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Why can’t the Knicks go back-to-back? – Posting & Toasting
Knicks Notes: Jack Kayil to play overseas this season; what’s next for Tyler Nickel – SNY
The Knicks just won their first title in 53 years. What should fans expect now? Vote – The New York Times
Knicks’ 2026 preseason schedule emerges amid NBA offseason – Posting & Toasting
Why this is the most important season of Miles McBride’s Knicks career – SNY
James Dolan’s BIG WIN! Knicks Business – Championship Knicks Cashing In w/ Caleb Silver – Knicks Fan TV
Best 20 Knicks Games of the Leon Rose Era | #17 – Knicks 130, Cavaliers 116 (3/31/23) – Knicks Film School
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42 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.08.18)”
From The Athletic today
That ESPN article was Ballmer’s personal PR piece.
Unless there is really hard evidence, I’m still thinking that there are going to be consequences, just nothing all that extreme. Probably just enough so that it won’t be worth the negative publicity of going to arbitration. 10-20 games for Kawhi, couple of million in fines for the Clips plus loss of a future pick or two.
The CBA does say that just the appearance of collusion is enough, but I’m sure Ballmer is heavily protesting having a big penalty when there is no written proof of intention. But the NBA needs a stiff penalty, both because everybody believes it was intentional circumvention and because they have to discourage other owners doing something similar.
Listened to the hoop collective do over/unders on the East…
Knicks are 53.5 and it’s kinda crazy how little I care about their regular season win total.
If they can get the 1 seed without overextending themselves, cool. But if they enter the playoffs 4th because all these teams tried harder than them, also cool.
Are we due for bad injury luck? Windsorst suggested we were very healthy last year. But were we? OG played 67, Brunson 74, KAT 75. That seems pretty normal to me. I guess compared to Jalen Williams playing 33 it’s good fortune. I think we all know if we lose one of Brunson, KAT, or OG we’re in trouble.
Because we have Hart and Mikal (and maybe Mo), I think we’re best equipped to survive a regular season stretch without OG than we are Brunson or, especially, KAT. (Brunson is better than KAT, but we saw last year that Kolek could do well running the offense when needed.)
And also, the Point KAT thing, while it won’t work against every opponent, is also something that can mitigate Brunson’s absence, especially if he’s on the floor with Kolek or GTA. Whereas the dropoff from KAT to Drummond is cataclysmic. Unless Leon pulls a big man diamond in the rough out of his hat (apologies for mixed metaphor), we’re either going to have to get a lot of OG at the 5 in those KAT-less games, or it’ll just be ugly.
I’m guessing that Leon will have two more legit bigs in the fold come opening day. Maybe one will be a Jericho Sims level veteran guy, and the other a two-way emergency big in the Trey Jemison-level range. At least, that is the “floor” of my expectations.
The good news is that if this is the floor, then we can weather short stretches without KAT, and even if our record is not great in those games, it will provide valuable experience for those guys, as well as the team and coaching staff in general. We already know that Brown isn’t going to just run the remaining starters out there for 48 minutes.
Yooo Hubert – I found the perfect stocking stuffer for your little guy.
https://www.kidrobot.com/products/alien-earth-sheep-with-the-eye-interactive-large-plush
Windsorst was right in the sense that injjury luck probably means only the playoffs. Even OG’s hammy, needing a rest for a couple of games, perhaps contributed to his subsequent heroics. But I am concerned with next season being the first where we have all 30 teams not in tanking mode coupled with the end to end fast paced game. Will be interesting how teams deal with it.
haha thanks knicks & giggles. he’s still snuggling with the jalen brunson stuffy I got him for Christmas, though, and I don’t want to give nightmares instead 🙂
funny story about the little guy… I fully indoctrinated him this summer but I overlooked something… one day he was playing in the living room and he started randomly singing “mi -ami – heat, mi – ami – heat.”
Naturally I suggested he cut it out but he didn’t understand why. I calmly explained that the heat and knicks are rivals. I was not prepared for the existential crisis this would create.
Apparently he never considered the unintended consequences of being a knicks fan. I think in his young mind (he’s only 7) he felt as if he was choosing between his father and his mother, and this gave him a lot of stress. I had to backtrack pretty quickly and let him know it’s ok to like both teams.
I also mentioned that there are more Knicks fans in Miami than Heat fans, which he didn’t believe. So one of the first things I looked for when the schedule came out is the knicks game in Miami. I figure when he goes to one and sees all the knicks fans, he will understand.
Alas, this year’s only game in Miami is inexplicably an 8:30pm start. His daddy will be there. I don’t know about him.
I feel like all playoff-caliber teams are going to be doing some load managing during the regular season, aside from national tv games or crucial matchups, so, in theory, it should break evenly.
I have to say it: I think we’re still the best team in the East. But it’s wild how many teams could be right on our heels if things break right.
This is how I see the regular season seeding as of now:
1. Knicks
2. Cavs
3. Sixers
4. Pistons
5. Heat
6. Celtics
7. Raptors
8. Pacers
It feels crazy to put some of these teams so low, but the East is totally stacked! It’s going to be very interesting.
I honestly have no idea where anyone will finish but I bet it looks something like this:
1 – 54 wins
2 – 51 wins
3 – 50 wins
4 – 50 wins
5 – 50 wins
6 – 49 wins
7 – 49 wins
8 – 48 wins
9 – 47 wins
10 – 46 wins
One thing I couldn’t figure out is why the Pacers o/u is 43.5. Was I overrating them from experience or was I missing something?
So I went back and looked… BBA referred to their run two years as lucky and there is something to that… their pythagorean record that season was 46-36 (they won 50)… and in the playoffs it was 13-10… they were extraordinarily good in close games and they shot the lights out… so there’s a lot to suggest they’re not really all that.
But honestly all I see is a team that went toe-to-toe with the Thunder and IMO upgraded considerably at center. I find it hard not to have a very healthy respect for them unless Pascal Siakim and TJ McConnell age out suddenly (they’ll be 33 & 35, respectively, by the playoffs).
It boggles my mind a bit to see how the Pacers are being dismissed by pretty much everyone. They were clearly tanking last year, but even then they humiliated us at MSG in OT on February 10, it what seemed very much like a reminder that they owned us in the playoffs twice. (Ironically it was an incredibly stupid thing to do because it was part of what made them miss out on a top-4 pick in the draft by finishing 2 games ahead of the Wizards.) I see no reason why they won’t be as good as they were in 2024-25. Hali should make a full recovery, and they essentially swapped out Turner for Zubac and Mathurin for Oubre Jr.
Until proven otherwise, I am defaulting to expecting them to be a top-4 seed in the East, and to be a handful in the playoffs. I don’t see any way that they are a play-in team.
(I wrote this before seeing Hubert’s post, so yeah.)
I think it’s that Siakam seems to be slowly sliding downhill, and another thought is that maybe Hali will have lost half a step (if not forever at least for next season) post injury.
But with the right breaks, they could totally be the #2 seed! That’s what I mean when I say so many of these teams could be right on our heels.
*But I also just think the Pacers are injury prone. Whether it’s the fragile players (Hali, Obi) or their run/gun style of play that’s at fault, idk.
I will say this, though: I want the Indiana Pacers in a playoff series very badly. I respect them but I don’t fear them, and I resent this idea that they’re some sort of bogey team we can’t get past.
They beat us straight up in 2025. But 2024 was the fluke of all flukes. And I wish we could have played them last year.
My dream playoffs next year is Washington in round 1 (have you seen Trae Young this summer? That dog needs to be put down) and Indiana in round 2. The unfinished business tour.
Giants making moves on offense:
In—Najee Harris
Out—JuJu Smith-Schuster
Can’t remember whether or not they overlapped in Pittsburgh. JuJu has kind of been a journeyman.
What’s going on with Trae Young this summer, Hubert? I’ve missed it.
I know it’s vain to nominate my own own comment for post of the year but I’m unusually proud of this one from the game thread when we lost to the Pacers in Feb:
https://knickerblogger.net/2026/02/2025-26-game-thread-knicks-vs-pacers-theyre-not-even-trying-to-win/#comment-999191
I think people are also sleeping on the Pistons and Magic while overrating the Sixers and Heat.
My prediction is:
Knicks
Pistons
Cavs
Celtics
Sixers
Pacers
Raptors
Magic
Heat
Hornets
But honestly I could see almost any configuration of the top 10. The teams are all so close. I doubt the Knicks, Pistons, or Cavs fall out of the top 6 and I doubt the Hornets, Magic, or Heat make the top 4 but other than that not much would surprise me.
The East is stacked. The only team in that top ten that would absolutely shock me to make the finals would be the Hornets. I would say any of the top ten East teams have a better chance to make the finals than any West teams except OKC, DEN, and SAS.
The drop off in the west after the top two and then again after the top six is huge. The East is almost flat 2-10.
You guys are forgetting the Hawks. They’re twice more dangerous to us than the Spurs.
I like the Wolves a lot, Ben. I think this Edwards-LaMelo thing is going to work, and Jaden McDaniels is becoming OG West.
They’re a player short but they have some expiring contracts to figure it out (Green $15M, Donte $12M).
Isn’t that a very real possibility? I think it’s totally reasonable to expect a lot of scenarios where two “important pieces but not outright stars” at this particular place on their respective aging curves are not nearly as good as the versions of them from 2 years ago. And even swapping Turner for Zubac, it still feels like they have a major hole as far as an impact big is concerned compared to their East competition, us included.
I’m not writing the Pacers off at all, but I do see the line of reasoning for questioning their immediate return to Eastern supremacy.
I agree about the Hawks. They should be solid
Yeah, the Hawks and Wizards might also be pretty good.
The only 3 teams in the East I’d be really surprised if they made the playoffs are the Nets, Bucks, and Bulls. And even they have enough talent for a coach like Thibs to grind into the play-in picture.
Wow. Nikola Vucevic was part of the trade that sent Dwight Howard from Orlando to the Lakers.
In 2012.
Did anyone else other than me *not* realize that Vucevic has been around quite *that* long?
“Isn’t that a very real possibility? I think it’s totally reasonable to expect a lot of scenarios where two “important pieces but not outright stars” at this particular place on their respective aging curves are not nearly as good as the versions of them from 2 years ago.”
It’s a possibility, but I think the most likely scenario is that they are every bit as good as they have been. 33 is not old at all, and Siakam has the kind of body and game that should age pretty well. TJ is a 20MPG player, and has a lot of the same advantages that Brunson has, so he should be fine.
I totally forgot the hawks.
So:
Knicks
Pistons
Cavs
Celtics
Sixers
Pacers
Hawks
Raptors
Magic
Heat/Hornets
If I’m ranking the East based on vibes of what I think is most likely to happen this season, it’s:
Pistons
Knicks
Celtics
Sixers
Pacers
Cavs
Heat
Hawks
Hornets
Raptors (Kawhi kinda plays?)
I see a ton of parity from 3-through-10, honestly. The East feels less “stacked” with great top-end teams, and more with good teams who can make some noise in the playoffs. Harden is on his way to dragging the Cavs down into Play-in territory and I’m not sure just how far the Pacers can rebound in one season with healthy(?) Hali back.
Everyone besides the Pistons and Knicks will be between 45-55 wins.
I think the Pistons are gonna take a step back this year. I don’t like the John Collins move, and the way they lost suggests that there’s a team chemistry problem. Seems like they have guys who can defend but not shoot and guys who can shoot but not defend.
My very soft way too early predictions:
Top 6:
Knicks
Sixers
Celtics
Pacers
Cavs
Heat
Play-in:
Magic
Pistons
Hawks
Raptors
Dark horses:
Hornets
Wizards
Thank you for participating:
Bulls
Bucks
Nets
Man, Tatis Jr. has two HRs and robbed Lindor of a grand slam.
Hunter Dickinson just got waived by the Pels. We should sign him to a two way. He could be a good fit.
Dickinson is slightly interesting. He’s definitely big (over 7 feet), so he’s definitely a true center, and he’s also very young. He has great high school (DeMatha in Maryland) and college (Michigan/Kansas) “pedigree.” But he’s very raw and has literally only played 42 minutes. But if we pick him up as basically a “draft pick,” I mean, sure.
“Hunter Dickinson just got waived by the Pels. We should sign him to a two way. He could be a good fit.”
Agreed.
Here’s what I said back in July:
“Z-man says:
July 30, 2026 at 09:56
I took a look at Hunter Dickinson’s draft profile. He’s sort of an old school behemoth type C who has some skills and a highish B-ball IQ, but has very limited athleticism. He’s currently on a 2-way with the Pels. 7’1″, 255lbs.
In his G-league stint last year, his per 36 numbers were 20.7 pts, 12.5 rebs (3.6 offensive), 3.8 assists, 2.8 tovs, 1.0 blocks, 1.2 steals, .656 TS% on a 22.8% usage, and an impressive 39% on 3’s (50-128).
He is not very mobile and would have trouble guarding in space, but there does seem to be something there if he can pick it up a bit on D”
You could probably write 80 percent of what you just wrote about Dickinson about Liam Robbins. Which one would be cheaper?
Both would be 2-way guys, same price. I’d go with Dickinson over Robbins, but neither is likely to help.
I’m guessing that the Pels have enough developmental bigs and probably want to fill their 2-way spots with other positions.
Just the fact that they are letting him go is indicative of something that is going to happen more and more with the teams that have too many centers: New Orleans, Dallas, Sacramento, Portland, etc. come to mind. Someone will come available.
And yes, neither one of them would be rotational players—just situational. I like either one of them because they are huge, young, and defensive-minded (especially Robbins). By the end of the season with enough tutelage, who knows, maybe they could be inserted in for defense at the end of a close game like Mitch used to be and they could actually make an important play for us that KAT couldn’t (maybe foul trouble) or Drum couldn’t (bad defense). On a collaborative team like this, it could happen.
Here’s some highlights of Dickinson from a summer league game. Lumbering but big with good touch and some decent big man offensive moves.
If you’re bored, check out this highlight compilation from his NCAA tournament games with both Kansas and Michigan. He was very impressive against that level of competition, but I guess it hasn’t translated to the size and speed of the NBA. Still, the G-League stats are at least a little bit encouraging. The offensive skill is for real, but the slowness of foot is hard to get past.
Seems like a no-brainer 2-way candidate. He has good defensive instincts, so maybe better training and conditioning can unlock something. But the dude can score in lots of ways and the 3pt shot seems real.
Very much a random post. But I will never forget when my daughter moved from New York to Pittsburgh to attend college. It was fall 2020, most likely. She was checking out at a Target, buying some groceries and other dorm stuff.
There was a very kind young African American man on line behind her, who asked to buy her groceries. She was caught off guard, but agreed.
It was JuJu Smith-Schuster, but she didn’t know who he was. Thank you, JuJu, for making Pittsburgh warmer for my kid.
Not *that* random. We talk Yankees/Mets/Giants/Jets here on the regular.
OK, do it, Leon. Dickinson. Good enough for right now.
feels like a bit of a sports viewing void until football and basketball start again…
finding myself watching more women sports than ever before…nice to see soccer and basketball crowds grow each year…saw they now also televise women’s softball, pretty entertaining stuff…
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