Friday Mailbag

You asked, I answered.

Good morning! Only piece of news before we get to the newsletter is courtesy of Ian Begley, who reports that Taylor Jenkins is very much on the Knicks’ radar. That’s it! Happy Friday!

Friday Mailbag

It’s a 20-question slate to end the week. Most of the focus is on the coach (either outgoing or incoming) but we got into some roster stuff as well.

Rod Cole starts us off:

How important is it to have a coach in place before the draft?

When they first fired Thibs, I assumed they would want someone in place before the draft. To some extent, I still do. We’ve been hearing recently that lots of stuff is going to go down on draft night. You’d think they’d want to have a coach in place before they make a potentially big move, but a few things are making me doubt the necessity of that now.

For one, they only have the 50th pick, so it’s unlikely they get a future rotation piece at that spot, let alone a franchise-changer. But that’s a secondary concern, and a distant one at that.

If there was a real chance that the Knicks were going to make a franchise altering trade on draft night, than yes, I think it would be irresponsible for them not to get the input of the future head coach. Maybe there’s something on that end that pops up and we don’t know about it - Leon moves in silence, or so the saying goes - but as of now, it seems like a trade for either Kevin Durant or Giannis Antetokounmpo are highly unlikely for one reason or another.

That could certainly change. There could also be another star they want to go out and get. But I keep thinking about something Ian Begley said to me when I asked about potential roster upheaval this summer. In his opinion, because we’re only one year removed from the front office giving up major assets to acquire Mikal Bridges and Karl-Anthony Towns, there’s no reason to believe the team is itching to trade either of them (or, presumably, OG Anunoby, and certainly Jalen Brunson). According to Begs, if the right star became available and the only way to swing such a trade was to include a key piece of the roster, then maybe they’d consider that, but it’s not like they’re determined to make a seismic trade just to offload someone they just acquired.

Is that because the front office has genuine faith in this core to improve and coalesce under a new coach? Or is it because trading one of the key parts would be an admission of failure so soon after those moves?

The answer ultimately doesn’t matter at this point. Either way, my guess is that the next coach will be tasked with getting the most out of Jalen, KAT, Mikal and OG, whether that mission starts in three days or three weeks.

Next up, we have a question from Sammy G:

Seems like many of the new coaches who succeeded after a successful season also had a large trade acquisition that bumped them up. Who is that candidate? KD, Giannis or someone else?