Midlevel Madness, Part II

My top 5 candidates to take New York's MLE, and whether any of them would be worth using it on.

Good morning! We start today with a juicy if unpleasant news item…

News & Notes

🏀 Stefan Bondy had a report in the Post yesterday that certainly raised the heart rate of anyone hoping to keep Isaiah Hartenstein in New York long term. The quote that made the rounds on the interwebs last night:

“It’s real,” an NBA source said of OKC’s interest in Hartenstein.

Bondy goes on to quote a league source who “speculated the Thunder would offer a short-term deal (such as two years) with a high salary, providing both sides with long-term flexibility.” This won’t come as a surprise to readers of this newsletter, as I made the same pitch for the Thunder in last Monday’s edition.

As I noted then, big extensions for Chet and J-Dubb won’t kick in until the ‘26-27 season, so a two-year offer made some sense. Whether Hartenstein wants to leave the greatest city in the world for a payday in Oklahoma City is another story entirely.

And if he leaves? I wrote about some backup plans in last week’s mailbags, but one thing I didn’t explicitly cover is whether the Knicks could use their full midlevel exception (the topic of today’s newsletter) to address the issue.

Here’s the problem: the only centers worth that sort of outlay are Nic Claxton, who figures to get a lot more money from Brooklyn, and Jonas Valanciunas, who isn’t exactly the sort of defensive presence Thibs prefers. After them, it’s guys who are more deserving of the smaller, taxpayer MLE, and would represent a real drop off in production.

More on this if and when we get more reporting to digest.

Midlevel Madness, Part II

When we left off yesterday, we pretty much discovered that a perfect answer to New York’s backup playmaker void isn’t going to be available on the free agent market.

But as I’m fond of saying, perfect is the enemy of the good.

No, there is no Immanuel Quickley clone available for the price the Knicks can afford to pay (or, for that matter, on the trade market). Then again, it’s not like New York’s offense was gangbusters when IQ played without Jalen Brunson anyway.

And yet, they almost always thrived in those non-Brunson minutes thanks to their defense. After IQ was sent to Toronto, that equation flipped. With Quickley, an otherworldly defense propped up a ho hum offense. Without him, the defense was still very good but not elite, while the offense went from passable to untenable. As a result, post-OG trade, New York went from winning those non-Brunson minutes by 3.0 points per 100 possessions to losing them by 4.8 points per 100.

Against Philly, the Knicks did their most impressive work of the season without their star guard, albeit in a tiny sample size of 30 minutes: 121.4 offensive rating, 112.5 defensive rating. It’s not a stretch to say they beat the Sixers because their non-Brunson minutes were head, shoulders and torso above the non-Embiid minutes for Philly.

But that all changed against Indiana, when New York scored just 104.2 points per 100 possessions without Jalen while giving up 130.5 - good for a negative 26.3 net rating in 81 non-Brunson minutes.

It feels unwise to draw too many conclusions from that relatively small sample size, but it’s not hard to understand how it came about. While the Knicks never had much success stopping Indy’s go-go offense, they really struggled to stop it when the Pacers got off and running after a missed shot or a turnover. Given how New York’s scoring proficiency went from robust (122.0) to anemic when JB sat, it’s not hard to put two and two together. Deuce McBride’s defensive presence in all of those non-Brunson minutes didn’t make a bit of difference.

Indiana is just one opponent with specific strengths, but every team who gets this far offers unique challenges. The road to the Finals will likely continue to go through Boston, who presents their own set of issues that we’re seeing on full display against Dallas. Other East contenders loom, each of which will put pressure on New York in different ways.

Here’s the point: the Knicks didn’t lose to Indiana because they didn’t have an apt backup point guard. They lost because they didn’t have enough players to put pressure on the Pacers at both ends for 48 minutes a night, mostly because half of their team was decimated due to injuries.

Taking that knowledge and applying it to their offseason plans, it begs the question of how New York should approach player acquisition. Should they target a player or players who will help them the most when they’re at full strength (i.e., a backup guard)? Or should they account for the fact that most teams are banged up come playoff time, and the best way to ensure against injuries to have the most #meaningful depth with as much two-way versatility as possible?

Today, I’m going with Option B, in part just to see where the road takes us. This summer’s crop of free agents is thin when it comes to traditional bucket-getters, but it contains many players who can help fill out a playoff rotation.

Before we get to my top five options, one name that you won’t be seeing below is Miles Bridges. Even coming off an inefficient year by his standards, Bridges is arguably the best non-star talent on the market, and he’s about to enter his prime. He also missed the ‘22-23 season because of allegations of domestic violence. In short, that’s not a distraction any team in the world’s largest media market should be taking on.

Also not making an appearance below for different financially-driven reasons:

• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who has a $15.4 million player option with Denver and isn’t about to take a pay cut

• Patrick Williams, who is a restricted free agent that would require a mammoth offer for the Bulls not to match.

• Royce O’Neal, who the Suns are apparently willing to do what it takes to re-sign, even if it catapults them further over the second apron.

• Kelly Oubre Jr, who was the third best player in Philly’s six-game series loss against the Knicks in May, but who has a cap hold of just $2 million that the Sixers would be insane to renounce, and is almost certainly going to get a massive offer to stay in the City of Brotherly Trashbaggery Love.

• Klay Thompson, who is easily the starriest name that will appear in this newsletter, but who I doubt is moving cross-country for this amount of money, especially with a team like the Magic looming. And finally…

• Gary Trent Jr, who I really, really wanted to talk myself into being a possibility with the full midlevel, but I just can’t quite get there. The dude is a defensively passable elite marksman who turned 25 in January. He made $18.5 million in Toronto last season, and some team with cap space figures to give him at least that much this summer, even if its on a shorter deal. Hope I’m wrong about this, because he’d be a lovely fit.

On to my Top 5 realistic candidates, in no particular order…