ESPN Reports Mitch has signed with the Celtics:
Free agent center Mitchell Robinson, fresh off winning an NBA title with the New York Knicks, has agreed to a three-year, $47.4 million deal to sign with the Boston Celtics, with a player option in the third season, sources tell ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Robinson was the longest-tenured Knick and one of only two rotation players originally drafted by New York (Miles McBride being the other) who were heavy contributors in their championship run. In his eight seasons with the Knicks, Robinson averaged 7.5 points and 8.0 rebounds in just under 24 minutes a game.
Hukporti agreed to a one-year, $3.4 million deal with the 76ers on Wednesday, Shams Charania of ESPN reports.
The 76ers will add some athletic frontcourt depth behind Joel Embiid and Adem Bona, with Andre Drummond set for unrestricted free agency. Hukporti was used sparingly by the Knicks during the 2025-26 regular season, appearing in 54 games with 2.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 0.5 blocks in 9.2 minutes per contest.
So the Knicks are looking for someone to play center. Applicants should be 6-10+ or taller, can rebound and defend at an NBA level, be able to hit a free throw, and can work around the peculiarities of a billionaire owner who is cheap when it comes to his sports team, but will spare no expense on his pretend rock band.
52 replies on “Knicks Lose Mitch (BOS) & Hukporti (PHI). Can You Play Center?”
I asked this in the previous thread which is now closed, so I’ll paste it here:
I’m going to apologize in advance for my own salary cap/apron ignorance. Okay, now that I have that out of the way…
Would it have been possible to have selected Tarris Reed at 24, and then also use the TP-MLE to sign Kevon Looney? I know it’s water under the bridge because that did not happen, but I’m wondering if that was a possibility given our unwillingness to act like a big market team.
I’m calling for taking a look at him https://x.com/freewave3/status/2070682175440146764
Does Jalen Duren also play bass, a la Waymon Tisdale?
If so, maybe Dolan happily goes over the second apron for someone who can serve to both back up KAT on the Knicks and back up JD on the Straight Shot.
I’d be fine with Cisse at this point. I’d even be fine with Looney, Ayton, Moses Brown, almost anyone who is a big body and has at least a little bit of NBA experience under their belt.
“no reason not to draft a center
One reason would be having someone in mind who is more NBA ready – if not better – than the choices available in the 2nd rd of this year’s draft.”
OK, then what are they waiting for now? For no one to be available?
i can do anything…
wanna/gonna believe our front office, scouting folks are in the background completely jazzed at the opportunity to amaze all with some player we have not really considered too much up to this point…
there are people who’s whole occupational purpose is to have spreadsheets like EB with players names and situations on ‘em…
so yeah, most likely will take more than nic richards or kevon looney to get me jazzed about this situation…
Steve Cohen appears to be as dumb as James Dolan.
While the main emotion I’m feeling is HATE for Dolan, I also worry about Mitch a bit; as intimated in the last thread he’s going somewhere that is not conducive to improvements in mental health. Besides even worse winter weather, when he missed free throws Knicks fans were mostly “C’mon, Mitch, you loveable lug, let’s hit the second!” Celtics hate-mongers will have no such compassion for an ex-Knick who can’t do Larry Bird things.
Can you imagine Jaylen Brown and Mitch in the same locker room lmao
Here’s my answer:
1 Brunson, Alvarado, Kolek
2 Bridges, McBride, Shamet
3 Anunoby, Hart, Dadiet
4 LeBron, Hart, Diawara
5 Towns, Looney, TBD
Looney is the regular season workhorse. LeBron plays backup 5 when you get to the serious games.
Bleacher Report and Yahoo Sports have both tweeted that Lebron is open to taking the vet minimum to sign with a contender, per Shams. I can’t find anything from Shams himself firsthand. Maybe he said it on TV.
That being said, HMMMMMMMMM. HMMMM
BTW imagine if we fill out the team all the way up to the second apron and then LeBron says he wants to come play for the vet minimum.
Get Looney to eat innings in the backup big spot and acquire Cisse to take Huk’s place as a development project.
Edit: Cisse is RFA
I’m not down on rostering LeBron, but:
1. He’s not coming here on a cheap contract, which means that he’s not coming here.
so
2. Let’s please not give it a lot of “airtime” and instead focus on the immediate issue, which is clearly backup centers.
1. Diabate
2. Cisse
3. Looney
4. Brown
5. Ayton
Let’s please just do something fairly quickly before this gets worse.
I hate to say that LeBron makes sense, as I am not a huge fan of his, but he really does make sense. Pretty much a perfect situation for him…and best case scenario for us.
We could offer $4M out of possible $6M. Whether Looney requires that much is still an open question.
I’ll use the 25th pick numbers because we were able to trade down:
The max you can give the 25th pick is $3,182,280. Most 1st rd picks do get the max.
The minimum number for the 2nd rd is $1,358,084. If he’s replacing Nickel or Kayil, you lose roughly $1.8M of the TP-MLE.
That leaves roughly $4M out of the max $6M you can offer. (If you lowball Reed, it’d be about $5.1M).
Dadiet Scenario
Reed costs only $200K more than Dadiet. If you dump Dadiet, you can probably structure another player’s pending deal to still offer the full TP-MLE.
Short version:
Reed for 2nd Rd pick -> -$1.8M
Reed for Dadiet -> $0
Regarding the draft, Katz (I think) said today that on draft night, the team had no way of knowing how much of a discount they might get from Shamet. Perhaps if they had been sure of that number, they would have made more/higher picks, since the guaranteed dollars would have mattered less.
Ayton https://x.com/HaterReport/status/2053486617894007023?lang=en
Still in shock. Mitch to the Celtics is so upsetting I honestly can’t think about anything else.
Just a dagger
Looney + Lebron better than Mitch?
It would be tough for Z-Man because on one hand he hates LeBron but on the other hand he loves to win an argument, and LeBron on the vet min would finally prove that you can get 80% of Mitch at 20% the cost.
LeBron is a much better basketball player than Mitch so of course..
All of this LeBron James talk sounds like pure fantasy to me. I mean, maybe Superman from the planet krypton will show up and be willing to take the Vet minimum too.
Can we pry Sorber loose from OKC?
LeBron will go to Miami for the minimum because of course he will
Golden State feels most likely. Riding off into the sunset, finally teaming up with Steph
If he really wants another ring and he is willing to take the vet minimum to do it, why would he go to Miami or Cleveland or GSW?
Sorry but those teams have no shot at a title.
The salary scale for the #24 pick is ~$2.8M, though most non-Pacome Dadiet picks get 120% of it, which would be ~$3.3M.
As best I can tell, if we gave Reed $2.8M and signed Nickel or whoever else to a rookie-minimum, we could use about ~$4.5M of the TPMLE. That should be more than enough for Looney.
Even if we had to give Reed 120% of the slot scale, ~$4M still seems like plenty for Looney. We know it was enough for Huk!
Dolan isn’t doing to bad https://www.instagram.com/p/DaEN_dGjBkr/
never thought i’d enjoy urbanish livin’ as much as i do…been learning best time to be out and walking about is early mornings…so cool seeing all the folks camped in/around coffee shops chilling and in a bunch of cases doing work…seems folks like hitting the salons and barbershops early too…
enjoy breakfasts foods a bunch, don’t eat much though before noon anymore…coffee frightens me, love the smell, tastes okay, tough on the nerves though – plus, like my energy buff in some delicious dark chocolate form…
got a chance to walk around some of the treatment centers around stanford, the area by the creek is so pretty…this whole area is some of the better urban planning I’ve come across…
absolutely packed with humans, still a lot of green all around though…it’s funny with all the pedestrians and cyclists, driving around is like playing reverse frogger game…
was up here in the mid-90’s doing semi-conductor manufacturing stuff…surprisingly dangerous work environment with all the acids and gasses used in the process at the time…
it was neat KfniNJ, recognized some of the things going on at your conference, interesting field to participate in 😊 hard to imagine the development you’ve seen over the years…
Sucks losing Mitch especially to the fucking Celtics but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say if Knicks sign Looney it might turn out to be an actual slight upgrade over keeping.
Cisse wouldn’t be the first player the Mavs let walk to us for nothing…
how does it go these days: guys got a suite in your head…evict him already, like yesterday…
especially if you can’t act on your feelings, like impotence personified…
As an agent, Leon likely developed a unique ability to read the pulse of FOs around the league. I imagine he’s way more dialed in than many of his counterparts as to every team’s pressure points and the potential roster shake-ups that could result.
The start of the season is months away yet. No need for him to make a panic signing now just because Mitch & Huk left on the same day. My bet is he’s got his eye on several situations in which he knows there is a good possibility of a useful big shaking loose. The answer at backup C may not be made apparent for awhile.
I would’ve dumped Dadiet with seconds to draft Reed if possible. Dadiet going to sit in the G league again all season ..
Lakers starting 5 at the moment ? https://x.com/LakersLead/status/2072357414171463838
If we signed LeBron to a minimum deal I would be sick to my stomach but would come around and root for the laundry as I always do. But for sure, if it became the LeBron farewell tour and he got predictably injured and just became a celebrity eating up a roster spot, you would hear plenty about it from me.
Anyway, it’s not gonna happen, so why gin up pointless discussion about it? Complete waste of time.
Anyway, the largest of all points I’m trying to make is, patience is a good thing when it comes to Leon. It payed off in spades in the past. Let’s see what happens before passing too much judgement, beyond what we all know, meaning that Dolan is who he is and will never change.
I think the difference between Dolan and Trump is that Trump is so dumb he just goes along with whatever the last person who has ear says.
I was hoping they were the same in that regard and someone could just talk to Jimmy at the eleventh hour and all would be fine. But I guess Dolan is just a stubborn, dopey Irishman.
LeBron’s farewell tour overshadowing a potential repeat season would be a vibe killer akin to Trump attending game 3.
I can see LeBron going to Miami to pair up with Giannis. Joining Steph is too KDish. I doubt LeBron wants that comparison.
I want Bron in Utah
Thank you darules.
What he said.
People doing things against their own interest is so on-brand these days.
He never did.
Folks like Dolan know they are right.
The New England Patriots?
I am having a similar feeling to 1994 when Mike Keenan quit the Rangers after the Cup and the vibes shifted. Luckily, the Knicks still have coach and core locked in.
no question nba fanboy me would now like to update my next destination wish for old king james…fuck cleveland…
come ball out in msg for a couple of years…join kevon looney and get yourself a couple of more rings…
want that elite team together vibe one or two more seasons – we are them for 2026-2027…
As a 10+ year vet, Looney can get paid $3,887,445 on a vet minimum contract and only count the 2-year vet min level of $2,450,000 against recognized payroll.
That $3.887M is so close to what the Knicks have to offer per the TPMLE (and might actually be more, if a 2RP is not rostered) that I highly doubt the Knicks will use the TPMLE on Looney.
Maybe for for a player of less experience than Looney the TPMLE might come into play as an alternative to the vet min, but, as things stand, I suspect Knicks will want to stay away from the hard cap consequence of the TPMLE, with so little real consequence in the compensation available to the player.
Seeing what some other bench types are getting in free agency is pretty sobering, and makes you realize we will likely be filling the Mitch slot with garbage.
Of the realistic options, Kevon Looney seems like the best bet by a mile, which is not saying much.
No doubt what he thinks. I worked for a small company in the dot-com era. The owner was a nepo-baby who helped the company by spending the summers whoring it up & skipping work most days, which led to a huge increase in productivity due to his absence and non-meddling. Pretty much any time he was out, and there were a lot, was a super productive day.
He got the company into consulting right when it started to get hot. Brought all his techs into his office to give them a “pep-talk”. He said we all need to work harder, that this was a huge opportunity, and then when into “rich people get rich because they work harder than poor folks – I got rich by working harder than everyone in here.” He truly believed it.
These folks always think the success of their organizations is by them alone, not the people who do the work for them.
Needless to say the company, although going into the right niche at the right time, would go under in a few years.
Dude, LeBron played 2,000 minutes last year and posted a 3.5 bpm.
And then he won a playoff series with Rui Hachimura, Marcus Smart, Luke Kennard, and DeAndre Ayton as his 4 other starters.
This ain’t his farewell tour. That’s at least two years away.
LeBron’s farewell tour comes when LeBron says it does.
Probably should have done without the “Irishman” part, oaktrees.
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