News & Blogs
James Wiseman makes strong first impression in bid for final Knicks roster spot – SNY
The Knicks played their first game since winning NBA title. Here’s what we saw – The New York Times
Why James Dolan doesn’t deserve blame in Knicks’ contract standoff with Karl-Anthony Towns – CBS Sports
The very second apron that paved the way for their title seeks to destroy the Knicks – Posting & Toasting
Knicks struggle shooting in first preseason game, fall to 76ers – SNY
Knicks Bulletin: ‘Definitely heartbreaking’ – Posting & Toasting
Jordan Clarkson Sends A Message To Mitchell Robinson! – Knicks Fan TV
Alan Hahn (ESPN, MSG) Reveals Which Knicks Playoff Demons Are Now Forever Exorcised! – Knicks Film School
Strick & Roll Patreon Preview Episode 82 feat. Tyrese London: Inaugural Top 100 – The Strickland
Inside Basketball Intelligence: The Most Important NBA Newsletter – Knick of Time
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59 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.10.08)”
Well, delighted to not be a Yankees fan
At least as a Knicks fan you don’t have to deal with unreasonable expectations every year.
Shout out to the Rays. They were the better team and frankly an inspiration to anyone working in asset management of any kind. What they have done with limited resources is totally remarkable.
Yeah I almost prefer the 80s Yankees, partially because you knew they would suck. But more because they changed their manager every few months.
I was doing a little research last night after JK’s post to learn what Tampa is so good at. They don’t seem to have discovered market inefficiencies like Beane did (although they do seem extremely committed to multiple times through the order penalties, to the point that they invented the opener).
The two things I see that standout are:
1. They’re incredibly good at finding pitchers other organizations haven’t fully developed and then finishing that development (Glasnow, Springs, Rasmussen).
2. They are hyper-transactional and have mastered the art selling high and buying low (Archer, Meadows, Shields, Price, Adames, Glasgow)
I’d be curious what other folks see as part of their secret sauce. I’m just incredibly impressed that organization has been able to compete consistently with the Yankees and Red Sox.
The 80’s Yankees had a few fatal flaws – Steinbrenner’s unhinged behavior, a decade-long lack of starting pitching depth behind Guidry and Righetti’s ridiculous conversion to closer. They were still light years more fun to watch than this group. Boone must have some crazy photos of Hal or Cashman in Vegas or something. I can’t figure it out. Mattingly, Winfield, Henderson and Randolph possessed talents that were unmistakable. After Munson’s death, the early 80’s (even the mild success of 1980 and 81) were a difficult time. Going to the Stadium was rough – Dave Collins was symbolic of the lack of direction. Then 1984 began a new era and it stayed that way for the rest of the decade. I can’t even pretend to care about the Yankees in 2026.
The 1980’s Yankees were actually pretty good! From 1983 thru 1988 they won 91, 87, 97, 90, 89 and 85 games. Unfortunately there were no Wild Cards back then.
This is the first playoffs series Tampa has won since 2020.
Joining Z-Man’s recommendation of Allan’s piece in the Times about the creator of The Twilight Zone. Very good read, and I also understand Allan’s no politics request given this is what he’s been working on for the upcoming book.
The Rays’ secret sauce is that everything they do is just so INTEGRATED. They make a million smart decisions, all with the mantra “we need to do this as cheaply as possible” embedded into everything.
They have zero loyalty to the players on their roster, because they can’t afford it. They don’t rate players based on sheer talent or even value. They are constantly making the evaluation of value vs salary vs age vs remaining years of team control. This is nothing new, this is the Billy Beane part of the sauce.
Tyler Glasnow is a good example: they traded him to the Dodgers for Ryan Pepiot. Glasnow made $32M this year, Pepiot made $3.2M, so he was 1/10th the price. Glasnow was worth 2.4 WAR this year, Pepiot 1.9 WAR. From the Rays’ perspective that trade was a smashing success. They paid $1.6M per WAR for Pepiot, while the Dodgers paid $13.3M per WAR for Glasnow. Glasnow is more talented, but they correctly identified a pitcher who could eat innings for them and give them incredible value in exchange for Glasnow. And when Pepiot gets too expensive, they’ll do the same with him, and will probably once again identify a player who will be able to contribute at the MLB level for peanuts. It’s the integration: strategy meets scouting meets development. This year, 17 of the 26 players on their postseason roster were acquired through trades.
They do an incredible job of finding the unsexy prospect who has major league ability. They do this with pitchers all the time– find a fixer upper who could improve with better pitch selection, release point, breaking ball shape, pitch sequencing, etc, then they make the correct fix. They’re not necessarily looking for pitchers with electric stuff with ace potential. They’re looking for guys who are sort of forgotten by other organizations who can still be leveled up. Again, it’s the excellent integration: identify the player, acquire the player, make the correct adjustment, trade the player for more cheap talent when you can’t afford him anymore. If you look at their top 30 prospects, a whopping 14 of those were not in the organization last season.
They squeeze value out of every corner of the roster, and were ahead of the curve in seeing the value of defensive positioning, pitch framing, and the importance of pitch shape. They platoon ruthlessly. This year they figured out that other teams don’t know how to defend the bunt anymore, and that players who are excellent bunters are undervalued, so they bunted their opponents to death. They laid down 134 bunts this year, the most by any team since 2016. They had 49 bunt hits this year. They crunched the numbers and realized that actually bunting could be valuable for them.
This year’s team is really kind of a masterpiece. They often run into a brick wall in the postseason because they run into some team that can just out-talent them, which isn’t surprising considering they’re running a bottom 5 payroll every year. This year they’re 28th in payroll, and could end up playing Cleveland in the ALCS, who is 30th. Or they could end up playing Chicago, who rank 24th. They’ve already beaten the AL team that had the ability to just out-talent them.
Milwaukee Tampa World Series would be great for the players association bargaining unit.
JK’s post on the Rays is great. No notes.
On the Yankees, I’m stumped. Trying to reconcile two seemingly contradictory ideas:
1) even good fielders making potentially series losing, bone headed errors seems like the kind of unfortunate thing you can’t control for and is essentially bad luck
2) it keeps fucking happening
I don’t have much to say about the offense, other than “clone Ben Rice.” Obviously that was going to be a struggle as soon as Aaron Judge got hurt. The pitching was good-to-great. I’d be mostly fine with trimming the fat i.e. Grisham and McMahon, and more or less running it back with fuller seasons from Jones and Lombard.
But nothing is going to matter if we can’t field the baseball in the playoffs.
The Mets’ trade of Freddy Peralta to the Rays was pretty interesting, because it was a case of David Stearns trading for three very quintessentially “Rays” kind of prospects instead of one marquee top 100 prospect.
The Rays collect boatloads of 40 and 45 FV prospects, those are usually guys with one or two MLB caliber tools who need some work in other areas. This type of prospect doesn’t have a super high success rate, but if you have like 20 of them in your system, and you also have excellent player development, you can end up with a solid amount of major league caliber players out of that group at the end of the day.
The Mets got three 40-45 FV type prospects back for Peralta. The Rays have so many of those guys they can just give them away like candy. One of the guys the Mets acquired was a pitcher, the excellently named Gary Gill Hill. He wasn’t a top 20 prospect for the Rays, maybe not even top 30, since they have so many 40-45 FV prospects. For the Mets, he’s probably a top 15 prospect even though the Mets have a pretty solid farm system.
It’s worth mentioning that Stearns managed to turn two 50 FV prospects (Sproat and Jett Williams) into three 40-45 FV prospects, so it’s not like Stearns did something amazing here. That’s a bad return for two top 100 prospects, even though both Sproat and Williams were both pretty terrible for Milwaukee, but it might end up working okay. The three guys the Mets acquired are all top 20 prospects for them. It’s a smart play to collect a bunch of these second tier prospects.
But why the mantra — are they cheap or poor?
There’s a new ownership group in Tampa Bay, so we’ll see if they are willing to spend some more. The Rays won 98 games this year and were 28th in the league in attendance. Their stadium situation is apparently horrible, it’s a dated sterile domed stadium that’s out in the middle of nowhere and is routinely described as a terrible place to watch a game.
The Rays probably COULD spend more money, but really it’s like why bother? Nobody comes to see a 98 win team.
Didn’t see JK’s post last night but 100% in agreement with it and with the ones above.
The Rays are poor. They have a crap stadium and a crap geography and very little revenue.
I think they also help players get the most out of their talent. They turned Yandy Diaz, who was a guy with enormous biceps who hit too many grounders and couldn’t field, into one of the best hitters in the league. He still can’t field but they made it work. They see opportunity in so many guys who get cast off by other teams. It’s pretty remarkable.
Also, Junior Caminero is an absolute beast.
Yep. Gotta think that most – if not all – MLB owners are now rooting like crazy for the Dodgers to continue “ruining baseball” for at least one more month.
It won’t make a lick of difference.
Lockouts are undefeated.
Don’t disagree with your big picture observations about the Rays, but as for Ryan Pepiot: he missed the entire 2026 season with a hip condition that was an issue from spring training and ultimately resulted in the decision for surgery in May of this year. Pepiot didn’t eat any innings in 2026 for the Rays and how successful the surgery will be in allowing him to return to the mound isn’t a certainty.
But this brings up another point about the Rays: they have a lot of irons in the fire. When serious injuries happen (or Wander Franco incinerates his career) they don’t look for excuses. It’s next up.
the knicks bench is kinda like this, too.
we got Alvarado, Kolek, Deuce, Landry, Clarkson… Alvarado and Landry were the two guys who came through this time and we have a tendency to think that makes the rest of them expendable but I wouldn’t want to be in a position to have to depend entirely on a few of them. It could have just as easily been Kolek who turned game 4 like he turned the Cup Final. And next year it might be Deuce instead of Landry. Maybe even Mo joins the group, too.
Right, Pepiot didn’t pitch this year, but they did get 300 useful innings out of him for pennies before his injury.
To replace him in the rotation they converted veteran reliever Griffin Jax, who they acquired in 2025, into a starter by tinkering with his arsenal and voila, 112 solid innings and 1.5 WAR for $3M.
Next up, indeed.
Sounds a touch envious, no? Being a Yankee fan has been fairly productive the past 100 years or so. 🙂 Is it a better experience being a Jets or Mets or , I don’t know Phoenix Suns fan?
next baseball owners meeting there needs to be some discussion on how to curtail the juggernaut rays…
forget the dodgers, no way should tampa be able to compete so well…
sometime in the 90’s went to see a yanks/rays game…it was weird, did not feel like sitting in a stadium – it felt like an open arena, and not a very nice one at that…
tried to set down roots in both tampa and then a couple of years later in orlando…
things didn’t really work out for me either time…I really liked though the st. pete/tampa vibe…beautiful place to live…
Being a Yankees fan is starting to fill me with the numbness I felt about the Knicks for so long pre-Randle/Brunson.
Even though they’re going to out-talent a lot of frankly dogshit AL competition, when you already know with near-certainty the result of the season – yet another ignominious, self-inflicted, embarrassing flameout in the playoffs with seemingly no non-delusional chance at a championship – and that the organization will keep trotting out the same tired excuses from the same tired GM and Manager who can’t help but fail… what’s the point in caring?
Seriously, thank god for this Knicks ‘chip.
bye yanks…hello new york football giants…
I understand the g-men have played some bad teams, so nice though to have calm and confidence on the sideline…
the whole team looks way better than they have in a long while…
the defense looks really good, especially their secondary…
so glad to have harbaugh on board – BUT – hello dennard wilson…we may have really found something good with that coordinator…
feel for nagy and harbaugh trying to win games with jameis…he’s always seemed as likely to lose you a game, as win one for his team…
unfortunately it looks like mccarthy may also be a turn over machine…
I’ll feel better with boone gone…a lot better…
If so, then why bother to cultivate and aggressively promote the “Dodgers must be brought to heel” narrative that’s come to be reflexively cited as justification for the lockout?
The effort to put forth that narrative suggests the owners have some interest in bringing popular opinion ‘round to their side. A Rays-Brewers series kicks that squarely in the nuts. Maybe the next CBA is ultimately unaffected either way, but I’m sure the owners would much prefer to negotiate having that particular wind at their back.
I don’t think it suggests that at all. I think they just want to do this and they’ll use any excuse.
Do you think the owners will change their mind if the Rays and Brewers make the World Series?
The Dodgers paid Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz a combined $83M this year for a combined 1 WAR. The Rays’ entire payroll was $87M.
I mean, maybe this means baseball is broken. Maybe this kind of discrepancy is actually kind of interesting. Rays vs Dodgers would be a hell of a narrative, I dunno.
Dumb rich teams like the Mets can still easily stink, and well-constructed poor teams like the Indians, Rays, and White Sox can still contend.
A couple days ago I posted that if forced to stay under the apron I would have moved on from Mikal instead Mitch.
When I said that it would be better since we had Deuce to replace Mikal and no one to replace Mitch it wasn’t saying Deuce is as good as Mikal. I don’t think he is. Sometimes it looks like he might be close but Mikal is always healthy and when motivated and on his game he has a higher, possibly much higher, ceiling. Switching Mikal for Deuce would certainly be a step back both now and likely in the future. I just think losing Mitch for nothing and replacing him with a journeyman is a larger step back both now and in the future. Plus finding good backup 2 guards to replace Deuce on the bench is way easier than finding good backup centers.
My point was I’d rather have Mitch and Deuce, (plus most likely, a bit of long term cap space and some assets from moving Bridges) than just Mikal and having to probably move on from Deuce.
I think Mitch is an elite, all-star level center when he plays. The downside is he can’t play more than 20ish minutes a game and has health issues. That’s why he cost $15 million a year rather than $35-40 million.
One of our biggest strengths over the last 4 years was the ability, when healthy, to play 48 minutes with all-star, or close to all-star level, production from the center position. We have lost that and I think it will hurt a lot more than some people seem to think.
– Sorry to stray from the baseball talk but I didn’t have a chance to post over the last couple days and wanted to put this out there.
Ben, I think you’re spot on too.
Arvell Reese sure looks the part.
In the course of a single defensive series in the 2nd quarter last Sunday, he exerted his will on the AZ offense and turned the game decidedly in the Giants favor.
It’s been decades since the Giants had a linebacker of that caliber. No, I’m not comparing him to the guy whose initials rhyme with “melty.” Rather, someone more along the lines of a Carl Banks, Ray Lewis, or Patrick Willis.
Still can’t believe he fell to the Giants @ 5 on draft day.
It will be interesting to see how many games Mitch plays this year (he has already claimed that he will play back-to-backs this year.)
I just don’t think staying healthy is in the cards for him.
But really our biggest/most fatal flaw (of which Leon has very few!) is not being able to draft a “rotation level” player since 2021. It’s hard to get good, cheap labor otherwise, although Leon has done an admirable job (Shamet, Alvarado, Clarkson).
Maybe if Diawara becomes productive, things will work out, but as of now, it won’t be easy to replace our 2nd apron victims.
Ben, disagree. Priority number one is to be healthy come the playoffs. Moving Mikal in favor of Mitch is about the most opposite scenario I can think of to achieve that goal.
The problem is we keep moving out of the first round to get often small financial savings and usually mediocre future assets.
In each given year, taken in a vacuum, it seems like a solid choice since we can sign a cheaper vet and get better production.
The problem is that long term you never build up any cheap rotation or even starter level players.
Because of the timing of that it didn’t hurt us at first since we invested in young players with Grimes, IQ, Duece, etc. But now we are paying the price and we have no high level prospects ready to step in cheaply.
You need both to be healthy and to have a ceiling that is high enough to reasonably compete. Losing Mitch hurts our potential ceiling. Hopefully not too much.
A Yankees thread with no contribution from Alan? What, is he busy or something?
See below for the number of minutes KAT and Mitch were on the court together last year. Having Mitch allowed Brown to cover the gaping whole at back up power forward. We now have a gapping hole at both front court back up positions.
Total Shared Court Time (2025–26)
Regular Season 1,705 minutes
Playoffs 165 minutes
Total 1,870 minutes
Director I don’t think your numbers are correct. Mitch didn’t even play close to that many minutes.
yeah, let the rays get there, so mlb can showcase tropicana…
haven’t made it to the yanks facility in tampa, guessing it’s probably a nicer place to watch a ball game…minus the rain and lightening of course…
it’s all subjective i’m sure – the chicago white sox have some of the fugliest gear in sports…
at this point, brewers/rays works for me…
I love this because it’s consistent with my observation of human behavior in sports and gambling.
When someone has success with a new strategy or idea, the masses almost always follow that idea and go overboard to the point that doing the opposite becomes the advantage.
The rule is kind of, “While something may be true in general, there are always exceptions to the rule. So when people go overboard, there’s usually a lot of value in the exceptions.”
I don’t watch much baseball, but I happened to watch a game last week with several successful bunts and was thrilled to see it. Without any knowledge or data, I’ve been assuming for the last few years that no matter what the data suggested, there had to be value in bunting somewhere that was not being exploited.
I feel the same way about homeruns.
I also think that’s true of the 3 point shot and post ups in basketball. IMO the 3 point shot is now overused and the post up now underused.
The value is in the exceptions.
“Total Shared Court Time (2025–26)
Regular Season 1,705 minutes”
How is it possible for Mitch to have shared the floor for 1705 regular-season minutes when he only played 1175 minutes?
read a synopsis of al’s piece…
what a brilliant mechanism for reaching such a wide audience – on such humanistic subjects…so sharp…
at some point I’ll bootleg a copy (yes, i’m a flawed human in so many ways, so many)…
i’m curious though – was al’s tone more pessimistic or optimistic…did it vary?
does it have a happy ending?
what happens, when the math stops mathing…
ah, just remembered there is a book coming out next week…
I can read a book…it’s been awhile…I can do it though…
I asked gemini for the data…yikes. My bad.
The Knicks will gladly pay whatever price they are apparently paying for not drafting high level prospects considering they just won the freaking NBA championship.
That is a pretty amazing statement. I guess it depends what the definition of all star is, but it is pretty outrageous assuming non-fanboidom. You cannot have a reasonable discussion with those sorts of statements.
His statement is consistent with every available statistic. He led the team in BPM last year (more than Brunson and KAT). Whenever he’s on the floor the Knicks have an elite offense and an elite defense.
Except when he’s getting hacked, of course. I’m not suggesting that should be overlooked. That and his injury history is the whole reason he’s a $15M player.
think i might be more interested to see the wiz put on the court together than our own squad…
anthony davis is looking to get paid…out of almost every player I watched and listened to during the last couple of weeks of player interviews he sounded by far the most overly optimistic…
like he wasn’t professional basketball type frail or nothing…
looking forward to watching dybansta play…
wasn’t aware of him prior to the game, when i first saw him thought he was just a big safety – he covers so well…
Have ya’ll watched the OG tip-in in slo mo set to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” yet? I very much recommend.
Mitch isn’t an all-star level player because he is not on the court nearly enough between injuries, minutes restrictions, and the ability of teams to push off the court due to his free throws.
However when he is on the court over the last couple years he puts up elite level numbers on every advanced metric.
That is why he makes $15 million and not more.
Fortunately we already have an elite starting center so we only need him for 15-20 minutes a game. With both we were able to have zero or close to zero drop off when our elite center sat.
I believe in you, Geo.
I’m also continuing my amazing streak of only ever meeting Frank in person from this group. Brian and I were supposed to finally connect today, Kahn, and instead I’m back at Frank’s hospital, where I just got another surgery.
Weren’t the Rays the most recent expansion team? If the market is small and the stadium is bad and the turnout is small and the weather is bad, why the heck did they give a team to Tampa Bay? Were there no other US cities that applied? Was Mexico City off the table in ‘98?
OMG Alan, I hope this one finally fixes whatever it is.
Posted a game thread. Champions deserve as much.
And ESS-Dog, definitely saw that
The Tampa metro area is the 17th largest market in the USA with 3.4 million folks.
He puts up elite rebounding metrics. TS% of .676 isn’t elite when 92% of your shots are within 3 feet on 10% usage. His screening and floor spacing are negatives on offense, let alone you can’t play him huge parts of the game because of his 40% FT shooting and psychological frailty. With his salary and luxury tax implications, he would ahve cost 91 million to sign for this season:
The New York Knicks’ 2026-27 Tax Table sits at an active payroll of $218,412,232, putting them $17,984,232 over the league’s $200,428,000 luxury tax line.
Because they are already deep in the tax and right up against the second apron, adding Robinson’s $15.04M salary shifts them into the most unforgiving, tiered tax brackets. Under the NBA’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), teams above the second apron suffer a $1.00 premium surcharge added to every standard tax rate bracket.
Metric Projections Without Robinson Projections With Robinson Net Difference (True Cost)
Active Roster Payroll $218,412,232 $233,456,232 +$15,044,000 (Base Salary)
Amount Over Tax Line $17,984,232 $33,028,232 +$15,044,000
Estimated Luxury Tax Bill $56,432,986 $132,412,334 +$75,979,348 (Tax Penalty)
Total Out-of-Pocket Expense $274,845,218 $365,868,566
$91,023,348
I suppose nobody could guess that Florida and summer baseball wasn’t gonna translate, despite the case study down in Miami.
Hell, give the team to Santa Barbara. SoCal teams drew 7.5M fans this year. That’s only 250% more than the Florida teams. Ruining baseball? Sure.
[edited to add: apparently there is also a 3rd SoCal team called the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim”, who also drew 2.5 million. So add them to the list and do the math.]
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