Draft Week!

Plus, new reporting on Paul George, Isaiah Hartenstein, Mitchell Robinosn and OG Anunoby

Good morning! Can you feel the flames of that hot stove? Or is that just the heat wave that overtook New York this weekend?

Either way, the offseason is in full swing, with news and rumors flying every which way. I’ll get into everything concerning the Knicks below, but first a quick announcement: if you are NOT a full subscriber to the KFS Newsletter, there will only be two more free Monday editions of the newsletter until next fall, dropping on July 1 and July 8. As many have implored me to do over the years, I’m finally taking a bit of a breather, which means I’m scaling back on the free content this summer.

Full subscribers, fear not: daily newsletters will continue coming your way for the next three weeks, plus bonus editions that drop immediately anytime something big happens. After that, I’ll be moving to three newsletter per week from mid-July to mid-September.

If you’re not a full subscriber, there’s no better time to join the club, all for the monthly price of a cup of coffee:

News & Notes

🏀 The eyebrows have officially been raised.

Per fellow Substacker Marc Stein, there may be a star in New York’s offseason plans after all:

“Another trusted source has advised me to keep the Knicks on the list as a potential trade suitor for [Paul] George if the All-NBA swingman indeed opts into the final season of his current contract at $48.8 million. That step would position George to push for a trade to another team.”

This isn’t the first time George’s name has come up in connection with the Knicks, and it shouldn’t be a surprise he’s coming up now.

A quick note on the feasibility of acquisition: it is nearly impossible to envision a world where all four of George, Julius Randle, OG Anunoby and Isaiah Hartenstein are on the team next year.

In short, signing OG and I-Hart would elevate New York’s salary up to the level where the $178.6 million hard cap would be in play, such that constructing a trade without Randle would be functionally impossible without triggering the hard cap. Because of George’s considerable salary, if New York sent out more money than it took back in any trade (i.e., the only way to acquire PG13 without including Randle) they would not be able to go above $178.6 million, which wouldn’t be possible in a world where they also retained Hartenstein and Anunoby (and didn’t move any of Brunson, Hart or DiVincenzo, which I’m taking as a given).

On the flip side, Randle plus Bogey amount to just under $48 million, or about $800,000 short of George’s opt-in number for next season. The Clippers are also looking at being hard-capped, presuming they don’t want to relinquish James Harden’s cap hold and let the former MVP walk. That means they can’t take back more money than they send out in a trade, which means getting a third team involved to absorb a minimum salary from the Knicks into a cap exception.

We’re getting wildly ahead of ourselves here, of course, and Stein’s report does indicate that George going back to the Clippers remains the likeliest scenario. It does raise some interesting questions though. George is four and a half years older than Randle and hasn’t been a picture of health or playoff consistency over the course of his career. Then again, neither has Randle.

A situation worth keeping an eye on, for sure.

🏀 The future of New York’s center position continues to take shape.

According to a Friday report from Yahoo’s Jake Fischer, starting center Isaiah Hartenstein is now “generally expected to return to New York.” The reason, in part, seems to stem from Oklahoma City’s recent acquisition of Alex Caruso, and the fact that he is one year away from a new contract that will get much pricier, thus lowering the wiggle room they have to spend lavishly this summer.

While Fischer doesn’t totally discount their interest in I-Hart, he writes that “multiple figures with knowledge of OKC’s thinking indicated the Thunder are far more likely to pursue a situational reserve big man to support Chet Holmgren” as opposed to someone like Hartenstein who would command far more playing time.

On the flip side of that coin is Mitchell Robinson, whose future in New York suddenly seems to be in doubt. In that same report on Hartenstein, Fischer notes that the Knicks “have contacted opposing teams about moving Mitchell Robinson” according to sources.

Ian Begley chimed in on Twitter shortly thereafter, and while his phrasing was a bit different, he did say that “Robinson's name has come up” as a part of potential trades because of his team-friendly contract, but also acknowledged that New York isn’t “fully committed to moving him.” Fred Katz had a similar assessment during his recent conversation with Will Guillory on Katz & Shoot, stating that while a Mitch trade isn’t “inevitable,” they are “checking out the market.”

This is hardly the first time Robinson’s name has come up in trade rumors since he arrived in New York, although the circumstances from past news cycles are a bit different. For one, Mitch was always seen as the highest ceiling option at center, with only health and consistency standing in the way. Now, Hartenstein is viewed as the best fit with the starting five because of the added elements he brings on offense.

That doesn’t, by itself, make Mitchell Robinson a trade candidate, but it does make him slightly more expendable. As I discussed earlier in the offseason, paying about $30 million a season on the center position isn’t unreasonable when that expenditure guarantees you 48 minutes of high level play, even if neither guy is necessarily a top 10 big man league-wide.

But New York’s wallet is growing ever tighter, as subscribers of this newsletter know full well from reading about the various salary cap implications of potential moves. Even so, the Knicks might be more amenable to paying Mitch $27.3 million over the next two seasons if they felt confident he’d be around for the vast majority of games, including to fill in for Hartenstein himself if and when he gets banged up.

At this point though, it’s becoming difficult to ignore the persistent injuries, and there’s a reliability factor that needs to be considered as well as the benefit of having perhaps the best backup big man in basketball.

The reality is that even with Isaiah and Mitch taking up a significant portion of the cap, the front office may feel the need to spend additional money on a situational big (perhaps even Precious Achiuwa on a new deal) for those moments when Robinson can’t go. Jericho Sims has been playable at times, but its telling that Thibs didn’t feel confident in him during the playoffs even after Robinson went down.

The outlay of cash for Isaiah, Mitch and a non-Sims emergency big may not be tenable. Combined with the fact that Mitch may have real value on the market, and considering New York’s dearth of fungible mid-tier salaries to built trades with, this report probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, nor should Begley’s follow up report yesterday.

In it, he named Goga Bitadze as center on New York’s radar. I’ve written about Bitadze here after he did a serviceable job for the Magic last season and would presumably come at a relatively low cost (i.e., no more than the taxpayer MLE, thus avoiding the hard cap) in free agency. Begley also mentioned the Wizards as a team the Knicks have been in touch with regarding Robinson, which makes sense given their current lack of an apparent starting center.

(It’s also worth noting that Mitch for Deni Avdija works under the cap. New York could also add a minimum salary to the deal to avoid sending out more money than they take pack and triggering the hard cap.)

All this being said, the front office isn’t going to flip Robinson just to flip him. Mitch is the longest tenured Knick for a reason, and he may be entering the prime of his career, as we saw early last season and during New York’s first round series with Philly.

At the same time, the league continues to move in a direction where offensive liabilities are more detrimental than ever. That includes centers, some of whom drain threes and run offenses, but at the very least need to be able to execute a one-dribble move and make obvious reads on the short roll. As long as Robinson struggles in those areas, penciling him as a significant part of a playoff rotation could be dicy.

So yes, this is a situation that bears watching, but it certainly isn’t the only one…

🏀 More from Jake Fischer…on his “No Cap Room” show with Dan Devine, Fischer had some interesting thoughts regarding OG Anunoby:

At this point, there seems to be a lot of smoke in the air regarding Anunoby, but it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s the result of both sides trying to get the best deal. Notably, Marc Stein reported yesterday that “despite some recent murmurs about Anunoby considering his options elsewhere,” the Knicks “have been painted as a strong favorite” to re-sign Anunoby when free agency opens. Begley also told me last week that only an agency change from CAA would give him real pause about predicting OG comes back in New York.

In related news, today is the deadline for OG to opt out of his $19.9 million player option and become an unrestricted free agent. That seems all but a formality at this point, after which the real games can begin.

🏀 Finally, in some actual news, Marc Stein reported last night that the Knicks were set to hire Casey Smith as their new vice president of sports medicine. Smith has been the athletic trainer for both the Dallas Mavericks for two decades, as well as serving the same role for USA Basketball. After the news came in, league insiders roundly praised the move as one of significance for New York, who obviously dealt with their fair share of injuries last season. Hopefully Smith can help them get back on the healthier side of things in the months and years to come.

Imperfect Science

Last season, for the first time since 1949, the New York Knicks ended a season without a single player on the roster who the team drafted in the first round.

Yes, they still had homegrown guys like Mitchell Robinson, Deuce McBride and Jericho Sims, but they were all taken in the second round. The three former first round picks who started the year with the club - RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Quentin Grimes - had all been send out via trade. Combined with not selecting players in the first round of either of the last two drafts, it left the team in a position we haven’t seen in three quarters of a century.

That’s pretty astounding when you think about how frequently and carelessly they’ve frittered away first rounders at various points throughout their history. It also means it’s probably time to restock the cupboard.

They will get the opportunity to do so this week. For the third time in the Leon Rose era (and only the eighth time since the league did away with territorial selections in 1966), New York will enter draft night with multiple bites at the first round apple. Throw in the 38th pick, and there’s a pretty good chance that the Knicks walk away with at least one young player this week.

But who will that player be, and what are the odds that Leon Rose actually makes the picks he currently owns?

To answer that question, we kick off this week’s draft coverage with a question from Cole, who asks:

If there truly isn’t a star on the market, why wouldn’t the Knicks use a future pick or picks to move up for a guy they really like in the draft? Weak draft classes typically just lack an obvious top player, which may let a really great option fall to the 7-15 range. Perrin was also with the Jazz when they moved 24 and Trey Lyles to get Donovan Mitchell. Feels like the type of small, high upside bet that could really move the needle if it works.

I appreciate this question because it’s a reminder that good front offices tend to think outside the box. Donovan Mitchell wasn’t an obvious star, but the Jazz saw something in him and got him for what turned out to be a bargain basement price.

To New York’s credit, they have yet to sit back and simply wait their turn in any of the three drafts they’ve had a pick in (as a reminder, the Knicks didn’t have a first or second round pick in the 2024 Draft). They moved up, down and out of the first round in 2020, 2021 and 2022, and with back to back selections at 24 and 25 this season, the safe bet is that they’ll do so again.

Cole is also right to point out that great players often fall much farther than they should. Even putting aside someone like Giannis, who was shrouded in mystery and fell to 15 as a result, plenty of relatively known commodities have fallen into the back half of the lottery or further over the last 20 years:

• 8th pick: Rudy Gay (‘06), Franz Wagner (‘21)

• 9th: Andre Igudala (‘04), Joakim Noah (‘07), DeMar DeRozan (‘09), Gordon Hayward (‘10), Kemba Walker (‘11), Andre Drummond (‘12)

• 10th: Andrew Bynum (‘05), Brook Lopez (‘08), Paul George (‘10), CJ McCollum (‘13), Mikal Bridges (‘18)

• 11th: Klay Thompson (‘11), Myles Turner (‘15), Domantas Sabonis (‘16), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (‘18)

• 12th: Tyrese Haliburton (‘20), Jalen Williams (‘22), Dereck Lively II (‘23)

• 13th: Zach LaVine (‘14), Devin Booker (‘15), Donovan Mitchell (‘17), Tyler Herro (‘19)

• 14th: Bam Adebayo (‘17)

• 15th: Kawhi Leonard (‘11)

Considering that every draft year from the last two decades has at least one representative on the above list, the odds are pretty good that someone drafted between 8 and 15 will, at the very least, be a borderline All-Star at some point in their career.

And if New York’s front office knew who that player was, they wouldn’t be running the Knicks, because they’d have retired after playing lotto many years ago.

For as much time and effort as draftniks put into this stuff, no one really knows anything for sure. If they did, all of the above players wouldn’t have fallen as far as they did.

That level of difficulty may be raised exponentially for this year’s edition. Sam Vecenie, who covers the draft for The Athletic and is as good as they come when it comes to the combination of analysis and intel, wrote last week that “NBA teams largely agree this is a down class from the top of the draft through the top-10” but that the middle & late-middle of the first round features “intriguing options” before a drop off in the second. Regarding the players who are pegged to go off the board at the very top, he rhetorically added:

“Do you believe Zaccharie Risacher has significant athletic upside? Do you think Donovan Clingan can stay on the court in the playoffs? Do you believe Alex Sarr’s offensive game will keep developing? Do you think Stephon Castle will become at least a competent perimeter shooter? Do you think Reed Sheppard’s size is a significant hindrance? These are the top five players on my board, yet questions like these have been regularly bandied about in front offices all over the league.

The way other observers see it, the very top of this draft features the sort of talent that would start going off the board midway through the lottery of a normal draft because, as Sam writes, there are really no sure things.

When you combine that with the fact that the Knicks can stay right where they are and get a good player or players before the drop off Vecenie mentions, I’d be pretty surprised if they made a significant trade to move up in this draft (i.e., into the late lottery).

Does that mean there might not be a trade within the first round (as opposed to trading out of the first round with one or both of their picks)? Of course not. But figuring out what that trade might be is a hard task.

For one, we don’t know what the Knicks want. On the KFS pod last week, Ian Begley made an educated guess that New York would target a player who can give them productive minutes as soon as next season, even if they almost certainly won’t be part of the healthy rotation. That makes all the sense in the world considering the team’s current priorities.

And yet, the player New York has been linked to most consistently (including by Vecenie in his latest mock draft) is Ryan Dunn, who might be the best defensive prospect in this class, but also the one with the most significant offensive question marks. If there’s anyone who would seem to benefit from a season in Westchester, it’s Dunn.

And what about specific positions of need? The two that have been frequently mentioned in connection with the Knicks have been center (maybe because Hartenstein could leave, maybe because Mitch is on the block, or maybe simply to add a depth piece) and point guard (because one day we’ll knock for Alec Burks and he’ll no longer be free to come out and play).

I wrote briefly about the various center prospects a few weeks ago. Since then, two-time National Player of the Year Zach Edey has steadily risen up draft boards. He may now be the second true center selected after Donovan Clingan, but it’s also possible that Edey, Kal’el Ware, Kyle Filipowski or Yves Missi could be sitting there for the Knicks at 24.

Does the front office covet any one of those centers enough that they’d proactively make a slight move up the draft board to guarantee they get the guy they want? It’s tough to answer that question without knowing whether they want to draft a big man to begin with. While it’s tempting to read Friday’s Yahoo report as an indication that New York plans on drafting a center, it’s worth noting that rookie big men rarely offer positive value. That goes triply so for young centers expected to master the intricacies of a Tom Thibodeau defense.

Targeting a point guard with one of their picks presents different issues. Devin Carter and Bub Carrington are both nominal point guards who seem to espouse many of the qualities that would endear a prospect to a Tom Thibodeau-coached team. Perhaps not coincidentally, they have also been two of the draft’s biggest risers in recent weeks, with one or both now potentially going in the lottery.

There are two other point guards mocked in the late lottery and high-end of the mid-first round (Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham and Duke’s Jared McCain), there are two other interesting names who figure to be available at or around New York’s picks, and they could not be more different.

On one end of the spectrum, there is USC’s Isaiah Collier, who entered the season as the No. 1 player in his recruiting class but struggled immensely at times as a freshman and who reportedly did not test or measure well at the combine. He might be the best upside pick in the back end of the first round, but may be nowhere close to being able to contribute at the pro level.

On the other end is Tyler Kolek, who like Dunn, has been connected with the Knicks throughout this draft process as someone who would fit New York’s ethos to a T. He is a graduating senior and a three-year starter at Marquette after transferring from George Mason, and may be ready to step into some team’s rotation immediately. At 23 years old, he is barely younger than Rokas Jokubaitis, who the front office drafted three years ago.

There have been recent reports that Phoenix is targeting Kolek at 22 in large part because they desperately need NBA-ready contributors, so if the Knicks have their heart set on him, they may need to move up a few picks.

My guess at this point would be to expect the unexpected. I don’t think the Knicks want to make picks at 24 and 25, but it’s going to be nearly impossible to flip one for a future first given the perceived value of the picks and they’re also loath to get negative value in a transaction. That means getting creative. Who knows? Maybe Cole is right and a trade-up is in the cards.

Whatever happens, it promises to be an action-packed evening.

Speaking of which, a final note: I’ll be at a Knicks Film School Draft party at Penn 6 (see the flyer below) all night for Wednesday’s first round. KFS will be up in the lounge, with tons of giveaways and specials throughout the evening. Oh, and former Knick Gerald Wilkins will be in attendance! Hope to see everyone there.

🏀

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”