Briefing: July 2
Getting ready for Summer League
Good Morning,
Knicks officially announced their Summer League roster.
From looking at the roster closely, you will see that Mitchell Robinson has apparently changed his number from 26 to 23.
Jud Buechler will be the head coach.
Kris Wilkes, who signed a two-way with the Knicks after the draft, will not play because he is sick.
Knicks first practice is today in Vegas. They will play their first game on Friday vs Zion and the Pelicans at 9:30 PM EST on ESPN.
Macri’s Thoughts
The dust has settled.
Knick fandom, like we do better than any other (support) group in sports, has brushed off its collective shoulders, put on a brave face, and begun the march forward. Towards what? We don't know exactly, but the nice thing about being a fan of this team is that no matter how bad things might seem in the moment, within 24 hours, we can easily think of all the ways it could be (and certainly has been) worse.
The question of the hour, now that Scott Perry and Steve Mills have nearly doubled the size of the roster with serviceable vets, is whether things are actually that bad at all given the circumstances.
Your answer to this question depends entirely on how you view what is a very distinct team-building philosophy the Knicks are now undertaking.
Count former Knick sage Clarence Gaines as one believer. The OG basketball Yoda shot me a link yesterday to an article that details the benefits of turning a team into a competitive cauldron, which is what the Knicks are clearly doing. It essentially means that everyone on the roster has to earn everything they get, most notably playing time.
Before we get to the merits of this approach and the ways it will likely play out with this roster, a quick word on the roads not taken:
Most of the critique from "smart" NBA Twitter is that the Knicks would have been better off using at least some of their cap space as a salary dumping ground to acquire picks.
It's notable that only two such trades have been made since free agency began, and one of those involved Andre Iguodala, who I noted yesterday would not have been an ideal candidate after his public lambasting of the team last week. Even so, they could have made the deal and immediately waived him.
Ultimately, Scott Perry is betting that the players he signed will be more valuable - either as trade chips later down the line, via the effect they'll have on the young players, or simply as contributors to a winning team - than the picks he otherwise could have acquired. It's definitely an old school philosophy, but not necessarily an incorrect one.
What it most certainly signals is that the days of tanking are done, and really, who can blame them. Aside from just witnessing a lottery where the bottom four teams ended up with the 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th picks, the team just saw its crosstown rivals pull off a coup in part by doing exactly what the Knicks now hope to do themselves. We learned that the New York market was less important by itself than the immediate feasibility of winning in said market. This approach bolsters that premise if it can be executed properly.
(David Fizdale nods glumly as he throws back shots of Patron at a hotel bar somewhere in Vegas)
The other nice thing about this path is the flexibility it affords. The roster is better, but not somuch better as to rule out the possibility of a March/April tank, a'la the Pelicans and Lakers last season. You also avoid the dreaded "treadmill of mediocrity" because of the short term nature of these deals. It all makes sense on paper, but time will tell if it ends up working. (Shot)
On that note, it's easy to point out the ways that the competitive cauldron philosophy shouldn't be applicable to an NBA team. Your 2019 World Champion Raptors aside, lotto picks are the lifeblood of a franchise, and those picks need minutes to develop. What happens if, in your cauldron, the guy you're banking on winning the job comes up short? What if, say, Reggie Bullock clearly outplays Kevin Knox in training camp and "earns" the starting job, and Knox is relegated to the bench? Has the cauldron done its job? Or have you just started down a slippery slope that ultimately leads to shattered confidence and a wasted draft pick?
The bet the organization made with these signings is that their young guys - or at least the ones the organization sees as core pieces for the future - are up to the task. And let's not kid ourselves: we just watched a year of Kevin Knox get ample playing time to work out the many kinks in his game. Many critiqued that carte blanche approach, and this certainly represents a 180. If anyone should be up for the challenge now, it's Knox.
But who else will join him? Will all of the team's own draft picks get a shot? If so, will the newcomers quickly turn into very expensive towel-waivers? That's where things get complicated, not only because it speaks to which players will be here long term, but also because no one on this team is what you'd call a "complete" player. Everyone has one deficiency or another, and how Fizdale mixes and matches their skill sets will be absolutely vital. (Shot)
Let's bank on a 10-man rotation. They'll need at least that, as New York should run like hell, especially with Randle and Knox more than capable of grabbing a rebound and jetting upcourt as a one-man fast break.
Cauldron aside, you can bank on the cornerstone kids - RJ, Mitch, and the aforementioned Knox - getting consistent time. Ditto for Randle. If they can hover around .500 for long enough - no safe bet (Shot) - I'd count on him making the All-Star team with the numbers he's almost certainly going to put up. From the new signings, Portis would be my other pick for regular PT, albeit as a backup. His shooting from either the four or the five will be vital. Throw Allonzo Trier into this group as well, someone Fiz clearly values as an off-the-bench spark plug.
The addition of Elfrid Payton raised immediate questions about Dennis Smith Jr's hold on the starting job. I say he keeps it. For all of Smith's shooting struggles, he's a far more viable deep threat than Payton, who should probably just go the mid-career Tony Parker route and keep it to 16 feet and in at this point. Given that Mitch and Randle are near mortal locks for starting jobs, the Knicks will need all they spacing they can get.
But Payton will play, as he's the only true backup point guard on the roster. A lot of people saw this as the beginning (continuation? culmination?) of the end for Frank, but let's be real: the organization has all but shouted from the rooftops since last September that they don't see him as a point guard.
Are they right? Who the hell knows anymore, but if he's still here, he'll get a chance to compete for a job on the wing, along with Dotson, Bullock, and Ellington. I'd be shocked if Dotson was relegated to the bench after putting up 13 a game following the All-Star break last year. Fiz seemed to learn his lesson on that front after Dot's mysterious four-game benching early last year. (Shot)
That leaves one spot. My guess is it gets shuffled around between Bullock and Taj Gibson to start the year. Kadeem Allen will be heard from periodically to light a fire under the ass of some guard or another, and I'd assume Iggy Brazdeikis will play late in the season, maybe after a stint in Westchester (although I said the same thing about Mitch this time last year. How'd that prediction work out?)
Frank? I'd love nothing more than if he came into camp a man on fire, was draining everything from deep, and proves himself an indispensable glue guy for the second unit, maybe even pushing Payton out of the rotation and sharing co-backup PG duties with Trier.
I'm not ruling it out, but the safer bet is he gets traded before he ever gets the chance. I've never in my life had a greater hope of being wrong.
Thanks for reading, talk to you tomorrow!