Knicks Morning News (2026.09.21)

One “sort of” worry that one might have about Mike Brown is that he’s just too nice of a guy. I mean this in the sense that he might believe in guys that maybe shouldn’t be believed in. But last year, Brown perma-benched Yabu even though he seemed like a nice person. He also benched Clarkson until he came back with a different defensive mentality.

The question for me is, how much influence, if any at all, does Brown actually have over roster decisions? My feeling is that he should be consulted, but that it should ultimately be a collaborative process, especially when it comes to final cuts. It seems like that’s how it played out last year during the preseason, but who knows?

The report that Brown “likes” Wiseman doesn’t really bother me, because as TNFH pointed out, the most pressing issue is with our backup, not our 3rd stringer. Ultimately, I would hope that Leon and Brown are in full agreement when it comes to making the final call, that it is based on a rigorous and logical process, and that Leon will continue to scour the earth for a better option before the trade deadline. Whatever, the chance of injury to either KAT or Drummond is real enough to want that 3rd C role to be filled by someone who can play 20mpg without killing the team.

In that regard, Eubanks seems far more ready for that task, but he should have to show that in preseason to beat out Wiseman, who has theoretical upside while Eubanks’ ceiling is pretty obviously low.

I’m in the camp of those who feel “resigned” as oposed to “mad” about the Dolan-Mitch thing, and am “somewhat relieved” but hardly “excited” about Drummond.

But hey, I wasn’t all that excited about hiring Mike Brown, and that worked out pretty well!

I’ll be interested to see how Drummond plays in preseason…and the other C’s as well. To a lesser degree, I’m interested to see how Nickel plays with the real team. He showed some stuff in summer league beyond just the raw shooting that might be transferrable.

I’m also hoping that someone intriguing gets waived prior to the season that is two-way eligible for a potential look-see at the five.

Got it, BE, thanks for clarifying.

There is no disputing that a reasonably Mitch is worth every bit of the contract he signed with Boston, while Drummond is worth the minimum, if not close to it. That is a very real gap in value, and it is going to play out situationally on the court, especially in the playoffs.

And that’s the rub here, just like it was the rub with Brown last year. We are at the point where nothing matters much until the playoffs. And that’s where that valuation differential is most likely to show up. I am certainly not counting on Drummond all of a sudden reverting back to a $16M AAV player at this point.

Mitch’s salary is probably fair market value. In fact, he might be a bit overpaid on his Celtics deal due to his injury history/restrictions, but not by much. The player option might not age well, but it was a good risk for them.

Drummond is quite a bit less good than Mitch. He is pretty immobile on D while Mitch is capable of covering huge swaths of territory from the rim out to the 3-point line. But Drummond is not a zero, and if you can just get someone to play situational defense somewhere in the vicinity of Mitch’s level you can get away with a two-headed backup monster.

Bottom line is that he was the logical second-apron casualty. Every player in the rotation other than Clarkson served an important role, and Mitch was the only one making enough money to comply with Dolan’s decree.

Still hoping that we come up with a better solution, and perhaps an even better one than Mitch.