News & Blogs
Knicks’ banner raising ceremony will be broadcast on NBC and Peacock – Newsday
Knicks depth chart prediction: How will the bench rotation shake out? – The New York Times
Knicks still searching for first preseason win after 122-104 loss to Timberwolves – SNY
Knicks ‘really excited’ with Andre Drummond’s ‘unbelievable’ communication on floor – SNY
Preseason Game Thread: Knicks vs. Timberwolves, October 12, 2026 – Posting & Toasting
Timberwolves 122, Knicks 104: Scenes from another unimpressive dress rehearsal – Posting & Toasting
Knicks at Raptors (PRESEASON) – Recap & Reaction | POSTGAME SHOW | Knicks Film School – Knicks Film School
Knicks Extension Drama & Roster Predictions with James Edwards III | The Putback with Ian Begley – Begley Putback
Knicks Nightcap | Who will make the roster?! – Knick of Time
The Run.down Knicks vs Raptors Preseason Postgame Show – The Strickland
James Wiseman IMPRESSIVE In Knicks Blowout Loss To Raptors| Rapid Reaction – Knicks Fan TV
KNICKS at RAPTORS | NBA PRESEASON FULL GAME HIGHLIGHTS | October 13, 2026 – NBA
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60 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.10.14)”
One good thing about the extended hospital stay is that I wasn’t tempted to spend even a second watching that, um, game last night.
It sounds pretty serious if you are there several days. I hope you get well quickly (and you stay well)
I really like this Raptors team. I think they’re the #1 contender in the East.
They could make another move, too. If I were on Raptorsblogger.net I’d be pushing to trade RJ or IQ for Kyrie.
Kawhi looked fantastic last night.
My post championship cockiness has receded a little bit, and I can see a few teams beating the Knicks in the East (I’m not saying they will, just that I can see it).
In order of likelihood:
Raptors – I know Kawhi’s never healthy for the playoffs, but if he is…
Pacers – still have a healthy respect for them
Celtics – I highly doubt them, but they shoot enough threes to pull off an upset
Sixers – I doubt them even more than the Celtics but I do see an extremely narrow path for them to beat us… if they get KAT in constant foul trouble and Embiid plays like he did for a week against the Celtics
I’m not particularly bullish on our chances of repeating, and it has little to do with losing Mitch. In fact, barring injury, I think there’s an excellent chance that we are as good or better in a fundamental sense when the playoffs come around. I’m expecting that there will be a move that improves the roster somewhat before the deadline.
My thing is, I’m not going to let myself get bamboozled by the gaudy point differentials of the first 3 rounds. I went into last year believing that it was by far our best, and possibly only, chance of winning a championship. Nothing I saw in the playoffs looked “unbeatable” vs. a true contender. We played extremely well, but none of the Hawks, Sixers, or Cavs were built to stop us (or any good team) and the Spurs were a bunch of kids coached by a kid that turned into a pumpkin….and still gave us all we could handle, shooting themselves in the foot time and time again.
This year is going to be A LOT different. The competition in the East is going to be far more fierce than it was last year. Whoever comes out of the West is going to be a different animal than the baby Spurs.
And on our end, there will be no “KAT has changed his game” surprise to roll out in the playoffs. Shamet was kind of a surprise as well, teams will be better prepared to deal with that. And I’m not buying that OG (or anyone) is going to add significant wrinkles to his game. I think Brown put all of his cards on the table in the playoffs, and that we pretty much are what we are.
I’m not saying that we can’t or won’t get back to the finals. I’m saying that there will be no juggernaut sweeps with 9 days of rest between series. The regular season is going to be a much tougher slog than last year, and the playoffs are going to be a bear.
As to the East,
Dramatically improved:
Sixers (Added LeBron, Brown, KCP; VJ not a rookie)
Pacers (Hali returns, Zubac adds a dimension)
Heat (Giannis, if healthy, is a wrecking ball; Spo will figure the roster out)
Raptors (Kawhi, health, internal development)
Wizards (AD and Trae return, Dybansa, internal development, very long and athletic)
Somewhat improved:
Celtics (Tatum’s return, internal development, Mitch)
Magic (Internal development)
Wild cards:
Pistons (Internal development, more shooting)
Cavs (probably treaded water)
Oh yeah it’s going to be much tougher. Besides the increased talent in the East, teams are going to be gunning for us every night. We will never get an off night where a team phones it in because even the scrub teams are gonna get up to play us and prove they can “beat the champs.”
I also think Miami could be really really tough.
In fact, I’d say Miami and Toronto are the two teams I’m most worried about. I also think people are sleeping on Detroit some bc of their playoff performance but Cade will continue to get better.
And I think it is true that we may not have much juice left to squeeze from this current team.
This is where letting Mitch go actually might be a good move long term because if Leon can somehow figure out a way to bring in another back up center who is defensive minded but has more of an offensive bag than Mitch (tall order but not impossible), then that could be an upgrade for us. Also, we did roll through the playoffs with Deuce not doing much. So maybe we keep him and he provides more spark in the playoffs than he did last year or we do trade him for a clear upgrade at back up center/PF.
Diawara taking a leap would be huge too. It’s looking dicey right now but he has all season.
Raptors – I know Kawhi’s never healthy for the playoffs, but if he is…
i agree toronto is very good if kawhi can stay healthy. cmb is a really nice, versatile two-way 21 year old. poeltl looks slightly less infirmed than the last couple of years. IQ is an excellent fit for a barnes/kawhi front court of terror. shead is a strong backup, but they are a bit short on depth and could struggle when injuries hit. that charlotte trade where they got an unprotected first plus allen/o’neale for miles bridges might have actually worked well for them as an RJ trade down.
Kyrie would be a good move for Toronto. I would think he might want out of Dallas since they’re not doing much right now.
The Mets traded two top 100 prospects for what turned out to be a brief rental of Freddy Peralta, then when Peralta arrived in Queens the Mets tinkered with his delivery and his velocity dipped. He was on the team for months and they never got his mechanics straight, and he was ineffective and then traded away to Tampa Bay for three decent but basically fungible low-ceiling prospects. The two top 100 guys the Mets traded away, Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams, both had terrible years for the Brewers, but that was still an incredibly lousy opportunity cost. You could fairly say that they incinerated those two top 100 prospects.
In a few weeks Tampa Bay had Peralta go back to his Milwaukee delivery, and then last night he was sitting around 98, touching 99.4 and throwing six nasty innings in an ALCS game.
Carlos Mendoza has been fired, but the Mets’ pitching coach Justin Willard will be returning for the 2027 season. The same Justin Willard who screwed up Freddy Peralta and couldn’t figure out how to fix him.
Great. Good times.
Man, our NBA Cup group is brutal! Cavs, Pacer, Heat, Sixers.
While it probably didn’t mean all that much, winning the Cup last year did give a bit of a window into how our team would respond to playoff-level competition. I wonder if the Knicks pulling off the double will suggest to other teams that it is actually important to treat it like the playoffs. Probably not, but who knows?
Not so sure the East is that much better.
Sixers (it’s all about Embiid’s health. Lol)
Pacers (yeah, Hali, but were they for real 2 years ago?)
Pistons (still scared of them)
Cavs (Payton Watson could solve the who guards Brunson question)
Heat (not sure Giannis is still a top 5 player; they’ll miss the players traded away)
Raptors (a healthy Kawhi, lol)
Celtics (They’ll miss Brown)
Atlanta
Magic (unproven)
No tanking rules (the regular season is going to be brutal)
I agree with all this, but I’m still confident.
Yes, last year we faced the three most perfect teams (although it’s worth remembering folks were saying the Hawks were a bad matchup for us because of all the guys they could throw at Brunson).
But the year before we faced the three hardest teams we could have faced (Detroit in round 1, a Celtics team that had killed us all year in round 2, and our arch nemesis Indiana in round 3) and we probably would have made the finals if Nesmith didn’t have an out of body experience in game 1.
I think this year will be very hard. We might face a game 7 or two before the finals. But I still think when the chips are down this team is better than everyone in the East, largely because I believe Jalen Brunson is better than everyone in the East.
He really is on incredible multiyear run of postseason success. We’re essentially witnessing Short Kobe right now.
Hollinger is down on the Heat and Pacers in The Athletic:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7638917/2026/10/13/nba-predictions-heat-pacers-wizards/?source=athletic_thebounce_newsletter&campaign=20313511&userId=10333007
I feel like this Knicks team already has shown that they have a tendency to coast when mired in the dog days of the regular season – and that it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you can really turn it on when the competition level rises. So I expect a middling start to the season, some hot streaks where they look unbeatable (potentially around the cup again, unless they are out of contention early), and a super dangerous 3 or 4 seed that you’d be foolish to bet against in the playoffs.
I don’t buy the Raptors for a minute – Kawhi is never healthy when it counts.
I’m more worried about the Sixers, even though the same rule applies (even more so) for Embiid. It’s about having Brown and Maxey and Edgecombe with Lebron in a clear supporting role… and they did a good job building out the bench.
Mostly I just want to beat Indiana in the playoffs. Of course that won’t be enough on its own, but I really want that PARTICULAR outcome for the year ahead.
“I don’t buy the Raptors for a minute – Kawhi is never healthy when it counts.”
Same for Giannis.
I still have no idea what the suns were thinking. it’s hard to find another team like that. but Sacramento’s out there, and Scott Perry did draft RJ…
I’ve been leaning this way, too, and I found a good comp — the ’95 Rockets. They were defending champs, started the year 9-0, and then fell apart because they were extremely Hakeem-centric and Hakeem didn’t want to carry that load all 82 games. So they coasted for 70 games and finished 6th. The Drexler trade didn’t seem to work, either.
Then the playoffs started, Hakeem was ready to step up his work load, Drexler (who is KAT in this analogy) provided enough, and no one could drive a stake through their heart. They didn’t dominate, they just couldn’t be beat when the chips were down.
The Jazz had them in Utah for game 5 — Houston won on the road. The Suns had them in Phoenix for a game 7 — Houston won on the road.
By the time they got the WCF and Hakeem was locked and loaded, he tore through Robinson and Shaq in the next two rounds, and Rudy T was bellowing “never underestimate the heart of a champion.”
That’s the kind of path to a repeat I see for the Knicks, not one where they win 58 games and are a one seed.
On the KAT option deadline issue, and upon review of yesterday’s thread, I’d offer these observations.
What ptmilo said in his post at 15:31 is (as usual) an accurate statement of the situation: KAT can decline his 27-28 option at any time between now and June 30 for the purpose of entering into an extension that would begin with the 27-28 season.
What AI HAL said in the immediately following 15:38 post, in response to Hubert’s interrogation, is not correct, even on HAL’s second and amended response; it is not true that KAT has to decline his option by 10/19 to preserve his eligibility for an in-season extension.
Note this tidbit in Keith Smith’s treatise on extensions for Spotrac, dated August 10: “Players and teams [in this category, which includes KAT] do not need to decline the option prior to October 19. They can decline those options at any point to be able to complete an extension.”
https://www.spotrac.com/news/_/id/3438/nba-extension-eligible-player-updates
I don’t really see the 76ers being able to make a deep playoff run with that Embiid/LeBron frontcourt. We’ll see, maybe Embiid can work himself into some better shape but he looked genuinely pitiful in his first preseason stint. Their fans are trying to rationalize it but that guy might just be a giant stink bomb in the middle of their roster.
isn’t it a prompt thing…no doubt HAL has access to every thing and much more than most here…
no doubt HAL won’t give a shit about a paywall…ha, HAL will laugh at your silly subscription plea…HAL gonna do what HAL’s gotta do to complete the mission…
but yeah, essential to tell HAL how to behave, then tell HAL sort of where to look, and ask it what else might be necessary to consider about the thing, and yes, i’m on drugs…
Figured as much. Isn’t it only 8:30 in the morning out there? Yikes, geo……. Are you OK? Seriously.
Despite suggesting they have an extremely narrow path to upsetting us, I’m short the Sixers this year. In fact, I think there’s a chance they’re so bad that we might be able to trade for LeBron at the deadline (I am never giving this up 🙂 ).
“it is not true that KAT has to decline his option by 10/19 to preserve his eligibility for an in-season extension.”
My understanding is that while he can sign an in-season extension, it would have to start during the 2028-29 season, meaning that he would in effect have to opt in to his 2027-28 player option. If he wants to opt out so that his salary can be “leveled” starting with 2027-28 in order to free up a few million in cap space, he has to wait until after the season to sign such an extension. He would, in effect, opt out, become a UFA, and then sign a totally new contract.
Please let me know if this is incorrect.
oh man, early day…good day…
it’s funny, generally the more serious a situation the calmer I get…
it’s the little stuff that freaks me out 😊
sitting in yet another stunning waiting room location…last one was over looking some south bay salt flats…this one is at the stanford oncology place…trees everywhere around here…
sis is on part 2 of the process, surgery stuff…she finished and was successful with the chemo…lost some weight, hair, positive treatment feedback…
did not have any idea on the length of treatment, yikes…couple of months it’ll finish with the radiation stuff…
ha, the weed is for dealing with ma…
blessed to sit with her and sis last week to celebrate her birthday…i’m very blessed…
ma’s a talker, that tests me at times…there it is…now though is time for calm, quiet, positive and hopeful…nothing else…wait…free of worry…
what are you doing these days mister doogie?
Edit: actually, think I was also pretty faded the last couple of times when ma wasn’t around…hmmmmm, doesn’t seem to matter…
I am not going to underestimate the Sixers. Unlike in previous years, they don’t need Embiid to play like the MVP candidate he looked like in the tail end of the Boston series for them to win. I am also expecting Edgecombe to make a leap, and I think the KCP, Simons, and Wade additions are sneaky good.
I do think losing Huk for the season is a bigger deal than it seems on the surface. Bona hasn’t developed and they will have to pick up someone like who we cut in a few days. But they do have some apron space and might make a deal prior to the deadline to shore things up.
I’d be very surprised if they aren’t in the conference finals.
Hasn’t KCP been garbage since he left Denver? This will be a better situation for him than Memphis, but I don’t know what he has left.
I think KCP might be excellent in a complementary bench role playing 20 mpg or so on a true contender. He played on two knucklehead teams in Orlando and Memphis, and I think he was a bit banged up last year. Maybe not, but if there was a perfect role for him at this point in his career, this is it.
The opposite is the case. When October 19 passes and the season starts, KAT could not negotiate an in-season extension that preserves his 27-28 player option and would begin in 28-29. He can, however, at any point between now and June 30, decline his 27-28 option and simultaneously enter into an extension that would begin in 27-28.
This is what Keith Smith is saying in the Spotrac cite; it’s what ptmilo said in his post from yesterday at 15:31; and it’s what the CBA supports.
My understanding is that while he can sign an in-season extension, it would have to start during the 2028-29 season, meaning that he would in effect have to opt in to his 2027-28 player option. If he wants to opt out so that his salary can be “leveled” starting with 2027-28 in order to free up a few million in cap space, he has to wait until after the season to sign such an extension. He would, in effect, opt out, become a UFA, and then sign a totally new contract.
Please let me know if this is incorrect.
it’s the other way around. if he extends in season he must simultaneously opt-out and the extension must start in 27-28. the relevance of oct 19 is that’s it’s the last day he could opt-in and extend.
“ it’s the other way around. if he extends in season he must simultaneously opt-out and the extension must start in 27-28. the relevance of oct 19 is that’s it’s the last day he could opt-in and extend.”
Ok, I got it wrong too. For me no harm no foul.
But imagine an alternative universe where we signed KD and Kyrie, predictably did not work out, and you are a recently hired underling explaining the above to Steve Mills.
Thanks for clarifying. That seems to work in the Knicks favor, no?
Seems like the opt in and extend could be useful to us, too. It’s just a matter of where you want the pain.
Opt in & Extend = pain up front in year 1, more flexibility in the later 3 years.
Extend without Opt in = less pain next year, less flexibility in the 3 subsequent years.
I’ll sum up the 76ers this way.
They have so much talent, they almost have to be good, but the sum will be less than the value of the individual parts.
I’m still trying to find a few under and over bets for the year, but every time I analyze a team I think they are better than last year. To bet an over, someone has to lose a lot of games. I just can’t figure out who.
I agree with everything except OG.
I think he is clearly the MVP other than Brunson. He does so many things very well and is improving in all areas over time. His 3 point shooting is getting better, his efficiency is getting better, his attacking the rim is getting better and he is about the only 4 who can cover twitchy guys like De’Aaron Fox as well as bigs.
He is going to get votes for all NBA this season.
Alan, sorry to hear you are back in the hospital. And I saw in yesterday’s thread you have some tough stuff going on Hubert, so good luck with that.
If we lose to a team with RJ Barrett I will be very disappointed
fify:
“If we lose to a team with RJ Barrett *because* of RJ Barrett I will be very disappointed.”
That is a perfectly acceptable correction and been digging your vibe for a while now….
I’m with you. He’s clearly our 2nd best and most valuable player. Fits like a glove too.
I’m not sure I want to say that OG is our second best player. I have said it a lot in the past but the fact KAT was the best player in the playoffs on any team in plus/minus has shaken my faith in that take. Which is dumb but it is what it is. I can’t help but feel he found a new level somehow even though I don’t really believe veteran players ever do that.
OG, don’t worry, I still love you more than Anne Hathaway does
An argument can definitely be made for OG. I guess we just have to be careful of loving him too much because of that *stupendous, all-time historic tip*!
OG was definitely our second best player in the NBA Finals, and I didn’t think it was particularly close.
KAT is our 2nd best player by a country mile, you guys totally forget what turned the playoffs around.
If you look at the stat sheet for the finals, whether individual games or composite, you would not think he was anywhere near our second best player or a legit finals MVP candidate. He was vastly outplayed by his counterpart on the Spurs, and in the last 3 games he had 11, 13, and 2 points on 9-22 shooting and 1-5 from 3. And it wasn’t like he was facilitating the offense in those 3 games, he had 4 assists vs. 9 turnovers.
OG had the same BPM, a higher ts%, scored more. played more minutes and shot better from 3, especially in the finals. Oh… and he guarded the opposing fast twitch point guard while making the 2 most iconic plays in the finals (the block and the tip).
It’s kind of a conundrum: KAT’s transition to “Point KAT” helped the team *as a whole*, and part of doing so was him allowing his own stats to take a backseat for the betterment of the whole. That’s obviously hugely important.
OG’s stats were way better. They just undoubtedly were. Just depends on how much “credit” we want to give KAT for changing his game at the expense of his own stats.
But I also agree with Z: Even KAT’s stats in his new iteration as “Point KAT” weren’t all that great in the Finals. In some ways, we are almost giving him too much credit. It’s not an easy choice.
2A and 2B?
OG was pretty sick in the Atlanta series, too. I remember him popping off in game 3.
But even though he may have performed better than KAT I don’t think we should stretch that to “KAT should be paid the same”, which is what I suspect people are getting at.
KAT deserves to be paid more than OG — a lot more — simply because of supply and demand.
It’s funny that neither KAT nor OG were particularly great against the Sixers and Cavs and we still went 8-0 with a gazillion point differential.
EDIT: OG actually was great against Philly but just for 2 games
I’m consistently puzzled by this site, as some folks (I wish I could remember who) have come on and pointed out that based on some advanced stats (I wish I remember which), KAT was the BEST PLAYER IN THE ENTIRE PLAYOFFS. Yet this is consistently ignored because PointZ.
I’m not smart enough to make this argument myself, but I’m smart enough to at least remember that someone else did. Wish they’d come on and do it again.
I think they were using BPM, but I could be completely misremembering that.
Mitch hitting free throws… 🙁
it’s not so much that I’m rooting against mitch now, it’s just that I’m rooting against the celts…guilt by association…
He had a great stat line but only played 17 minutes. I saw most of the first half and when he was in the Celtics were really using him on offense but he only played eight minutes in the half. Honestly, I’m worried Boston is going to be very good this year b
Looking at KAT’s stats in the finals is shortsighted, IMO, because KAT had the toughest matchup of anyone in the finals as he had to go up against Wemby. No one else in the finals had to match up against a top five player.
In other words would OG have had the same finals if he was matched up against prime KD or LeBron? Probably not.
Dodgers on the brink!
Sorry, swift, I’m not buying that excuse. KAT did fine in the first couple of games against the same guy. He’s got many years of playoff experience on his side. And OG guarded pretty much everyone out there at one time or another, including Wemby, and did a million things that don’t show up in the box score.
It’s not unfair to KAT to say that OG was the better player in the finals. Lots of great players were not at their best in a particular finals and their team won anyway. Facts are facts. OG outplayed him in the finals and it wasn’t close.
I saw someone mention that Mitch was now hitting his free throws (one of my “fears,” now that he’s gone), and hurriedly went to check the boxscore to be alarmed at Mitch going 5-for-5, 5-for-6, or even 6-for-6.
But it was 2-for-2. He did that for us once in a while, too. 🙂
Didn’t we complain that the refs took KAT out of the game since game 3, to keep the finals alive? Hard to accumulate stats from the bench.
Bottom line is I think the Knicks have a great big 3, the best since the KD, Curry, Green Warriors.
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