year. Not the same.
I do wonder if the front office feels like Mitch might not be worth the money he will get, but is afraid of the blowback in the locker room if they let him go. The second apron could be a convenient excuse (but doesn’t fix the problem that we have no real replacement).
Detroit was supposedly targeting him as a secondary creator/scorer. I wonder who they go after now. I also wonder what the Lakers do vis a vis LeBron, and vice versa.
Because there’s no second-round salary scale, and because second-round picks weirdly have much more leverage than first-round picks (rights expire after a year unless the drafting team makes a one-year minimum offer, which the player can accept and then get right into RFA if he’s disgruntled) a lot of second-round selections often seem more geared towards pre-arranged deals than the kind of adherence to a board associated with the first-round.
So if the Knicks have pre-arranged deals with guys they can get lower than #31, it does make sense for them to try to wring value out of the higher slot.
For teams not dealing with apron related headaches, it still makes sense to treat it just like the first-round and go get your guy. But for a team in the Knicks’ position the second-round is more akin to a kind of mini free agency.
Follow-up question: could they negotiate a lower contract with a less prominent, back of the second round player compared to the 31st pick? Are we at that level of penny pinching?
This is a deep draft though (or so I have heard) so a pick at 31 is kind of like a free 1RP. The better players who are on the board aren’t going to be on the board forever.
A gentle reminder:
There’s one round yet to go in the 2026 NBA draft. The second round, where Brock and Leon have typically been more engaged.
Perhaps we should wait til the book is finally closed before delivering any definitive verdicts on how successfully – or not – the Knick front office managed this year’s draft.
Laker fans want desperately to move on from LeBron.
I’m starting to get into the Brock Aller part of playing with my excel sheet to retain Mitch… if we have Alvarado opt-out of his deal, sign for extra years starting at $3.5M and take a 2-week “vacation” to start the season and trade pick 31 with Dadiet for two later 2nd rounders, we can offer Mitch nearly $13M in year one.
So I’ll let you figure out if that’s a good day or a bad day. Please don’t tell me though, I don’t want to know.
Pretty much what JK said. He turns it over too much and seems to process slowly.
I don’t love OBPM but simply put, Mitch is at +1.9 and Huk is at -3.7 for the regular season. I don’t recall the other metrics being much better for Huk.
KAT spent the entire playoffs in foul trouble, so I don’t think backup C is a position we can completely gloss over.
The answer is power forward because we need a power forward more than we need a small forward.
can’t blame them cdiggy, after a while a merc like him or KD can wear out their welcome, plus he makes a lot, plus he’s old…
trouble is, he’s the guy that got them to the second round…luka and AR are a dynamic duo, maybe not the most reliable guys to stay on the court playing though…and, they aren’t always willing and able defenders…
lakers are in a tough spot…more often than not though it seems they’re able to cobble together a decent season…
fanboy me wants to see lebron back with the cavs…
The way way way too early comp I saw occasionally bandied about for Mo last season was Siakam. That’s probably < 5% outcome but even a poor man’s Pascal would be a home run for someone with his draft pedigree and salary.
Supposedly the draft falls off around #35. So ideally, we’d grab someone soon.
Of course, Leon/Aller/Perrin/Wes always seem to have their own board and will target them regardless of what the mock drafters say. See Diawara, Mo.
May be a terrible deal at the end, but it helps maximize our championship odds when our stars are still in their prime.
thanks EB, thanks jk…
okay, not too much an intuitive basketball player…considering we do some kind of flow thing on offense, i can see how that could be a problem…
he has size, speed (not sure about his lateral movement?), decent block rate, seems good on effort/attitude…
hopefully this off season he stays on the court, replicates this style offense in his drills, and he can get to like a 0.0 obpm…
24 years old, maybe centers develop slower in the nba, like point guards 😳
Cdiggy, you make an interesting point that seems to nicely describe one half of one of the arguments happening here: the idea of the team being a system that’s been carefully crafted so that pieces can be replaced and it all still runs smoothly.
My worry is whether the sum was precisely because of all of the parts working in some demented synergy. Like if you replace your dual overhead camshaft in your Ferrari with one from a Lamborghini, and suddenly it runs like crap.
Drummond made $5M last year, so not the minimum. We could use the TP-MLE on Drummond this year for up to the lesser of $6.1M or the 2nd Apron.
If we sign Drummond (or another C) for the full TP-MLE and salary dump Dadiet, we’d have around $6.9M to spend on Shamet. We could increase that by negotiating with (or dropping) Alvarado or convincing Drummond to take a lower figure.
Don’t know if that’s enough to keep Shamet, but it’s getting into the ballpark at least.
They can’t just drop Alvarado, he has a player option. (Unless I’m misreading/misinterpreting the idea.)
Didn’t mean to lump you in with E, Hubie, my apologies.
EB, I take it your back-of-napkin GMing is just letting Shamet go in free agency, right? But I think it’s also possible to do your Mitch/Alvarado deals and then essentially salary dump Kolek and sign Shamet at a contract starting at around $3 mil, right?
I mean, I have to think Shamet is pretty loyal to Leon, who waited around for his shoulder to heal instead of moving on to a different signing (and remember, Shamet was NOT playing well back then).
Rolling with only 2 pgs would be scary, but maybe we can dig one up on round 2?
These are all just thoughts—don’t @ me
“I have yet to see what second round picks we actually got, though.”
For this draft we’re in the middle of, we have our original picks of #31 and #55, and we have added the #47 pick from Phoenix. All the others are future years and definitely not worth an ounce of discussion here at this time.
Famous last words, but since it seems like we want to fill out the roster as cheaply as possible, I do think we’ll make some picks tonight.
Meleek Thomas is the highest guy ranked on my board and the Knicks have worked him out, but I doubt we take him. He has first-round pedigree and is thus doubtful to take a rookie minimum deal. He’s also 19 and unlikely, to say the least, to contribute anytime particularly soon, both due to his age and his game (the long and short of it is he has a lot of talent but needs to both get in the gym and get coached out of taking some of the worst shots you will ever see).
I hope we take him because it’s fun to get young talent in the door, but I doubt it’s in the cards.
The other guys who’ve caught my eye to some extent, are still on the board, and have worked out for the Knicks are Evans, Nelson, Brazile, Sharp, Onyenso, Castro, Donaldson, and Mitchell.
They all project to be more immediate contributors (and have lower upside, IMO) than Thomas, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see us wind up with at least one of them.
Nelson’s the one I’d be most excited about in that group. He’s got genuine two-way intrigue. Here’s a video compilation of him doing cool stuff.
Anyway, looking forward to us drafting someone I’ve never heard of.
Turns out the Mikal trade was a far bigger win for this front office than anyone here could have possibly imagined at the time it was made. Not only did the Knicks receive a useful player, it saved Leon the trouble of having to unload all of those first round picks on draft day.
They were mocked a lot to Evans at 24. Hopefully, they’ll take him at 31, though I’d also be happy with Thomas.
But it’s probably Lucy-Charlie Brown-football territory again.
Deuce, Hukporti, Kolek, Diawara.
Now you’ll come back and say that only Deuce is a second unit player. I’ll challenge it and say that those 4, as a baseline, works. In fact, this is what I think the strategy is. How many years do you tuck away picks like Huk and Kolek? When do you let them get a crack at playing real minutes? This is the year.
If Alvardo opts in, Mitch and/or Shamet decide to take far less than they’re worth, then we have some space and exceptions. Otherwise backfilling this team won’t be tough. This isn’t the toxic 2018-19 team that won 17 games. We’ll get veterans taking the minimum.
when i first heard him say it, it caught my attention, just with its whole intentionality…
early after the team chose/appointed jalen to be captain – KAT made it a point to repeat the “title” whenever a mic entered his space, and a jalen question was asked…
anyone coming in to that locker room is going to need to conform, somewhat…
just noticed, lance thomas was the previous knicks’ captain…
hmmmmm, lance sure did things the right way…solid way below mezzanine, sitting on the floor, loose popcorn and soda stains all around, watching the rest of the nba play, winning 17 games, more than once…
other audience members continually walking by, going to much better seats…
do you have any idea just hiw dirty folks’ footwear are…yeah…
so, what is the best seat in the house, front row aisle orchestra…seat/space on stage maybe…that be we…
My hot take is that we can retool the bench towards youth and cap flexibility, still bring back at least one of the vets from the bench, pick up some vet minimums, and STILL REPEAT AS CHAMPS!
I recall him making a critical block in the 3rd quarter of game 5 as the Knicks were making their comeback. He play less than 2 minutes and had an impact.
Hukporti block with 2:43 left in the 3rd
I have a spreadsheet.
In any scenario we keep Mitch, I have us losing Shamet. Everything I’ve read seems to think Shamet will get $8M+. If he can be kept for $3M, great! But I doubt he’s that loyal to Leon.
I always have us keeping Kolek because he’s slotted to make less than the 2yr vet min. He’s effectively saving us money if we keep him. The only exception is if we replace him with a 2nd rd pick.
ESPN has Evans as best available and Veesaar as best fit. Maybe they know something about Mitch that we don’t know (yet).
I love these first world problems we have by outperforming. GTA becoming a +BPM player for the first time during his Knick tenure. Landry showing he has got it back. Mitch remaining available and providing 2 of the 5 best (not pivotal but best) highlights in the playoffs, something we would have called outperforming given the injury management beginning of the season. Mo at 51 and extending. Punting at numbers 24 and 25, in part because we want to win it again now.
What a different off-season discussion previously driven by what potential trades for which starter(s) make the most sense…
Oh, he’s fine on the defensive end. I like his size and mobility on that end, and the slow processing speed doesn’t extend to the defensive side of the ball.
It’s on offense where he struggles with game speed.
Thanks, EB. I guess we’ll know soon what his value is.
Here is my list of priorities after we locked up Mo Diawara.
1) Re signing Mitch is a must. Alternatives are terrible.
2) Dadier, Shamet, Deuce and Clarkson – We only need two out of four. (my preference Shamet and Clarkson). Deuce is a high risk for negative energy becuase he just realized that he’s never getting paid by Leon.
3) Kolek and Alvarado – We only need one out of two (my preference Alvarado)
That’s your 10 man rotation.
11th can be best available min wage veteran big like Drummond or Kleber.
12 – 15 are two way Westechester 2nd round types.
This team will be favorite to come out the East. That’s all you can ask.
Give both Landry and Mitch ~2yr – $35m deals with second year being a team option. Dolan pays ~$70m in taxes. Will easily make that up in merchandise sales and ticket price increases.
Next summer we see if KAT took a paycut and where the 2nd apron cut off number will be and decide what we want to do.
hahaha…has to be dripping with irony.
ESPN knows inside information and they’re choosing to communicate it via a “best fit” hint?
One random thing I want to zag on… everyone loves Mara to the Thunder… I think the kid might be fucked… I think Wemby is going to take that selection personally and make it his mission to destroy Aday Mara.
I do not want to diminish the playoff contributions of Shamet, Alvarado or Mitch. All three of them came up big in specific games and moments to help us win.
But the fact remains we won because our starting five finally figured it out. We lost 1 playoff game after the starting 5 clicked.
We also are all acting like the bench has to be playoff ready come game 1 of the season and that is not true. We have a full season for a new bench to gain experience together and if we do stay under the SA, it gives Leon more room to make a trade deadline move.
There’s also the upside of guys like Diawara, Kolek, Huk…even Sochan. All young dudes who are playing on a championship team with all-star and elite role players in the starting unit as mentors.
Don’t get me wrong. I want to bring back Shamet and Mitch if we can. I just don’t think if they don’t come back it completely shuts the door on us winning a second title.
Another important factoid is that they’re only $6 million more below the second apron in ’27-’28 than they are this summer, which can turn into $13-ish if they don’t exercise that season’s club options on Kolek and Dadiet. That also counts the $22M club option on Josh Hart, and counts KAT’s hit as his $61M player option.(*)
That’s pre-Deuce and with seven of the required 14 slots unfilled — nine, if Kolek and Dadiet are sent packing. Those slots at vet minimum are a bit over $2M each.
Any multi-year deal with a summer ’26 free agent (or draft pick) will eat into that as well. It’s not only tight this summer, it’s already extremely tight next summer. Absent a move involving Josh Hart or Mikal, Deuce is pretty much already a goner. (Unless you leave room for him by waving bye-bye to Mitch and Shamet this summer — which frankly isn’t a terrible idea.)
(*) And as TNFH has noted, is an estimated value of the SA, not yet a concrete one, though Sportrac’s numbers are usually very close.
I’d say that because he was the only one on the 2nd unit.
Some of the guys you’ve listed are close to being capable 2nd unit players, but I don’t like assuming a player has made a jump they haven’t made yet. It’s unlikely that every single one of them will.
I also tend to think Shamet, Alvarado, and Mitch performed near the top of 2nd unit players across the league. Alvarado and Mitch are in the top-70 in 4-yr RAPM. Shamet is 153rd. Because there’s 30 teams with 5 starters each, there’s an argument that we’re losing 3 starter-level players. Even if Kolek, Diawara, and Huk are strong 2nd unit players, we’d still be worse off.
Ideally, until you know they’re as good or better than the guy they’re replacing. There’s no reason to insist on them getting minutes now.
Everything could be fine, but staying below the 2nd apron introduces a lot of unnecessary risk.
I mean, the only way you can find out if they’re ready is by playing them and oftentimes a young player can only be ready if given opportunities to play.
I truly do not understand Brock Aller’s bit with the rights to overseas players that will never play (apparently we acquired 3 of those last night along with the picks, including a 34-year old and a 39-year old player).
The draft rights to obscure players thing is Aller’s little inside joke to himself, an easter egg.
Wonder what percentage of these new casual bandwagon type fans that were either created or stregthened during this season will convert into life long fans like all of us that watch every single game? – 250k?
There were two million folks that showed up for the parade. God knows how many millions around the country and world are now Brunson fans.
This has/will materially increase team’s value, not minimizing luxury tax.
Don’t kink shame.
Like, do we think someone in the front office ever asked Brock Aller what the hell this is for?
When Shamet was signed off the scrap heap following Brogdon’s abrupt retirement last year, it was widely hailed with a resounding “meh.” Wound up working out far better than anyone could’ve hoped.
If Landry, as expected, decamps for a bigger payday then whoever his bargain basement replacement happens to be will be greeted with an equally muted enthusiasm. Can this front office catch lightning in a bottle for a second straight year? Seems unlikely. However, I suspect the front office saw the handwriting on this wall some time ago and already have a list of cheap, upside bets ready to call.
Technically they’re assets you can throw into a trade and there’s probably an arcane salary cap rule that’s somehow impacted that does something beneficial for you, if almost entirely theoretically. (Far more theoretically than, let’s say, being able to aggregate multiple salaries to trade for a star.)
On a more serious note: we saw multiple reports that the NBA finals were the most watched in like a decade. I assume the amount of money the NBA made in Knicks apparel is astronomical. What are the chances that the cap is significantly higher than expected because of this additional income? Or is this basically irrelevant as the income was locked in before?
that’s a very cold sheet you got there EB…
Great question. I’m thinking Brock is anticipating something of minimal margin value in the next CBA.
it’ like stashing money in off shore accounts…go Brock go…maybe it’s a tax thing…
EB, I understand that logic but this is the year we need to know if Huk and Kolek are going to make it. The Diawara signing indicates that he’s viewed as 2nd team already. An both Kolek, Hukporti and let’s add Dadiet (because he’s signed) have played, have been good bench role players. The point really is, how many rotation players do we need?
Well there are 6 confirmed if McBride is the 6th man. 9? 10? Diawara 7 and we sign a couple of vets. Are they Mitch, Shamet or Clarkson? Right now the Knicks have $16M cap below the 2nd apron. They’ll get a few vets and draft a late 2nd rounder to send to the G League. But at this point the Knicks don’t need to lock up cap and can wait out some of the frenzy that draft day brings.
Based on everything I know about the CBA, and everything I’ve heard from various beat guys, I really think it just amuses Aller. It’s useful to have the draft rights to 2, maybe 3 international guys who will never come over, just to help make trades legal. But no team needs remotely as many as Aller has amassed.
He is — like E placing the trade to acquire Cam somewhere in the range of “pretty good to excellent work” — fiercely committed to the bit. Gotta respect it.
Yep. And none of us have been in the gym with them.
In the future, as draft day approaches, the fans of 29 NBA teams are going to prepare by watching game tape, reading scouting reports, and poring over mock drafts,
Knick fans will be studying accounting tables.
“Like, do we think someone in the front office ever asked Brock Aller what the hell this is for?”
They are useful, since you have to send something back in a trade, however worthless. I remember this being a part of a recent trade, but can’t remember which one.
Edit: saw Alan’s comment and agree with it.
There’s some scenario where you’re required to send something of value to participate in a trade, and it counts draft rights.
There may also be some S&T scenarios that come up, like what happened with the KAT trade. We signed Charlie Brown, DaQuan Jeffries, and Duane Washington for $1 more than the minimum to allow us to aggregate their salaries without sacrificing any real players.
We could probably also do something dumb like carry a 50yo player as a 14th man. That would allow us to take advantage of the 2nd rd exception letting us pay less than the 2yr vet minimum. Basically, what we seem to be doing this year while simultaneously giving Adam Silver an aneurysm. Maybe if we got stuck with Larrea, we’d stash him in Europe and roster 38 yo Emir Preldzic to save $1M
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7387470/2026/06/24/rangers-knicks-owner-james-dolan-nba-nhl/
JK, from my lawn chair here on Huk Island, I view his ‘slow processing’ much as I viewed Deuce’s first two years unable to hit a jump shot during regular NBA games. Huk is still somewhat raw, but he also just needs game reps. Some players (Shamet) can come in shooting flames out of their arses no matter what, others need some baking.
Note this is NOT suggesting we should lose Mitch, or that I would in any way condone it. I do not. But because of both Mitch’s known struggles, and KAT’s tendency for foul trouble, a strong third string center is a necessity for this team. I think if we give Huk a lot of reps this coming year, we’ll be pleased with the result.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m constantly amused, but I would have thought someone in the league would have called to ask what the hell he is doing, even if it’s entirely legal.
I had looked if this could be something that would protect the Knicks in case of expansion, but apparently only players under contract are affected.
I suppose there is no downside, even if they don’t need as many guys as they have.
Part of me wants to think that someone has convinced Dolan that adding these guys makes trades better, and so they keep doing it to manage him. It’s a bit like when the mother in Good Bye, Lenin wakes up and the son keeps pretending that the GDR is still a thing.
We really don’t. We actually never need to know. If Mitch, Alvarado, and Shamet keep producing, it’s perfectly fine to leave them on the bench and keep winning championships.
We could also play them even if they aren’t the best option or when other players get hurt. We found 500+ minutes for each of them last year.
As many as we can get. There’s no penalty to having too many good players. There is a downside to losing half your roster due to injury and finding yourself playing a 7-man rotation the last 3 games of the 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinals because your 8th man is DaQuan Jeffries.
The obsession with it around here is one of those strange-but-fun things, but it was a perfectly sound process risk for the shitty 2021-22 Knicks to take a flyer on Cam Reddish’s high-level basketball tools in his age-22 season. Many GMs and players agreed on the degree of those tools, I’ve seen them in action and I share the agreement. Didn’t work out, so be it. Risks sometimes don’t.
Good process, bad result. It happens. Definitely goes on the plus side of the “tactical” team’s ledger.
A 39 year old guy, sitting in a cafe in Slovenia, tells his date, “Yeah, I am on the Knicks.” The date doesn’t believe him. “I didn’t see you in the parade.” He then WhatsApp’s Brock who confirms the story to the startled young lady. Brock, being used to confirming overseas players’s statuses, puts his phone down with a thud, while Leon throws a little sarcasm his way as he exits Brock’s office.
I also thought about the “sign the 39-year-old Estonian geezer to a three-year contract at the bare minimum for a rookie second rounder,” idea but I doubt the league would approve the contract. Maybe, though.
There’s also a general “non-circumvention, good faith” clause in the CBA.
I’m pretty sure Leon and Brock and team told James Dolan they should never go into the second apron because it limits their team building, so he said that out loud because that’s the intel he’s been working with previously. And that made sense.
But Leon and Brock know that now that they’ve won the championship, going into the second apron makes all the sense in the world to keep this team together. If you have to go there in order to keep the team together, then do it.
Unfortunately, Dolan already said this out loud, so his only play is to double down on it in an attempt to make him seem less like an idiot, even though everyone knows the truth.
Most of us, if not all, are in agreement that we’d prefer to keep Mitch, Alvo and Shamet (and I guess Deuce) even if it meant going into the second apron for 2026-27.
There are some points of disagreement.
1) The degree to which NOT keeping any or all of them would be detrimental to our prospects for repeating in 2026-27 (and by extension, the pecking order…although most of us prioritize Mitch first and are split over the others.)
2) The degree to which keeping all of them would be harmful to the seasons BEYOND 2026-27.
3) The degree to which we care more about next season vs. the seasons after that.
There is lots of nuance that makes the answers to each of the 3 questions different for some of us. For example, how ready do you think each of Huk, Kolek, Dadiet, and [insert names here] will be to become replacements for Mitch, Shamet, and Alvarado next year? The answer probably varies quite a bit among us. For example, I have more confidence in Huk than most. Others have more confidence in Kolek than I do. Also, how confident are you in Leon & Co. to find suitable replacements at below second apron prices? Again, that answer varies.
Regardless, I think that both Leon and Dolan are fully committed to competing for more championships in the Brunson window. I don’t really want to speculate about how close to the same page they are when it comes to ironclad second apron avoidance. Both on my own accord, and with the reinforcement from Jeremy Cohen’s pod, I believe there are excellent arguments on both sides. Ultimately, I have lots of confidence that Leon will keep on doind what he’s been doing and have zero confidence in the opinions of his chronic detractors. (and I don’t give any POBO/GM a pass for doing the owner’s bidding, he can always walk away, especially a gloriously rich one who has a chip under his belt. You own any decision that the organization makes.)
I want to go back to the Trump analogy, which I think is fair because Dolan and Trump are very analogous.
If Donald Trump was surrounded by smart people, and he goes on TV and says something totally senseless and imbecilic, I don’t think it makes sense to suggest that maybe the smart people told him that.
Dolan’s statement was very clear: “there are some things in the NBA you can never do, and one of them is the second apron”, “it’s suicide”.
These are dumb statements. They’re indefensible. You can argue the merits of staying under vs going over, but you cannot argue that it’s suicide, or that unwavering ignorance and complete lack of situational awareness is justified. Only fools operate with that kind of rigidity.
This is Dolan’s idea because we saw him say it, and it’s too dumb to come from a smart front office.
If you want to tell me Leon might think Mitch isn’t worth going over the second apron for… fine… that’s a reasonable argument. I don’t know what the medical team says, and I don’t know how he broke his hand.
But that’s not the goal post.
Dolan’s edict is that there is never a time, and no one is worth it. That’s the goal post. If you want to appeal to Leon’s authority, you have to sell us that the front office believes that.
All I care about is that Melvin Ajinca is back in the fold. OAKAAK!
Bechamel or GTFO!
😂💀
EB, we’ll disagree but I think Knick management agrees with me. At least that’s how I interpret their behavior. It would be nice to sign one of our FA vets but that’s “Nice to sign” as opposed to “Should sign” or “Must sign”.
This is how I feel about Kolek and Mo. Yes we’re trying to win a title, but we don’t need to white-knuckle and Thibs-ride the starters. I hate that Kolek sparked the Knicks in the Cup game, and then went somewhat back to the doghouse (esp. after Alvarado’s arrival). It’s a long season and a long playoffs that they just endured. Let’s spend the year & see how/when point-KAT works and what the kids can accomplish. Keep everyone healthy. Then you will have a much better understanding of what players work, in which system, and against which opponents.
Not all second round picks are created equal.
My other argument, which I haven’t really mentioned, is that even though you’re right about how ineffective he was against the Spurs (and the Cavs, if we’re being honest), 14 months ago he was one of the best players in the Celtics series, and he was so good in the first two games against the Pacers that he pushed Josh Hart to the bench.
I wouldn’t overweight recency. Someone like Drummond may give you 12 solid mpg, but Mitch can swing a series, and I’m loathe to give up that kind of weapon.
A market value contract for Mitch would pretty much put them over the second apron next summer, too. The math doesn’t work.
Putting aside KAT’s contract, they have six assets coming up for decision this summer and next:
Mitch
Shamet
Alvarado
Josh Hart
This year’s 1
Deuce
If you eliminate this year’s 1 — already incinerated — and assume an exercise of Josh Hart’s option, they can really only afford one of them, though maybe you could do Shamet/Alvarado.
If you make your mind up now to say bye-bye to Josh Hart after next year, that frees up a decent amount of money — $22M — but, let’s be realistic, they aren’t going to decide that now.
(Diawara would have been on the list but he’s already in, so he counts as one retained.)
Anyone see that video with Turturro and Shamet?
I have to bask in the vibes a little more. It’s such a hard turn from winning the title to breaking the team up.
Actually, Kolek and Dadiet (club options) should be added to the decision list. So it’s eight.
Not sure about all the consternation about a late 1st round pick. The Knicks’ immediate-to-intermediate future is tied to the fact that the starting 5 that just won a Championship are well in place for the foreseeable. I understand the desire to keep and extend a contention window as long as possible by drafting good pieces to eventually replace the current ones but they were arguably never in a position to do that this draft with what was out there, so the roster flexibility of extra cash and 2nd round picks is the next best thing. Nothing Rose & Co. did last night or will do tonight, barring a trade, will meaningfully change the decision they need to make on Mitch and the others – really that comes down to how much Mitch actually costs to retain and whether, under the gun, they decide to go into second apron territory to get it done. Everything else is little moves around the margins compared to what is already in place. And I think something we should all be able to agree on is that while it might not personally be our preferred way to build a contender, Leon has proven there is more than one way to do so.
(hi again KB, finally got around to fixing my account after losing access eons ago. very pleased to see many familiar names still kickin it here)
5 firsts got us Mikal. 5 2nd’s should get us a 2nd rate Mikal. Good enough for me hahahahahaaaaaaa
“We could probably also do something dumb like carry a 50yo player as a 14th man.”
Didn’t we do that last season with PJ Tucker?
No, actually I kinda lost it when we chose Clarkson over Landry, and I spent the whole summer clamoring for us to hurry up and use our last roster spot on him.
The argument then was the same as it is today: when you catch lightning in a bottle (Landry had just played very well in the ECF), don’t get cocky and think you can do it again, count your blessings and keep the bottle.
Finally have the details from last night’s trades: https://www.instagram.com/p/DZ-qbbVxRwM/?igsh=cXp4ZmJvMzZ3ZHli
We’re getting 2026, 2029, 2033 2RP from Phoenix; 2030, 2032 2RP, Ajinca from Dallas; effectively nothing from LAL though wasn’t Louis Labeyrie a Knick at one point?
I miss game threads…
Summer league starts soon.
I recently re-read the Games 4 and 5 threads and let me tell you, they were glorious.
I also present you with one of my smartest comments from the first half of ECF Game 1:
Phoenix & Dallas are pretty poorly run teams, that’s not bad.
Our second round stash looks like this now:
2027 NYK + WAS + IND/HOU/MIA (2nd best)
2028 BOS (protected 31-45) + IND/PHX (least favorable)
2029 PHX
2030 DAL
2031
2032 NYK, DAL
2033 NYK, PHX
I imagine we’ll be adding to it tonight. 2028’s looking a little shaky, and we gotta fill in that 2031 gap, Brock.
It is genuinely amazing what a pile of hot garbage the Mets are. This has got to be the worst coached team I have ever seen in my life. Just about every single player on the roster is playing below his talent level.
It still amazes me that Mendoza and his whole ridiculously bad staff haven’t been shitcanned yet. I mean, of course David Stearns is the guy who really needs to go, but the Mets have a bunch of young players and hitters who are getting coached and developed by a bunch of incompetents.
The team has had miserable fundamentals all year long, and the pitching coaches have failed utterly. Gotta get these guys out of here before they screw up the young talent any more than they’re already screwed up.
When you consider that this was our entire cupboard of future picks before last night, it makes the moves very justifiable IMO.
First round
2027
2028 NYK
2029
2030 NYK
2031
2033 NYK
Second round
2027 NYK + WAS + IND/HOU/MIA (2nd best)
2028 BOS (protected 31-45) + IND/PHX (least favorable)
2029
2030
2031
2032 NYK
2033 NYK
“I mean, of course David Stearns is the guy who really needs to go,”
David Stearns looks the part and sounds the part and kind of has the CV for the part and it’s obvious why Uncle Stevie took a shine to him … but he really isn’t very good at actually executing the part.
He’s a textbook example of why we should always look below the superficial surface to the real substance beneath.
No wonder Mendoza was in Aaron Boone’s staff!
That’s one thing I have to give Cashman and Boone credit for, every year Yankee fans including myself have a ton of complaints about the roster and especially the coaching staff but shit every year they still find a way to win over 90 games and never come close to bottoming out like the Mets and especially the Red Sox do.
Listening to Leon on roommates now. Will let you know if they ask him the hard questions about second apron.
Had another thought, Hubie: is there any benefit to having other teams think you won’t go over the 2nd apron?
Maybe. I don’t know.
I think Dolan going on Carton or whatever his name is to start a misinformation campaign that gives the Knicks a slight edge in the market is pretty far fetched. The guy couldn’t even talk for 2 mins at city hall without putting his foot in his mouth.
I like it that we avoided ‘27 and ‘28 second round picks. Those second rounds are projected to be bad because college eligibility is very likely to extend to five years and fourth year players will suddenly be able to play a fifth year for lucrative NIL money, thus depriving the second round draft of talent. But after a year or two these same guys will run out of college eligibility and be back in the draft.
There might be a benefit negotiating with Mitch if his agent thinks of it as a hard line the Knick# won’t go over.
Unsolicited Josh says to Leon: “I’ll tell you this, though, the offensive rebound off my missed free throw was the biggest rebound probably you’ll see… obviously the Miami one with the ray allen shot is up there I forgot about that… but that rebound solidified it. Everyone took an exhale. That was a grown man rebound.”
No follow up about the second apron, though.
But then Jalen said to Josh “I feel like you do that a lot… like you missed the free throw for Mitch to get it, you missed the layup for us to have an exciting ending to game 4, and you the missed box out, I feel like you do that all for us so we can have our exciting finish.”
And without missing a beat Josh said: “I feel like I have this connection with the fans, I have to do what it takes for them to have these moments”
And then Leon says “will you do me a favor, get in touch with the front office the same way you are with the fans and cut that out”.
Good stuff.
The Knick front office under Leon really has put together an impressive track record of identifying undervalued talent and signing them to deals that eventually come to look like bargains.
Brunson, of course, is the shining example of this. Perception of the 4-year $104 million contract he first inked upon leaving Dallas has gone from “foolish overpay” to “greatest free agent signing of all time.” OG, who looked every bit the max player under the bright lights of the playoffs, was regarded as something much, much less than that when he was first acquired.
At the cheap end of the spectrum can be found the likes of Deuce, Mo, Shamet, and Alvarado – all of whom were acquired for next to nothing, paid next to nothing – and wound up massively outplaying their pedigrees & salaries.
That’s why I’m choosing to give Leon & Co. the benefit of the doubt as we head into the 2nd round tonight. I imagine they will come out of the evening with at least two players, whose names will have been completely unknown to me prior to the moment they’re announced. Making second round selections in the draft is generally seen as the NBA equivalent of dumpster diving, but this FO has shown a knack for finding something worthwhile amidst the rubbish. I doubt many will be excited by any selections they might make tonight but I’m going to believe that whomever it is will have a better than average chance of being something more than your typical 2nd rd throwaway.
Breaking news: Leon is not actually Jalen’s godfather.
ha hubie, just finished watching the roommates shows with leon as guest…
you know, he really says the phrase: you know…a lot…you know…
If Leon and his management team believe the cost of going over the 2nd apron is too large in flexibility terms a couple of years out, I’ll trust them on that. But it should not be about money.
Then I vote on allowing Mitch go, making Hukporti the backup, drafting a C tonight, bringing back Shamet and Alvardo opting in.
Hukporti was good defensively last year, rebounded well, blocked shots well and has more of a bag than Mitch on offense (he can also hit free throws). He may not be the lob threat Mitch is and he may make some defensive mistakes, but Mitch would miss a lot of games anyway and Huk is less of an injury risk. Huk also young enough to get better.
I can live with losing Mitch and we’d also be adding at least one new young player.
IMO, it’d be pretty impressive if they came away with Evans (A) on a second round salary and (B) got 5 more second rounders in return
Strat I don’t know if you heard, but James Dolan went on the radio and said in no uncertain terms that Leon is not allowed to make that decision.
It’s like that Meat Loaf song. Dolan said “I will do anything for Leon, but I won’t do that.”
Dolan also told the Athletic Leon’s job isn’t to strategize; it’s to lure talent. Everything about Leon’s run here has been consistent with that.
Now Dolan has drawn a line in the ability to lure talent, with the de facto internal salary cap. We’ll see how things go. Best thing would be to start pivoting to drafting, but that doesn’t appear to be the idea here and of course many of the draft picks went out the door in the “luring talent” phase.
Thus it appears we’re heading for a talent shedding phase.
A trade! Big surprise.
31 and 55 for 39, 53, and a 2029 2nd.
we need to get rid of 39 before the bus dips below 55
I don’t really understand the logic of trading down here but whatever
Per the Athletic
Edit: My post crossed with Ed’s-dog’s
I thought this was such a desirable pick… that’s the most they could get??
We’re pretty obviously not making a pick in this year’s draft and trying to bank as much future capital as possible.
They probably couldn’t sign the best player available to a low enough salary
Geez I would have liked to have seen us take someone in the draft
i mean f those picks, but your current players can’t play forever.
guess we will be looking at the equivalents of kidd/camby/rasheed ala 2012 to fill out the roster.
(but we still need a kostas papa stash)
My guess remains we’ve worked out a deal with a guy or guys who have agreed to take a shitty contract and thus will be available after #31. That’s…not necessarily a good thing, obviously.
hmm, 2nd round pick contract starts at 1.3M
2 way contract starts at 650K
guess a late 2nd round pick would more likely accept 2 way… or non-drafted..
I know our front office is highly intelligent. I know there are ownership restrictions. I know we won a championship. But this is stlll insanely annoying and as other posters have said – this may bite us in the end when these second round picks start to be devalued.
we could have drafted Thornton, who in his bio says “Is an all time great Dude”. Seriously, that’s fantastic
I did defend re-signing Goldy from an angry horde, but it was admittedly more on “he can still be a fine platoon bat and defensive replacement” than “he will win another MVP” grounds.
Feels like the other teams aren’t taking this round seriously either.
It worked with Diawara 😉
What happens if you draft a guy with a 2RP and then can’t agree to a deal with him? Does the player just become a free agent?
I apologize for all the dumb questions.
Knicks might end up with one player in this draft because other teams decide they have no need for the 53rd pick
Second round picks are the lubricant for many a deal. Whether to package for a coveted player, or to dump salary, or to move up in the draft, or to stock the back end of the roster at a low cost, they have significant value. This is especially true for a team that doesn’t have firsts in multiple years. I would surmise that Aller and Perrin have mapped the values out and are trying to stockpile them for when the need arises in the future.
Google says
I believe you have exclusive rights for a year with 2RPs as long as you offer the minimum tender (a one-year minimum deal). But he doesn’t then become a free agent, he goes back into the next draft.
So the Knicks would have leverage over a guy they drafted, and could essentially force one of these guys to either take the lowball contract or sit out a year.
This just makes the strategy a little bit more confusing to me. They’re up against the apron, they need cheap players, there are at least a few guys here who maybe could have gotten on the floor. Insert shrug emoticon I guess.
and the beat goes on…
we don’t need no stinking draft picks…
So we currently have #39, #47, and #53.
Not great:
3 (33)
Isaiah Evans
G
DUKE
Traded to MIN
4 (34)
Meleek Thomas
G
ARK
Traded to CLE
I’ll guess we’re targeting Onyenso. Maybe Bittle.
Emmanuel Sharp if he’s gettable at 39 would be solid.
in 1989 Danny Ferry was the 2nd overall pick. But he chose to play in Italy for 1 year, rather than play for the LA Clippers. Eventually the Clippers traded his rights to the Cavs
Onyenso is like Mitch without the rebounding. Which is kind of like Kim Kardashian without ass.
second round required tender is only the 0 year min. but if the knicks goals is to pinch apron pennies, which it seems to be, leon et al are not the type to squeeze 31-35 — who typically do better than the zero year min. so they are probably just trying to get guys who are okay with the zero year min hit.
My pick for #47 or lower is Tyler Bilodeau. Strong 6’9” guy who can really shoot and scores at all 3 levels.
Yeah, it’s something of a DBAD thing because you can force a guy to grit his teeth and play for you for a year and then have his RFA rights.
That said, that’s a lot of uncertainty and bad blood with agencies, and you’re hardly guaranteed to get anything out of a 2RP in year one even if he doesn’t dog it. So in practice the 2nd round involves a lot of pre-negotiation.
So close to our next trade down
Okay we’re on the board. Could take Henri Veesaar here, stretch 5, gives you a little bit of a different look at C. Or not.
looking forward to drafting cash considerations
it’ll probably be the german guy.
Well, I do like Kayil. Good for whoever winds up with him.
Jack Kayil, the German guy, was indeed the pick. I’m going to pretend he’s going to be a Knick for the next five minutes just for fun
Kayil seems like Deuce but a couple of inches taller.
The Knicks Foreign Legion strikes again!
Should I bother watching his highlights or read more apron bullshit?
Took him just in case we’re forced to stash him and can’t trade down
Knicks draft video trailer
Have we traded Jacky Treehorn yet?
Isiah Stewart being traded to Memphis for 2RP. Doesn’t Memphis already have a logjam in their front court?
Evan’s and Thomas both opted out of NIL deals worth several million dollars each. It might be very hard to get them to take a two way salary or a roughly one million dollar minimum second round deal
maybe memphis just wanted someone to make sure ja leaves quietly when they deal him. detroit must have something in mind here.
What did Veesaar do?
Nickel for your thoughts?
Tyler Nickel? Doesn’t seem like he fits any possible need
Literally all Nickel does is shoot.
Nickel is unfortunately the kind of guy you would pick if you were indexing very heavily on who might be able to hold their own in 2026-2027 at the expense of anything resembling upside
Well hey his name is Nickel.
Knickel.
Name checks out
Summer League team needed spacing.
Well it sounds something like Knueppel so there’s that!
NBA Comparison from nbadraft.net: Baylor Scheierman / Jason Kapono
Maybe Nickel can pile up dimes
Hey, you never know. Watching Luke Kornet in his newborn phase, I never expected he would have anything like the career he has built. Maybe Nickel is the type of hard worker that sticks. That’s my two cents.
Ok which big are we taking at 53?
Nelson is way more my speed. Was holding out hope.
The Tyler & Tyler Show!!
Jack Kayil and Hyde.
I’ll legitimately be slightly upset if the Clipper take Veesaar one spot ahead of us. Maybe even more upset if they don’t take him and then we still don’t take him, either.
LOL, even worse.
What if he goes to the Hawks?
I don’t love Veesar. He’s not a great defender and his FT shooting makes me think he’s not actually a shooter.
Ugonna like this pick!
Damn. That feels like a “yeah, Mitch is gone” pick.
so do we keep mitch 2.0? (shot blocker with zero shooting)
Woof. .615?? And they say that’s the best predictor of NBA shooting, right?
Sounds like Jack Kayil plans on staying in the US of A.
Goddam it.
Onyenso A Knick Always A Knick
Whatta Ugonna do?
Ugonna go bye bye 😢
https://t.co/r7m9wO8OCO— Jake Fischer (@JakeLFischer) June 25, 2026 doesn’t seem to say that he’s going to Detroit. It doesn’t even mention Detroit.
I’ve gotta say, Nickel’s shooting stroke is one of the purest I’ve seen in a while. Too bad he sounds like Vanilla Ice when he speaks.
There’s a formula I have in a spreadsheet that mixes 3p%, 3PA/36, and FT%. Tankathon posts their own Predicted 3P% stat, so I just use it. Veesar is at .335. Onyenso is at .328 and he’s described as having no offensive skill.
Oof, Ugonna traded for cash 💵
Nice by the Hawks to get Veesaar . Would of kept that guy that they just got at Center
Waste of time, congrats if you watched
Well it looks like we will be looking to find the next Austin Reaves in the UDFA bin…
Let leon cook
Vive Chef Léon!
The Shaq “Friends with Benefits” commercial is the highlight of the night. Two hours of crap that I will never get back. Just go back to territorial picks. Enough already.
Nickel and Kayil….at least we might have some new blood in summer league. Beyond that, not expecting either to be on the roster in October.
This draft combined with the “no second apron” edict is a little bit dispiriting. I would think that if you know you’re losing talent because of the apron, you might want to try to find some cheap talent in the second round of the draft.
Not sure how they’re going to replace some of the guys that are probably on their way out the door.
Also James Dolan sucks
15 RBI in a series is crazy (Dansby )
Maybe we’ll grab an UDFA on a 2-way
I’m fine with the team stockpiling 2nds, adding a couple of players that could be OK, and making a few million dollars, but I don’t understand the bigger picture.
If they are hell bent on staying under the 2nd apron, fine, but that likely means Mitch is gone. So exactly how are they going to find some bench help at C now?
If Mitch is staying, who is going?
If they are going over the 2nd apron, why all these draft moves?
The second game of the Mets doubleheader was probably the worst game they have played all season. They committed SIX infield errors. Every infielder had at least one error, and Vientos and Siemien had two each.
I said it back in April: these guys do not show up at the park ready to play. Sure, the personnel stinks (Semien and Vientos are not MLB caliber players) but in addition to a lack of talent they play with zero focus or attention to detail.
I’m just amazed that Mendoza still has his job.
Well this guy doesn’t seem to have any interest in being draft and stash https://x.com/NBA_NewYork/status/2069971295094165929
Know absolutely nothing about Jack Kayil but NBADraft.net list Ajay Mitchell & Killian Hayes as comps. Me likey!
https://www.nbadraft.net/players/jack-kayil/
Hayes was a scrub
From his stats he can’t shoot at all . That seems like the only thing I can tell .
Not knowing jack shit about Jack, gonna default to “In Leon I trust” on this one. This FO seem to be especially dialed in on international prospects, having pulled Mo out of thin air last year. And, yeah, I like the Ajay comp.
So I’ll continue wishcasting on this kid for the next couple of weeks until he stinks it up in Summer League.
Kayli likes to shoot from well beyond the arc and when he does attempt a mid-range, he is often off balance. But he is a winner and he’s young.
One thing that stands out in his highlights is that he takes lots of low-percentage 3’s…either contested off-the-dribble or from very long range. The guy he superficially reminds me of a bit is Quentin Grimes.
Before I get too excited… he’s still a Knick, right?
Pistons trying to get Kawhi or Lebron. Not sure either of them would want to play in Detroit. It’d be so strange for Lebron to do it? If they get a healthy Kawhi in the playoffs, that’s a good team, but what are the odds?
LeBron will never go there . Clippers are looking to keep Kawhi and I think he wants to stay en California.
We treated this draft exactly like the 2024 draft, and that was the one where we had to stay under the second apron. So all signs unfortunately point to the Dolan edict being legit.
I think I figured it out. Yep. This will all make sense when we sign LeBron for the TPMLE.
With no center selected, it does appear as if they will be making an effort to keep Mitch. The two picks they did make can each be signed for the $1.3 million second round minimum. If they let Landry walk, that could free up enough additional space to make a competitive offer.
Isn’t Kawhi getting his contract voided, or does the NBA just hope we forgot about that?
(It worked for the premier league and Manchester City I guess)
The NBA hasn’t made a decision yet..
Just watched Kayil and Nickel highlights
Not bad
Their shooting style is fast and slightly leaned forward to the right hand but they can both shoot
They also seem quite athletic
Watching Nickel highlights for too long makes me wonder how anyone has missed any shot ever.
You know Clyde is dying to say “Nickel with the dime”
“You know Clyde is dying to say “Nickel with the dime”
Clyde will never have the opportunity to say that. If Nickel makes it onto the floor for us in an NBA game, one thing he *won’t* be doing is passing the ball (a “dime”) to anyone else, or even really be *expected to* pass the ball to anyone else. He’s a really good shooter, and can’t do much of anything else (although he possesses good size and at least tries a little bit on defense).
I’m thinking he tops out at Duncan Robinson (who was undrafted) if he develops, which really is not bad at all for a pick that low.
Still wish we had picked up a behemoth Center as Mitch insurance, though, whether he leaves or gets injured. I want to believe in Huk, and for sure he’s had his moments, but I haven’t seen enough to be excited by him or think that he can really be a piece for us.
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