Knicks Morning News (2026.07.20)

It’s pretty clear that, now that all ownership sees the actual consequences of going into the second apron, we can safely conclude that not a single owner faced with the same circumstances today would have gone into the second apron to retain a TPMLE-level player like Mitch.
-While the OKC comparison is not perfectly analogous, it’s pretty clear that, like us, they a) had the best chance of fielding a proven championship team this year by simply running the one from less than 400 days ago back with Dort, Joe, and Wiggins, and b) like the Knicks, they parted with a key player (actually a starter), who on that championship team was similarly impactful to Mitch (4th in DPoY voting, 1st team all-defense) and who is clearly more reliable than Mitch (averaged more than 70 games over past 4 seasons). And like Mitch, he was the longest tenured home-grown player.
-The brilliance of Presti’s work over the decade (after his Blunder of All Blunders—squandering James Harden) was creating a framework based on flexibility and redundancy inherent in rookie-scale deals and unprecedented draft capital. The Knicks were unprepared to lose Mitch, not because of the apron, but because they didn’t have the foresight to have a viable low-cost replacement in the pipeline. Nor did they have the foresight to extend Mitch when they could have so he could have been traded (although Dort was traded for a pittance) rather than “lost for nothing.”

Predictable responses, something like “Well, the Knicks don’t have the extended championship window that OKC has so they had way more reason/urgency to buck the trend, and besides, the non-financial penalties of going into the second apron are grossly overstated, so it comes down to Dolan being either cheap or stupid.”

While this all might be true, it is also probably the case that any of the other 29 owners/groups’ names could have been inserted into the statement and it would have not changed a thing. So we’re essentially bashing Dolan for not being different than all the others.

If folks would just admit that the other 29 owners would have made the same decision that didn’t make sense, we’re all good. I wish Dolan would have done what makes sense. Alas, we live in a world that that is impossible no matter who owned the team (out of the current owners, most of whom are equally “senseless” and have proven as much.)

“Another false equivalence down.”

Actually, it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is an exact equivalency.

Presti is definitively saying that it wasn’t a basketball decision, it was a financial decision. He’s saying that the team would have been better (i.e. had a better chance to win another championship) if ownership would have been okay with going into the second apron.

In that sense, it is 100% analagous to Leon vs. Dolan.

And when the loudest voice on the “false equivalency” side admits “I do think losing Dort will hurt them, though” wtf is he even arguing about?

It’s actually possible that losing Dort is gonna hurt OKC way more than the Knicks losing Mitch. The Mitch stans among us won’t want to hear this, of course, and will insist that 1st team all defense starter Lu Dort to [insert name here] is less impactful of a dropoff than Mitch to Drummond, despite the fact that Mitch played 13.9 MPG in the playoffs and was a net negative in the finals.

“Dort was a -63 against SAS. But okay.”

Mitch was a -36 in 67 minutes (-0.54 per minute) vs. Dort’s -63 in 135 minutes (-0.47 per minute). But okay.

“The inserted name is Cason Wallace”

Lu Dort and Cason Wallace do not even play the same position. Dort will be replaced by distributing his minutes to multiple players. There will be situations where Dort’s 22-27 mpg are missed. You said it yourself.

Mitch will be similarly replaced. Five of those players will be Drummond, KAT, OG, Mo and Hart. There will be situations where Mitch’s 14-18 minutes are missed.

It is indeed an equivancy. Thanks for proving it!