21 / 5 / 4 against the Spurs D in essentially his first NBA game (if not his first appearance). I suggested this would hurt us more than Mitch in the long term, and I’m pretty confident that’s going to pan out.
But I think it is on Dolan.
Sure, you can retroactively plug in the salary after all the business was done and determine we could have signed him and stayed under the SA.
But the mandate materialized out of thin air. And Begley reported that the front office had been expecting to exceed it and only learned this BS was real right before the draft.
At that moment, Landry, Jose, Clarkson, and Mitch were all unsigned. The front office didn’t know that De Larrea could fit. They just knew Dolan fucked them over out of nowhere and they needed maximum flexibility.
On the one hand, they have a long history of operating this way, and I think it’s reasonable to determine they might have done this regardless of the mandate.
But it was widely reported they loved this kid. It seems to me like they drafted him, tried to see if he’d do the Dadiet thing and take 80% of the rookie slot so they’d have flexibility, and traded him when they realized that wasn’t going to work. That would explain the delay between drafting him and trading him.
I just think it’s not fair to look at all the facts that they didn’t know at the time (like how much Landy and Jose would cost) and determine they could have done this. These guys had a long term plan and Dolan fucked it all up right before the start of the draft. How can you blame them for a mistake they might have made in the immediate aftermath of dealing with that uncertainty?
I also think Leon earned both the benefit of the doubt and a grace period from criticism. Whereas Dolan, who’s been stepping in shit since game 3 of the NBA finals, either has not or has blown through his already. So if it’s unclear who is to blame (and I think in this case it is), I think it’s safe to assume it’s him.
1
Hubert, I’m prepared to believe there was a “they” within NYK who recognized de Larrea’s value, but I don’t believe they were the top personnel decision makers. The conclusion I draw from events is that the top personnel decision makers wanted to bring back the same cast of characters, and did not want to interfere with the roles of those characters in the NYK rotation. And that meant, on draft day, kicking the can until a pick was reached who could be given a two-way deal. Or stashed in Europe.
No way in hell we’d be able to get Kel’el Ware in here without a massive overpay, at this point.
Sergio de Larrea. Shoulda been a Knick.
And that’s not on Dolan.
21 / 5 / 4 against the Spurs D in essentially his first NBA game (if not his first appearance). I suggested this would hurt us more than Mitch in the long term, and I’m pretty confident that’s going to pan out.
But I think it is on Dolan.
Sure, you can retroactively plug in the salary after all the business was done and determine we could have signed him and stayed under the SA.
But the mandate materialized out of thin air. And Begley reported that the front office had been expecting to exceed it and only learned this BS was real right before the draft.
At that moment, Landry, Jose, Clarkson, and Mitch were all unsigned. The front office didn’t know that De Larrea could fit. They just knew Dolan fucked them over out of nowhere and they needed maximum flexibility.
On the one hand, they have a long history of operating this way, and I think it’s reasonable to determine they might have done this regardless of the mandate.
But it was widely reported they loved this kid. It seems to me like they drafted him, tried to see if he’d do the Dadiet thing and take 80% of the rookie slot so they’d have flexibility, and traded him when they realized that wasn’t going to work. That would explain the delay between drafting him and trading him.
I just think it’s not fair to look at all the facts that they didn’t know at the time (like how much Landy and Jose would cost) and determine they could have done this. These guys had a long term plan and Dolan fucked it all up right before the start of the draft. How can you blame them for a mistake they might have made in the immediate aftermath of dealing with that uncertainty?
I also think Leon earned both the benefit of the doubt and a grace period from criticism. Whereas Dolan, who’s been stepping in shit since game 3 of the NBA finals, either has not or has blown through his already. So if it’s unclear who is to blame (and I think in this case it is), I think it’s safe to assume it’s him.
I guess Lent 2.0 was only two days this year instead of 40 🙂 Just teasing you hubie, but I get the feeling if the D’s don’t win both the House and Senate a week from Tuesday, it will some how be Dolan’s fault.
It’ll be OK, though, because we’ll all promptly be getting $5K in the mail.
1
You may be right, Timo.
Bottom line is we’d both love to have that kid. He probably wouldn’t make a difference this year, but over the course of his 4 year rookie contract I suspect he’d have added a lot of roster flexibility and might have been the perfect answer to the secondary ballhandler we need when the opposing team is too big for Jose to be used.
Between Mitch, Sergio, and thumbing our nose at LeBron for the minimum, the organization operated with a level of arrogance this summer that suggests winning a second title wasn’t really a priority.
Again, Leon IMO deserves a grace period from criticism, arguably for the rest of his life. That only leaves me with one person to blame, so….
@timo,
We have an open roster spot. If we weren’t hard capping ourselves, we could’ve kept Larea and still brought everyone back.
Knicks at home against an injured Magic team sounds like a recipe for a win and doing something other than blaming Dolan for everything that’s wrong with the world.
On the one hand, yes it’s very annoying seeing Larrea look so good right out of the box, but on the other hand, drafting and rostering players from the draft has never been a thing here unless said player was willing to be paid the lowest amount of money possible. There’s a banner hanging in the rafters, so it worked.
This was probably never going to be a strategy that led to a long window of true contention, because you simply won’t have enough rookie scale players who can step in and replace the veterans whose salaries are scaling up, and sticking to a second apron edict only serves to make that window even smaller.
But nonetheless the banner is hanging there.
The minute that Dolan made his pronouncement that Leon would not be able to breach the second apron, it was clear that winning a second title was a secondary priority by definition.
Swapping out firsts has been pretty much SOP for Leon. This would seem to be especially true with Dolan’s mandate in place.
There also seems to be the sense that Leon and his team value vet’s minimum players over picks in their 20s. In other words, they would rather develop second rounders on controllable contracts than first rounders on guaranteed rookie-scale contracts. I wouldn’t be surprised if their lone exception to this rule, Pacome Dadiet, is only reinforcing this POV, even with the 80% that he took.
They have 5 players from the last 3 drafts that they took in the second round as players to dream on: Kolek, Huk, Mo, Nickel, and Kayil. Huk would have been nice to keep, but maybe he had a congenital achilles issue that turned into a lucky whiff for Leon. Kolek has improved to the point that he seems to be a viable emergency backup. Mo is on a great deal and seems to have considerable upside. Who knows with Kayil and Nickel, but they are free for now.
This was probably never going to be a strategy that led to a long window of true contention, because you simply won’t have enough rookie scale players who can step in and replace the veterans
The window was open two years ago, last year, and this year, and maybe next year. I guess it would stay open longer if Leon has other relationships like he has with Brunson and KAT. If not than most likely yeah, it’d be over.
@timo,
We have an open roster spot. If we weren’t hard capping ourselves, we could’ve kept Larea and still brought everyone back.
EBW, that may be true as a matter of arithmetic, but it’s my conclusion (and only my conclusion) from all events that have transpired that was not in the mind set of the NYK personnel shot-caller(s). And it’s not why SdL isn’t a Knick.
There also seems to be the sense that Leon and his team value vet’s minimum players over picks in their 20s. In other words, they would rather develop second rounders on controllable contracts than first rounders on guaranteed rookie-scale contracts. I wouldn’t be surprised if their lone exception to this rule, Pacome Dadiet, is only reinforcing this POV, even with the 80% that he took.
Both Grimes and IQ were late 1sts and two of our more successful draft picks.
The only reason to prefer 2nd rounders is rendered irrelevant if we go over the 2nd apron. These moves have very clearly been motivated by a need to stay under apron hard caps in the past.
that was not in the mind set of the NYK personnel shot-caller(s). And it’s not why SdL isn’t a Knick.
The causality here seems backwards. It couldn’t have been in their mind because their boss told them in no uncertain terms that it couldn’t be.
“Both Grimes and IQ were late 1sts and two of our more successful draft picks.
The only reason to prefer 2nd rounders is rendered irrelevant if we go over the 2nd apron. These moves have very clearly been motivated by a need to stay under apron hard caps in the past.”
The Grimes and IQ picks are ancient history. They were also the results of trade-downs that were specifically intended to save “under the second apron” space. Both of their roles are now occupied by either second rounders or low-cost vets.
EBW, that may be true as a matter of arithmetic, but it’s my conclusion (and only my conclusion) from all events that have transpired that was not in the mind set of the NYK personnel shot-caller(s). And it’s not why SdL isn’t a Knick.
The problem is you’re essentially saying you think Leon (without a mandate) would rather have a vacant roster slot than a young player his staff loved. I find that hard to buy.
I suspect (and Begley reported) that if left to his own devices, Leon would have exceeded the second apron, and if he could have done that, then none of this salary BS would have mattered and the kid his staff loved would be here. Just my conclusion.
IQ and Grimes were both drafted before we knew what we had in Brunson. And grims was a pick that was made after we moved back.
I’ve got a feeling if we never got Brunson or he turned out to just be good as opposed to great, Leon would have still made first round picks and developed the team more slowly/traditionally. It once Brunson proved he was good enough to at least be the second option on a contender, Leon pivoted and went all in. Turned out to be the right move.
We need this W today though.
1
This was probably never going to be a strategy that led to a long window of true contention,
If Leon stays around long term, I think it’s quite possible there will be another rebuild around Brunson and maybe also OG. Brunson does not rely on athleticism. I think his game on offense might last longer than many other top PGs. Defense will be an issue, but it already is.
We’ll learn more when it’s time to extend Hart and Towns. I’m not so sure they are both going to get the full number of years.
IMO it’s now way better than even money Mitch will either be injured or the backup C for Boston by the trade deadline. If he’s not the backup it will be for politcal reasons. He’ll likely be playing fewer minutes than Queta and not closing.
Seeing Drummond so far, I’d say it’s about even money the Knicks make a move at C at the deadline.
I’m not sweating anything we did.
I’m sweating the Pistons, Raptors (if KL stays healthy), BOS and PHI (in the very unlikely event they all stay healthy) in the east and OKC, SA, HOU, MIN, DEN and even LA in the west. That doesn’t count all the other teams that are better than they were last year that will no longer provide some easy pickings for our regular season seeding. The NBA is crazy good right now.
1
If the Knicks were to crash and burn right now and turn into pumpkins and suck for another 53 years it still would have all been worth it. Anything else we get on top of that chip is gravy.
That chip might turn out to be a monkey’s paw and De Larrea might be one of the fingers curling up. Whatever. Still worth it.
I don’t think anything much can be determined with any reliability until we get well into the season, either about rookies or teams.
Brown is obviously going to want to get a win tonight, but I hope we see a little more of the deep bench. It would probably require a blowout.
lol I wouldn’t go that far, JK. I just think it’s something to talk about.
I agree with EB, that we usually only do these things when forced to stay under an apron.
“If the Knicks were to crash and burn right now and turn into pumpkins and suck for another 53 years it still would have all been worth it. Anything else we get on top of that chip is gravy.”
Well definitely for me, since I now have 3 championships in my rooting lifetime and doubt I’ll be watching when I’m 121 unless I do the Ted Williams thing.
lol I wouldn’t go that far, JK.
I meant about the monkey’s paw. agree with the gravy.
since we are talking food already, I’ll just add that chipped beef and gravy served over biscuits may just be the greatest breakfast ever…ever…
1
i’d also add, growing up in new york i was initially denied access to this delicious dish…
thankfully I wisely left long island at a fairly early age to journey to the fairly exotic southern climes of new jersey where I became exposed to the fine dining delicacy that chipped beef and gravy over bisquits is…
and, maybe even more an important thing to share this morning – the sausage version of shit on a shingle is far far inferior…
Man do the Jets suck.
Glenn should be fired asap
Where is the thumbs down icon for chipped beef?
2
Not sports related but just got out of the theater after seeing “Wildwood” and holy shit this is one of the most incredible movies I’ve ever seen. Technically it is a marvel and all of that technical achievement is backed up by an incredibly moving and emotional story. This felt like a a throwback to dark fantasy movies of the 80s like The Dark Crystal and Never ending Story. It is amazing. Highly recommend
30 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.10.25)”
21 / 5 / 4 against the Spurs D in essentially his first NBA game (if not his first appearance). I suggested this would hurt us more than Mitch in the long term, and I’m pretty confident that’s going to pan out.
But I think it is on Dolan.
Sure, you can retroactively plug in the salary after all the business was done and determine we could have signed him and stayed under the SA.
But the mandate materialized out of thin air. And Begley reported that the front office had been expecting to exceed it and only learned this BS was real right before the draft.
At that moment, Landry, Jose, Clarkson, and Mitch were all unsigned. The front office didn’t know that De Larrea could fit. They just knew Dolan fucked them over out of nowhere and they needed maximum flexibility.
On the one hand, they have a long history of operating this way, and I think it’s reasonable to determine they might have done this regardless of the mandate.
But it was widely reported they loved this kid. It seems to me like they drafted him, tried to see if he’d do the Dadiet thing and take 80% of the rookie slot so they’d have flexibility, and traded him when they realized that wasn’t going to work. That would explain the delay between drafting him and trading him.
I just think it’s not fair to look at all the facts that they didn’t know at the time (like how much Landy and Jose would cost) and determine they could have done this. These guys had a long term plan and Dolan fucked it all up right before the start of the draft. How can you blame them for a mistake they might have made in the immediate aftermath of dealing with that uncertainty?
I also think Leon earned both the benefit of the doubt and a grace period from criticism. Whereas Dolan, who’s been stepping in shit since game 3 of the NBA finals, either has not or has blown through his already. So if it’s unclear who is to blame (and I think in this case it is), I think it’s safe to assume it’s him.
Hubert, I’m prepared to believe there was a “they” within NYK who recognized de Larrea’s value, but I don’t believe they were the top personnel decision makers. The conclusion I draw from events is that the top personnel decision makers wanted to bring back the same cast of characters, and did not want to interfere with the roles of those characters in the NYK rotation. And that meant, on draft day, kicking the can until a pick was reached who could be given a two-way deal. Or stashed in Europe.
No way in hell we’d be able to get Kel’el Ware in here without a massive overpay, at this point.
I guess Lent 2.0 was only two days this year instead of 40 🙂 Just teasing you hubie, but I get the feeling if the D’s don’t win both the House and Senate a week from Tuesday, it will some how be Dolan’s fault.
It’ll be OK, though, because we’ll all promptly be getting $5K in the mail.
You may be right, Timo.
Bottom line is we’d both love to have that kid. He probably wouldn’t make a difference this year, but over the course of his 4 year rookie contract I suspect he’d have added a lot of roster flexibility and might have been the perfect answer to the secondary ballhandler we need when the opposing team is too big for Jose to be used.
Between Mitch, Sergio, and thumbing our nose at LeBron for the minimum, the organization operated with a level of arrogance this summer that suggests winning a second title wasn’t really a priority.
Again, Leon IMO deserves a grace period from criticism, arguably for the rest of his life. That only leaves me with one person to blame, so….
@timo,
We have an open roster spot. If we weren’t hard capping ourselves, we could’ve kept Larea and still brought everyone back.
Knicks at home against an injured Magic team sounds like a recipe for a win and doing something other than blaming Dolan for everything that’s wrong with the world.
On the one hand, yes it’s very annoying seeing Larrea look so good right out of the box, but on the other hand, drafting and rostering players from the draft has never been a thing here unless said player was willing to be paid the lowest amount of money possible. There’s a banner hanging in the rafters, so it worked.
This was probably never going to be a strategy that led to a long window of true contention, because you simply won’t have enough rookie scale players who can step in and replace the veterans whose salaries are scaling up, and sticking to a second apron edict only serves to make that window even smaller.
But nonetheless the banner is hanging there.
The minute that Dolan made his pronouncement that Leon would not be able to breach the second apron, it was clear that winning a second title was a secondary priority by definition.
Swapping out firsts has been pretty much SOP for Leon. This would seem to be especially true with Dolan’s mandate in place.
There also seems to be the sense that Leon and his team value vet’s minimum players over picks in their 20s. In other words, they would rather develop second rounders on controllable contracts than first rounders on guaranteed rookie-scale contracts. I wouldn’t be surprised if their lone exception to this rule, Pacome Dadiet, is only reinforcing this POV, even with the 80% that he took.
They have 5 players from the last 3 drafts that they took in the second round as players to dream on: Kolek, Huk, Mo, Nickel, and Kayil. Huk would have been nice to keep, but maybe he had a congenital achilles issue that turned into a lucky whiff for Leon. Kolek has improved to the point that he seems to be a viable emergency backup. Mo is on a great deal and seems to have considerable upside. Who knows with Kayil and Nickel, but they are free for now.
The window was open two years ago, last year, and this year, and maybe next year. I guess it would stay open longer if Leon has other relationships like he has with Brunson and KAT. If not than most likely yeah, it’d be over.
EBW, that may be true as a matter of arithmetic, but it’s my conclusion (and only my conclusion) from all events that have transpired that was not in the mind set of the NYK personnel shot-caller(s). And it’s not why SdL isn’t a Knick.
Both Grimes and IQ were late 1sts and two of our more successful draft picks.
The only reason to prefer 2nd rounders is rendered irrelevant if we go over the 2nd apron. These moves have very clearly been motivated by a need to stay under apron hard caps in the past.
The causality here seems backwards. It couldn’t have been in their mind because their boss told them in no uncertain terms that it couldn’t be.
“Both Grimes and IQ were late 1sts and two of our more successful draft picks.
The only reason to prefer 2nd rounders is rendered irrelevant if we go over the 2nd apron. These moves have very clearly been motivated by a need to stay under apron hard caps in the past.”
The Grimes and IQ picks are ancient history. They were also the results of trade-downs that were specifically intended to save “under the second apron” space. Both of their roles are now occupied by either second rounders or low-cost vets.
The problem is you’re essentially saying you think Leon (without a mandate) would rather have a vacant roster slot than a young player his staff loved. I find that hard to buy.
I suspect (and Begley reported) that if left to his own devices, Leon would have exceeded the second apron, and if he could have done that, then none of this salary BS would have mattered and the kid his staff loved would be here. Just my conclusion.
IQ and Grimes were both drafted before we knew what we had in Brunson. And grims was a pick that was made after we moved back.
I’ve got a feeling if we never got Brunson or he turned out to just be good as opposed to great, Leon would have still made first round picks and developed the team more slowly/traditionally. It once Brunson proved he was good enough to at least be the second option on a contender, Leon pivoted and went all in. Turned out to be the right move.
We need this W today though.
If Leon stays around long term, I think it’s quite possible there will be another rebuild around Brunson and maybe also OG. Brunson does not rely on athleticism. I think his game on offense might last longer than many other top PGs. Defense will be an issue, but it already is.
We’ll learn more when it’s time to extend Hart and Towns. I’m not so sure they are both going to get the full number of years.
IMO it’s now way better than even money Mitch will either be injured or the backup C for Boston by the trade deadline. If he’s not the backup it will be for politcal reasons. He’ll likely be playing fewer minutes than Queta and not closing.
Seeing Drummond so far, I’d say it’s about even money the Knicks make a move at C at the deadline.
I’m not sweating anything we did.
I’m sweating the Pistons, Raptors (if KL stays healthy), BOS and PHI (in the very unlikely event they all stay healthy) in the east and OKC, SA, HOU, MIN, DEN and even LA in the west. That doesn’t count all the other teams that are better than they were last year that will no longer provide some easy pickings for our regular season seeding. The NBA is crazy good right now.
If the Knicks were to crash and burn right now and turn into pumpkins and suck for another 53 years it still would have all been worth it. Anything else we get on top of that chip is gravy.
That chip might turn out to be a monkey’s paw and De Larrea might be one of the fingers curling up. Whatever. Still worth it.
I don’t think anything much can be determined with any reliability until we get well into the season, either about rookies or teams.
Brown is obviously going to want to get a win tonight, but I hope we see a little more of the deep bench. It would probably require a blowout.
lol I wouldn’t go that far, JK. I just think it’s something to talk about.
I agree with EB, that we usually only do these things when forced to stay under an apron.
“If the Knicks were to crash and burn right now and turn into pumpkins and suck for another 53 years it still would have all been worth it. Anything else we get on top of that chip is gravy.”
Well definitely for me, since I now have 3 championships in my rooting lifetime and doubt I’ll be watching when I’m 121 unless I do the Ted Williams thing.
I meant about the monkey’s paw. agree with the gravy.
since we are talking food already, I’ll just add that chipped beef and gravy served over biscuits may just be the greatest breakfast ever…ever…
i’d also add, growing up in new york i was initially denied access to this delicious dish…
thankfully I wisely left long island at a fairly early age to journey to the fairly exotic southern climes of new jersey where I became exposed to the fine dining delicacy that chipped beef and gravy over bisquits is…
and, maybe even more an important thing to share this morning – the sausage version of shit on a shingle is far far inferior…
Man do the Jets suck.
Glenn should be fired asap
Where is the thumbs down icon for chipped beef?
Not sports related but just got out of the theater after seeing “Wildwood” and holy shit this is one of the most incredible movies I’ve ever seen. Technically it is a marvel and all of that technical achievement is backed up by an incredibly moving and emotional story. This felt like a a throwback to dark fantasy movies of the 80s like The Dark Crystal and Never ending Story. It is amazing. Highly recommend
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