News & Blogs
Mitchell Robinson to leave Knicks and sign 3-year contract with Celtics: Source – The New York Times
Eastern Conference Offseason Tracker [UPDATED] – Posting & Toasting
Sources: Mitchell Robinson, Celtics agree to 3-year, $47.4M deal – ESPN
Mitchell Robinson leaving Knicks to sign with Celtics – SNY
Celtics pry Mitchell Robinson away from Knicks on three-year deal – Posting & Toasting
Ariel Hukporti leaving Knicks to sign one-year deal with 76ers: report – SNY
Breaking News: Mitchell Robinson Signs With The Celtics & The Knicks Are Officially In Trouble! – Knicks Fan TV
Mitchell Robinson Signs With Celtics | Hukporti Joins 76ers – Knick of Time
BREAKING: Mitchell Robinson signs with Celtics (REACTION) – Knicks Film School
YT News
35 replies on “Knicks Morning News (2026.07.02)”
Moving on…
The East is pretty mashed up right now. Just about every team has either tinkered with or blown up their starting lineup.
The Sixers seem to have improved the most but Embiid is still the elephant in the room. If VJ develops, this will be possibly the best team he’s ever played on.
Indiana has been lying in the weeds. (Thank goodness they got unucky with the lottery balls!) But Carlisle is really good and Hali & Co., minus Turner but plus Zubac, should be gunning hard for us.
Those two seem to be our most serious competition. Maybe Toronto too if Kawhi is 100%.
Every other team seem either unpredictable or underwhelming. But with no tanking any more, I don’t see any 60-win teams in the EC, and think that even though losing Mitch is a significcant blow, we should be in a good position to return to the finals no matter how we replace him, so long as we stay reasonably healthy.
I am not completely out on the Celts. Losing Brown will hurt, but the draft capital will help them retool and PG13 can still shoot from 3 way better than Brown. And once PG becomes trade-eligible his salary could be repurposed with those picks as sweetener. Brad is probobly far from done.
Will Brown get along with his Sixers teammates? He seems to piss off a lot of folks. Will the Celtics be better as a single superstar driven team, tensions reduced and a mix of youth and vets? The Celtics are going to have health concerns with Tatum, George and Robinson for the foreseeable future.
The Lakers’ sign and trade for Walker Kessler seems like a massive overpay.
This Mitch thing is such a weird thing for me to process. Let me be clear- I am NOT mad at Mitch for getting his bag. I am soooo happy for him, considering he’s been my favorite Knick since we drafted him, and the fact that his last deal was a descending one. But at the same time, going to Boston to get said bag just doesn’t feel right. I’ve heard some people compare it to when X-Man left for Boston, but he wasn’t nearly as impactful as a Knick as Mitch was. I dunno..maybe Mitch and his agent felt like with his injury history, that he’d better take the first bag he can get. I mean, he did sacrifice money on his last deal to help us win a title, and then the title actually came to fruition. I just don’t know if imma be visceral or not when he takes the court against us like I normally am when we play Boston.
Is it weird that he was still my favorite Knick even over Brunson’s ascension? Even now, I think I’d pick Hart and Anunoby over Brunson as my favorite Knick because of what they do in their roles. And I’m not trying to slight Brunson- he is that dude and I’m super proud of him. But he’s the team superstar- I expect him to do what he does because I know he’s that good. I dunno..I feel like I sound crazy right now lol.
The oddest thing about the Brown trade is that it is to an historic rival. Maybe deep down Brad thinks he will hurt the Sixers in the long run? Truly a head-scratcher.
That first game in Boston will be must watch TV.
If Mitch turned down the Knick for the Celtics, I’d be pissed at him, but since his Celtics’ deal is basically just his current salary, I think it is pretty clear that the Knicks weren’t able to go into the second apron, so if that was the case, then what could you possibly do if you’re Mitch? Take less than HALF of the Celtics’ offer?
That would be absurd. This isn’t Juan Soto turning down $750 million for $800 million, it’s more than DOUBLE what the Knicks could offer. Who could expect him to take that deal?
How big of a salary can the Knicks aggregate Between McBride, Dadiet, Kolek, and their available cap? Which backup center can you get for this price in a trade?
jazz, good point about the C’s health concerns. Although I do expect Tatum to be 100% recovered from the achilles going forward. And if Mitch’s foot/ankle is truly “fully healed,” who knows? But PG13 is a 40-game season waiting to happen.
I think Z-Man said it best the other day when he was (sadly) correct in assuming Mitch had to be gone, which is, “Okay, be sad about, but we have to move on.”
My only bit there, though, is that it’s one thing to say, “Oh well, this sucks, but hey, they just won the TITLE, let’s just move on and hope for the best,” which I’m 100% down with, and “This was a blessing in disguise” or “not a big deal” or whatever. Come on, dudes. It’s okay to say, “Oh well, this sucks, but hey, they just won the TITLE, let’s just move on and hope the best,” especially because, as Z-Man rightly notes above, the rest of the Eastern Conference still pales in comparison to the Knicks.
I thought that the Knicks were a cut above the rest of the Eastern Conference before last season, and I assumed they’d make it to the Finals (the WIN surprised me, but it didn’t surprise me by the end of the Eastern Conference Finals, of course), and unless some teams make some DRAMATIC changes before the season, that sure looks to be the same in 2026-27, even if the loss of Mitch sucks (and boy, does it suck).
Grimes to the Lakers, 60 mil for 4 years. I’m happy for him.
The issue with aggregating is that there are a required number of full roster spots for NYK to cover (14) and not a lot of dollar room to do it (about $8.5M for 3 spots), while staying under the second apron. If that remains the goal, Knicks can’t aggregate in any significant way.
Have to think about trade targets on cheap, or potentially cheap, salaries. Moussa Diabate would fit that description.
The aggregating problem will apply to any hypothetical trade deadline deals as well.
I am worried about Mitch in Boston. The fans there suck and they are going to get tired of him shooting 30 percent from the line real quick. He wa never booed by Knicks fans. We all just accepted him and his flaws because he was awesome and he was ours. But Celtics fans are gonna expect more from him because he’s their big FA acquisition. Boston is also not a friendly town. People talk about NYC being rude or whatever but New Yorkers are generally pretty kind at heart once you pierce the tough exterior.
I do think Leon can still turn this around and we can make up for this loss in other ways. The way the team plays is going to change a bit but that’s up to brown to find the new strengths.
I will feel much better about the situation once we sign at least one center lol.
Thanks, timo.
(Repost)
The way things went down with Brown & the Celtics gives me reason to re-examine KAT’s season. If dangling Brown for Giannis just ended with the Celtics having to break up a beloved, championship-winning pairing in one of the worst trades in franchise history, then it’s clear we (and I, in particular) underestimated the impact of KAT being similarly dangled throughout the season.
New role, new coach, and trade rumors? In hindsight, I should have given him more grace, particularly when he moaned about being the one asked to sacrifice. It seems no surprise he began to improve after the all star break.
And it makes KAT even more admirable IMO. He could have easily gotten stuck in his feelings like Brown but he fought through it.
Boston wasn’t friendly before. Now imagine their fans when you couple Brown’s loss with a shitty start to next season and Mitch is clanking free throws to lose games. He will get in his oversized truck and never come back.
“I’ve heard some people compare it to when X-Man left for Boston, but he wasn’t nearly as impactful as a Knick as Mitch was.”
I guess, but the situations were a lot different. X-man (no relation to Z-man) was a 1-year merc, and he left because he didn’t want to wait on the FO while they worked on another deal (was is Charles Smith?) That was mostly on X. Mitch was homegrown and the longest-tenured Knick. In this case, the Knicks just flat out refused to pay him. In that sense, it’s a lot more like the Jeremy Lin non-match. Both are due to Dolan, the only difference is that with Lin he was being petty, while with Mitch he was being “anti-suicidal,” whatever that means.
My personal opinion is that Lin wouldn’t have made much of a difference, but losing Mitch could be much moer impactful, especially this season. We’ll see!
That dude is by far one of the most emotionally mature players in the NBA (which, to be be fair, is a league full of men-child), but we didn’t truly learn about it until he became sage-like off the court in the finals.
Sucks to lose Mitch.
Hard to know what was going on behind the scenes in Boston. Obviously the FO is fully behind Tatum and was never fully behind Brown. One presumes that Tatum will be better now further from his achilles surgery, but there were a lot of worrisome numbers for Tatum including career low % of attempts at the rim, lowest FG% in the restricted area and 3-10 feet, overall 2P% since his age 21 season (upcoming year will be age 28 season), career low 3P%, etc.
Durant remains the major outlier in that he was great after coming back. I hope for the sake of Tatum the person that he’s back to himself, but the injury concern with Tatum + Mitch + PG core… yikes.
Regarding the Lakers — Walker Kessler is really good. But wow that is a huge price to pay. Interestingly he played only 5 games last year but shot 6 of 8 from 3P range.
I am struggling as to why the Knicks didn’t extend Huk the qualifying offer. maybe they wouldn’t have matched the Sixers offer anyway, but Huk just played productive minutes at the highest levels and played reasonably well! At least it would’ve given you the choice to match.
I completely missed Norm Powell signing with the Bulls. Lots of teams in the East getting better, even if I think we’re still top of the heap.
But also, what are the Pistons going to do for a secondary playmaker now that Powell is off the market?
Also re Mitch – maybe this was fully a financial decision about the 2nd apron, but if it were Brunson, Towns, OG they would’ve gone over the 2nd apron to retain them. On some level the calculation was that we won’t go over the second apron for Mitch. Sure he played only 20 min per game or whatever, but also the Knicks FO knows his medical + mental health issues better than anyone. In the most charitable view you could possibly have (and I do not believe this), the FO doth protest too much about the 2nd apron thing (which immediately equaled Mitch leaving) and let Dolan take the heat for it.
I do hope it’s Celtics Knicks at MSG for the ring ceremony — Mitch deserves to be on the court getting his ring when everyone else does. Celtics’ first 2 games of the season will likely be first game at MSG, second game at home vs Philly.
Swifty I think Mitch is such an endearing person that he’ll very quickly be embraced in Boston. You have to be a special kind of cunt to not love that guy.
It’s also going to be extremely easy for Mazzulla to manage the free throws thing bc he and Queta are interchangeable in ways Mitch and KAT are not. Mike Brown could never do the start-of-each-quartet thing bc he had to prioritize KAT over Mitch. Mazzulla’s got no such worry.
Boston’s going to play Mitch the first 6 mins of each quarter and if you want him out of the game you’re going to have to hack yourself into the penalty and then all that’s going to happen is Queta comes in and Mitch will rest til the start of the next quarter.
Hack-a-Mitch is over. And that’s another reason to be happy for him, especially if it was contributing to his mental health struggle.
Trey Murphy?
It will cost a lot.
Beyond the Pacers (who added Oubre, but whatever) he team that has stood the most pat in the East seems to be the Magic. They must really believe in internal development. I guess the Wizards too, but they are adding the #1 pick in the draft.
The Powell move was a true “tanking is over” move, as there’s no other reason to give him that bag otherwise.
Doesn’t sound crazy at all.
Boston
I’m obsessed with the Cisse idea. It seems plausible enough that he’s a quality backup that wasn’t ready to steal minutes from Gafford, Powell, or Lively yet. He certainly moves more fluidly and has better hands than Huk… AND in 35 career minutes against Wemby he’s had 7 points, 13 rebounds, and 4 blocks
My boy sent me this, thought it was funny!
I’m pretty confident it will be.
Also pretty confident it will be Knicks v Spurs on Christmas, but not gonna lie I’m a little worried the league wants to put Wemby over so bad they’ll play that game in San Antonio.
Under Mazzulla (4 full seasons), Boston was 30th, 30th, 28th, and 26th in FTA/game. His offense just doesn’t generate free throws. Jaylen Brown led their team in FTA by a country mile last year. Second was Tatum (who generated the lowest FTR last season since his age 22 season). 3rd was Derrick White who averaged 2.6 FTA/game in 34 min/game. PG averaged 3 FTA/game.
Hack-a-mitch will probably still be a thing — because it’ll make Boston change their offense to try and take advantage of that, but they don’t really have players who are good at drawing fouls — or more importantly, they don’t have players who want to take contact to draw fouls
One advantage Mitch will have with the C’s is that he can be penciled in as the nominal starter, meaning, he can start all 4 quarters and then subbed out before Hack-a-Mitch makes sense, and then subbed back in situationally after the 2:00 mark in any quarter. It was problematic to do that when someone like KAT was in front of him.
I would think that Knicks-Pacers would be a much more juicy opening game for banner-raising and ring ceremony. The Celts just aren’t cool anymore.
Mitch has to be on the floor in the last moments of a close game to alter shots and grab rebounds – otherwise, what’s the point. But that is where hack-a-Mitch still matters. It will still be a thing.
But if it’s the last 2 minutes he will only get hacked on screens and rebounds, so it’s a thing but not as egregious. The real damaging time is the minutes between going into the penalty and the 2-minute mark, where it makes at least some sense to foul him away from the ball on every possession.
Doing it early in the quarter is less advisable because it just gets your team into the penalty faster, and at a time when your starters are on the floor and could be picking up those fouls. It also means your team is going to try to score against a set defense rather than in transition even if Mitch misses both.
But it will be a good problem to have for the C’s, especially having Queta as the other big.
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