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Knicks Bulletin: ‘Hey, listen, they got roles in the league, man’ – Posting & Toasting
Pacome Dadiet scores 20 but Knicks fall to Nets in 91-65 Summer League rout – SNY
SummerNets 91, SummerKnicks 65: Scenes from a shining Knickel – Posting & Toasting
The NBA’s seven biggest non-LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard questions left to be answered this offseason – CBS Sports
Nets 91-65 Knicks (Jul 10, 2026) Box Score – ESPN
Jordan Clarkson re-signing with Knicks on one-year deal – SNY
Knicks vs Spurs – Recap & Reaction | SUMMER LEAGUE | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
Knicks Vs Nets Summer League Post-Game – Knick of Time
KNICKS vs SPURS | LAS VEGAS SUMMER LEAGUE | FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | July 11, 2026 – NBA
The Run.down Knicks vs Spurs Summer League Postgame Show – The Strickland
YT News
56 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.07.12)”
So what I gather is:
1. Nickel looks like he can really shoot, and his defense is better than expected.
2. Mo has completely forgotten how to shoot, and the rest of his game hasn’t notably advanced.
3. Dadiet is doing good complimentary things, but his shot also isn’t there.
4. Other than them and Kayil — whom I didn’t hear anything about other than his box score stats — the rest of the roster is absolute trash.
That about right?
There are times his athleticism shows up as an issue on defense but he’s not getting blown by every trip down the court or anything.
Needs almost no room for his shot. Hits them off movement. Hitting all these 3s despite the fact nobody can breakdown the defense is pretty damn impressive.
He’s really not doing anything productive offense, less than he did last SL. He could probably use a wider bodied center to set some picks.
He’s tried to post smallee players a couple times to no success. Would be a nice addition to his game if he keeps at it.
He kinda looks like he’s just chucking it at the rim on his 3s without seriously trying to make it because he knows he’s supposed to be shooting in those situations.
Kayil moves really well. Looked good on defense to me. He can create space for his own shot, but ends up with a lot of bricks. This SL squad probably isn’t the best environment to rein in his shooting.
Thanks, EB. I only caught a few minutes of the games. SL is such a weird environment that takeaways are mostly unreliable, especially from someone like Mo who has already shown what he can do in real NBA games. But Nickel’s shooting seems very transferable. It will be 100% about his D.
On that note, have any of the top-10 picks looked either surprising good or terrible?
From P&T this morning:
“Summer League is for testing boundaries and challenging guys with roles they aren’t comfortable with. For Diawara, the Knicks are giving him some truly unreasonable challenges.
A guy with a very limited offensive bag at the moment is being tasked with initiating an offense with negative firepower (except for Nickel). Pretty much every shot he’s taken is either a grenade, contested, or not in rhythm. I didn’t watch much of Saturday’s game with other things on TV, but Friday’s looked like the team was intentionally trying to make things harder for him.”
https://www.postingandtoasting.com/knicks-analysis/87679/knicks-nba-summer-league-mo-diawara-struggles-jack-kayil-tyler-nickel-kolek
Getting blown out in our first 2 summer league games and thinking “who gives a shit? We’re the freaking NBA champions!”
It’s good to be the kings
I saw an insane tweet this morning, where someone asked if, knowing how bad our summer league team was going to look, we would still want that championship. Who thinks that way?!?!
Bondy: “ Wouldn’t be surprised if Jack Kayil indeed stays with the Knicks next season rather than getting stashed.”
I think my takeaway for Mo would just be that he could use a method to generate his own offense. He doesn’t need to do it, at least for us, but being even a little bit of a threat to beat your man is a huge boon to the offense. It would also help unlock his passing as a weapon.
Definitely the overall shitty offense is partly to blame for the bad shooting. I personally don’t trust his shot at all, but this isn’t the best data point.
Again, I think this highlights just how good a shooter Nickel is to make 3s at a high rate for this shit show.
My son quipped that in 12 years that this would be a teacher taking attendance in a NYC middle school classroom:
Jalen?
Here.
Jalen?
Here.
Jalen?
Here.
Ogugua?…
i agree it’s hard to make much of diawara’s offense in this context. although maybe people can stop thinking about the siakam archetype, which is not a good comp my view. mo has actually made some really nice passes but his finishing and handle in traffic are still looking really rough. i don’t remember seeing anyone near his size use his offhand so overtly to stabilize the back side of the ball when going straight to the rim.
his defense on the other hand has looked really rough to me and really needs to be better. i feel like dadiet and even nickel have outplayed him on that end for two games.
There are 51 players with FG% .000 – 8 play for our beloved NY Knicks !? 😛
pt, I agree that Siakam is not a great comp beyond the similar measurables. There seems to be a gap in fluidity and instinctive timing that shows up on both ends. Not sure that he can ever close that gap. But hey, Siakam is an all-star level 2-way player, and I’m only hoping that Mo can become a solid backup with some upside. Who is a better upside comp?
To help Diawara’s case, i’ve gathered a list of “notable” SL performances in 2021 and 2022, because by now we know if those players went on to have a career or not.
Santi Aldama (2021-22) FG 8-43 (.186) 3P 2-20 (.100) FT 7-10 (.700) [Draft 2021 – Pick #30]
Tre Mann (2021-22) FG 7-29 (.241) 3P 0-6 (.000) FT 4-4 (1.000) [Draft 2021 – Pick #18]
Austin Reaves (2021-22) FG 13-44 (.295) 3P 3-12 (.250) FT 6-6 (1.000) [Draft 2021 – Undrafted]
Julian Champagnie (2022-23) FG 6-23 (.261) 3P 3-14 (.214) FT 2-2 (1.000) [Draft 2022 – Undrafted]
Tre Mann (2022-23) FG 10-38 (.263) 3P 4-16 (.250) FT 10-12 (.833) [Draft 2021 – Pick #18]
Aaron Nesmith (2022-23) FG 10-37 (.270) 3P 5-20 (.250) FT 4-6 (.667) [Draft 2020 – Pick #14]
Sam Hauser (2022-23) FG 6-21 (.286) 3P 4-16 (.250) FT 3-3 (1.000) [Draft 2021 – Undrafted]
Great post, cyber.
What the heck is up with that Gary Trent deal?
Seems like a crazy amount of money for that guy
Alan, I didn’t see all of the latest game, but my impression was that the offense was a little smoother with Kayil in there. The team mostly still couldn’t shoot, but they were missing better shots. And I noted from the box score that he led the team in both assists (3) and rebounds (5!). I think it is promising he could do that much stuff in his first 21 minutes of play.
As for the rest of the roster, Dillon Jones hasn’t looked awful and did some nice things at times.
Owen, lots of pundits are speculating that this contract was a quid pro quo for taking an under market deal when he first signed with the Bucks as a free agent.
My best bet is that he has nudes of the Bucks’ GM !! 😂
From the CBS link above “The NBA’s seven biggest non-LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard questions left to be answered this offseason”
The Knicks question is “Will the Knicks add another backup center?”
Here are some bits of the article…
“The Knicks are down to about $3.2 million in second-apron space, with one roster spot left to fill. The obvious way to use it would be to add a third center. Andre Drummond is an obvious downgrade from Mitchell Robinson”
“They tried and failed to trade for Yves Missi. They could look to other centers on rookie deals. While they’d obviously prefer to avoid giving up what precious draft capital they still have, it’s worth noting that their 2033 first-round pick — along with swaps in 2030 and 2032 — are tradable. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising to see the Knicks dangle Deuce McBride in such a trade, either.”
“If the Knicks are going to shop for a bigger name, it might make more sense to do so during the season, when filling out roster spots is cheaper and they’d therefore have a bit more flexibility to trade for someone making actual money.”
“The Knicks had success at guard by signing a few players, including Malcolm Brogdon and Garrison Mathews, to non-guaranteed deals to compete for a job. The winner of that competition was Landry Shamet, who ultimately became essential. Perhaps the Knicks take a similar route at center, though that talent pool is obviously shallower.”
Yeah, but it looks so blatantly that, the nba probably will feel forced to investigate it, and the Bucks could lose some draft picks in the process. Amazing.
Seriously? Investigation? That is nuts.
Who is a better upside comp?
i think if you want to keep his crazy wingspan in the comp mold all good case options will seem pretty tenuous, because there just aren’t many volume 3pt shooting pterodactyls who can run and pass off the dribble but can’t really rebound or block shots or get to the foul line. if i want to try to squeeze everything in, maybe clifford robinson is the best i can come up with… but my heart’s not in it for a kid that had 2 dunks and 6 blocks in 634 minutes as a 20 yr old. if he was an absolute lights out shooter maybe you could hope for an otto porter type good case, but that seems like it’s asking too much from the shot.
Yeah, but it looks so blatantly that, the nba probably will feel forced to investigate it, and the Bucks could lose some draft picks in the process. Amazing.
sometimes the crime is punishment enough.
Look up the Joe Smith investigation from 2000. Minny was stripped of five 1st round draft picks.
I don’t give much credence to summer league but Alan started us off the right way:
I can see him coming in raining 3’s like Novak did. And yes, there was defensive effort but his lack of quickness got exposed at times. To make it in the NBA he’s going to need to work on his athleticism. He may not be quick enough yet to guard NBA wings.
He looked lost and I agree that it seems like he’s being pushed to do new things, like bringing the ball up the court. His handle was iffy and it there was an absolute lack of chemistry with teammates.
The bad shots and bad plays were disappointing to see.
Smelly trash. Not one of them looks like an NBA player. Most don’t even look like a G-leaguer. I was watching Kayil closely. He has good vision and quick hands. Looks like a nice Euro-stash.
Kayil has this very deliberate and methodical style to his game, kind of like a shorter Kyle Anderson. Seems to have very little burst or ability to separate off the dribble, but is still effective because he has good balance and handle.
I thought of Jerami Grant as a comp for Mo, as a second rounder with a similar physical profile and who came in kind of raw but really developed. Mo is different than Jerami in some ways but that’s the developmental arc I hope for.
Jerami definitely benefited by getting tons of minutes early on with those Hinkie teams.
For the record, Diawara was not a shooter prior to joining the Knicks and shot poorly from 3 the last part of the season. So maybe that hot steak should be seen as the aberration and not his current bad shooting.
Feels like I missed the fan tryouts bulletin where they seemingly found all these guys.
I’m hoping Kayil can help stabilize the offense with a few practices under his belt and a couple days to get over jet lag. If he can usage soak for the starters, it’ll slot the other players into more natural offensive roles.
I’m surprised Tyler Kolek isn’t in summer league. He may be a little too good for it but not by much, and it sounds like the team would really benefit from an organizer.
I know I previously poo-poo’d Thomas Sorber but that was strictly as a backup C, a position he’s not nearly ready for yet. I’d love to have him as the third-string C, though, and it would be nice if one of these French kids were good enough to land him. OKC loves them some cheap wings, and Sorber is their 5th option at C.
I’m kind of still holding out hope that Andre Drummond will be the #3 center
I wish Deuce were taller.
That’s optimistic. I think we’re looking at 2-3 months of Andre Drummond playing 15-18 mpg at C before determining if we need to spend serious capital on a major move.
We have around $3.2M left in space. Just not sure who we could get for that sum that would be worthwhile. It’s less than the vet min for a lot of guys.
We’re waiting on a major move if Drummond is going to be 3.
Some talking heads also said they don’t think Drummond comes here without some assurance he’s #2 on the depth chart to start the season. And that seems reasonable to me.
It would make more sense to me to gamble on a young upside guy instead of a marginally better center.
I would think that, barring a very positive development, the primary backup C spot is Drummond’s to lose. However, I don’t think it would take much for him to lose it unless our 3rd C is virtually unplayable.
Assuming that that’s how it goes, the biggest question for me is how much the schematic approach during Drummond’s minutes will vary compared to Mitch’s minutes last year.
tried summer league, was a little tough to stay watching for very long…most likely will start just going with the highlights…
those still with the vigor to stay engaged with some off-season sausage making nuances – bravo and worthy diversion…way way better than doing that endless vid short scrolling thing, just looking, for some thing…not that i would know, much…
feel so full still off that championship playoff run, nine or ten months from now will be hoping for another run, just like that…the giants or even yankees barely exist right now…sports for a while is all like – what ever…no stress…the new york knicks are the current nba champions…forever and ever nba champs this past season…
remember daughter never wanted to stay home, for the day, hour, minute, always wanted to get going, some where…boys are a whole different story…some how they seem more home bound than me…phones and games with their friends, food served to them occasionally, seems to be good enough for the moment…just a different view of watching the kids grow…reorganizing now around the house relatively unimpeded though…
patio is coming along well…did this trestle thing over the gate, been about a year, got some good vine growth on it, only trouble is the vine is really hard to control, in the past, tried eliminating the thing, nope, now just try to trim it often, or a lot if no trimming gets done for a while…thing goes for a strangle hold on everything else growing around it…besides for the extra work, been interesting to see how it does what it does, so aggressively…tomorrow’s maintenance schedule includes a little scrubbing action along the railing, even only leaving out finch food and nectar, bird feeders = a little extra cleanup…
not trying to compromise on feeders or gargoyles (they got a job to do), just gotta make sure all the other stuff is less…
best thing about gardening – you can totally check out for a few days, even a couple of weeks, things are still relatively okay…not so much with pets or people…
Hey geo, what kinda vine is that? Not that I have any good ideas with vines, just a quiet Sunday and not feeling like arguing about bottom-of-the-barrel centers.
If you don’t know there are apparently some nice apps where you just point your camera at a plant and it tells you what it is. I’m too damn lazy to download such a thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to be like me…
Nice post, geo. Sounds like championship put the retirement groove iinto full swing,
Amazing sequence of info:
Jake Fischer: “DeAndre Jordan’s agreement to return to New Orleans is for two years, $7.9 million, sources say, with both seasons fully guaranteed.”
———
@rowbear32: “There was no reason to guarantee a 2nd year, but I do want to dispel some dooming I’ve seen. This is his vet min. He has over 10 years of exp so his min. is higher than most.
The NBA pays the extra of any vet min. past 2 years of exp lvl. So this is really a 2 yr. ~$4.9M deal”
———
@rowbear32 again: “Update on this, I was informed by someone in the league that the NBA prorate of vet min. deals only applies to 1 year deals. So the Pelicans will be paying the entire $7.9M
His comment was, “I don’t think they understood the rule” referring to Joe Dumars.”
That is amazing Alan
Wow. Yet another reason to be thankful for Brock Aller!
Over/under on NBA resolving the Gary Trent investigation before Kawhi?!
Watched the 2nd NYK summer league game before losing myself in Instagram endless scrolling for 2-3 hrs! Maaan this shit can easily become neverending!
Nickel Can Shoot and despite the non perfect percentages almost every 3p shot he took was extremely fast taken and looked smooth nomatter if it went in or out.
Kayil looked good also for a debut and he demonstrated pretty pure with beautiful arc 3p shooting style too while making his 2 b2b threes(2/7)
Dadiet made a couple of confident drives that showed nice dribbling and moving but he has much work to do.
Diawara needs to be sent to Mykonos and continue the Championship Party!
Rest of the players don’t look like actual players but more like random guys taken on the team’s bus from the street before going to the game.
*Dillon Jones has 2 rings tho!
In case you were looking for more reasons to hate James Dolan and his money grubbing second apron edict… early reviews on OAKAAK Sergio De Larrea are positively glowing:
My wife took a train home from Baltimore today, and was seated next to a man from Louisiana, who had never written a train before, and was on his way to New York to see Jay-Z in concert. Turns out he is Willis Reed’s nephew.
“My wife took a train home from Baltimore today, and was seated next to a man from Louisiana, who had never written a train before, and was on his way to New York to see Jay-Z in concert. Turns out he is Willis Reed’s nephew.”
That is awesome!
Deandre Jordan? Can’t be serious
Baba Miller is interesting . Somebody I liked pre draft.
You are correct, but probably not for the reasons you might think. You folks need to compare apples to apples.
If you compare Siakim vs Diawara in their rookie season (Siakim with 1100 minutes of WAC college ball at 22 and Diawara’s 20 yr old season with some play in France) Diawara was significantly better:
Diawara Siakim
Mins 634 858
TS% .550 .523
3pt% 36.9% on 130 shots 14.7% on 7 shots
BPM -1.7 -2.4
Pt/36 14.0 9.6
ft% 75% 66.8%
ast/36 3.0 0.7
Diawara in his 20 year old season held up quite well to Siakim’s 22 year old season.
Siakam just isn’t a comp for Diawara, though. Siakam was much more of a rebounder/finisher/post scorer. Mo is actually more like young OG—3&D guy with some passing. But Mo is not on OG’s level defensively. Interesting that he’s backing OG up at the stretch-4 position. Almost like that’s on purpose.
Mo also isn’t great at the rim like young OG, but OG eventually improved there and also improved his outside shooting. Pretty great role model for Mo.
Diawara is most likely an unfinished product but there are things he will probably never be all that good at, or anywhere near as good as, say, Siakam.
But he is also very good at certain other things for a guy his age, maybe better than Siakam was at that age. He has strong finishing ability with both hands. He handles the ball very well. He seems to see the floor well He is good at getting into a defensive stance and using his wingspan at the point of attack.
No one knows for sure where his ceiling is, but his floor seems to be “NBA rotation player.” I think these next 3 months will really help him, and Mike Brown is surely gonna try to find out where that ceiling is.
On that notr, one of the most fun things about going into this next year with a glorious championship under our belts is that we know what we have in Mike Brown. There are no longer any questions about “can he be the coach of a championship team?” Or whether he’s a good fit for this team. Or “If only Leon had hired X…” buyer’s remorse. For me, it takes a bit of the edge off of the roster side of things.
I don’t know where you get that idea about Siakam as a rookie…. maybe extrapolating backward from today, but Siakam absolutely sucked offensively as a rookie. Not an opinion, completely demonstratable.
First scored he 9.6 points /36 whic is abysmal. For comparison that would rank 17 on this year’s Knicks, just ahead of Ariel Hukporti.
Secondly, he shot 60.0% from 0-3 feet which is just as abysmal. For comparison, that would rank also 17th on this year’s knicks just ahead of Kevin McCullar.
Thirdly, for a guy you called a “finisher/post SCORER” he had a tiny free throw attempt rate which would put him 12th on this year’s Knicks (between Clarkson and Alvarado for a 6-8 power forward.)
Fourthly his OBPM was a dismal -3.0 which would tie him for 14th on this year’s Knicks 7/10s of a point ahead of that offensive juggernaut Ariel Hukporti!
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