Precious on the Cusp

The Knicks get some good news about their backup big man. Plus, a Wednesday grab bag of topics.

Good morning! The Knicks are back in action tonight against Charlotte at 7:30 pm. No halftime for me tonight, but I’ll be back on Saturday. As for whether a familiar face will be making his much anticipated return…

News & Notes

🏀 For the first time all season, Precious Achiuwa is being listed as something other than “OUT” for New York’s next game.

On the heels of Tom Thibodeau proclaiming Precious should be back at some point this week, he’s being listed as QUESTIONABLE for tonight’s game against Charlotte in MSG. For some extended thoughts on whether and why Thibs will go to a nine-man rotation when Achiuwa returns (I think Sims keeps getting time), check out my latest pod with James Edwards III of The Athletic.

For Charlotte, LaMelo is still out, as are Miles Bridges, Grant Williams and Tre Mann.

🏀 Shameless plug: for the very best NBA film breakdown on the internet, check out the latest KFS Film Session from DJ Zullo. In it, he explains why the Knicks were so effective on both ends of the floor against the Magic.

Speaking of which…

Wednesday Grab Bag

I hope nobody minds, but today I’m going to bounce around to a few different topics of interest. Let’s start with a look back at the key to New York’s early defensive success against the Magic:

Slumping Suggs

I’m not going to feel too bad about being unkind to Jalen Suggs today because the man signed a five-year, $150 million contract in the offseason despite having only one season on his resume in which he was something other than a poor to very poor shooter.

(Speaking of that contract, Deuce McBride’s deal is appreciating in value faster than a tech stock in the mid-aughts. I won’t tell you that McBride is a superior player to Suggs, who is probably the most disruptive defensive guard in the NBA, but I know he’s not 1/8 the player that Suggs is either, which is what his contract suggests. The final year of McBride’s deal will see him make $3.956 million, which is less than what the projected one-year veteran minimum salary will be for a player with 10 or more years of NBA experience in the the 2026-27 season. In other words, McBride will quite literally cost less than the lowest amount of money teams will be allowed to pay an experienced vet. All hail Brock Aller.)

This season, Suggs’ points per 100 shot attempts have gone down from his ‘23-24 rate of 120.8 to 110.0 in large part because he’s hitting less than a third of his attempts from behind the arc while still taking about half of his shots from that distance.

New York clearly knew and prepared for that inefficiency, almost from the opening tip: