Questions, Questions...

The Knicks did some stuff. Now that the dust has settled, let's make sense of it all.

Good morning! I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Unlike last year, it appears that this summer’s ongoing NBA drama will not involve the Knicks. Can’t say I’m terribly disappointed by that development.

With the Knicks’ business seemingly settled, it gives us a chance to take stock of where things stand and what we should keep an eye out for in the immediate and long term future. That’ll be today’s endeavor.

Before we get there though, I want to give a huge shout out to the KFS Substack chat community. Over the long weekend, we had not one but two threads top 1000 replies. Best of all, these conversations are night and day from the toxic slop fest that is NBA Twitter (now with new and dis-improved restrictions!)

If you too want to join a more sophisticated and level-headed daily community for Knicks and NBA talk, please consider becoming a full subscriber to Knicks Film School:

And now, on to the news…

🗣️ News & Notes ✍️

🏀 Congratulations to Josh Hart, who was the final player named to Team USA’s 12-man roster ahead of the upcoming FIBA World Basketball Championships. He’ll join fellow Knick and Nova teammate Jalen Brunson on the squad.

If you’re of the believe that these international competitions double as NBA recruiting sessions, note that the group also includes Brandon Ingram, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Mikal Bridges (although I’m guessing Mikal already knows all he needs to know about what it would be like to play on New York’s roster).

🏀 The Knicks released their summer league roster ahead of Saturday’s opening game (5pm, NBATV vs Philly), and it’s notably low on brand name players in comparison to past years:

Notable absences include Jacob Toppin, who Ian Begley reported is is dealing with a minor injury, and Rokas Jokubaitis. Also per Begley, New York’s 2021 second round pick isn’t on the roster due to Lithuanian nation team commitments.

🏀 Torrey Craig, perhaps the last notable unrestricted free agent on the market, agreed on a two-year contract with the Bulls.

🏀 Finally, I wanted to pass along a good nugget courtesy of Fred Katz about Donte DiVincenzo’s contract:

“[The Knicks] gave DiVincenzo just less than the $12.4 million midlevel exception. He will make $11.6 million in Year 1 of his contract, which leaves just enough room for the Knicks to sign an undrafted rookie to a multi-year deal with the rest of the midlevel.”

This would seem to open up the possibility that New York could convert one of their two-way guys to a longer term deal if they’re really impressed by one of them after Vegas.

Questions, Questions…

The National Basketball Association: where the only certainty is chaos.

Not the catchiest slogan, but certainly a fitting one.

Thus far this offseason, we’ve had team changes for recent All-Stars Fred VanVleet, Bradley Beal and Chris Paul, plus nine-figure contracts players John Collins and Jordan Poole be moved.

And we’re only just getting started. Damian Lillard and James Harden have both logged trade requests. A half dozen other recent All-NBA entrants have also heard their names mentioned in trade rumors, and then hovering over all of this are the futures of three mega stars - Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic and Joel Embiid - that could be in question in the coming years, if not months.

With that as the backdrop (and the understanding that more immediate moves are likely in store for the league at large, if not the Knicks themselves), let’s take a moment to recalibrate with a quick Q & A…

Could this really be New York’s opening night roster?

I think so, yeah. And that’s a position I’ve changed my mind on over the last few days after thinking it over some.

At the very least, the front office is not going to bring in another rotation player without sending a current one out, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to move a current rotation player unless they come across a deal that’s a no brainer. More on that in a bit.

First, the rotation, and why they aren’t going to add a backup power forward without a consolidation move. As I’ve gone through recently, the minutes simply aren’t there. Assuming the bare minimum of 34 minutes a night for Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle and 48 minutes per game of nominal centers, that leaves just under 25 minutes a night for RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, Josh Hart, Quentin Grimes and Donte DiVincenzo. Considering RJ will probably be around 30 a night, that decreased the pot even more for everyone else.

That means barring injury, either Josh Hart or RJ Barrett will be the backup four, which in turn means that for about a dozen minutes a game, New York will only have one player taller than 6'6" on the court. This would have been a big deal in the NBA of yesteryear, when the likes of Karl Malone and Tim Duncan were manning the power forward spot, but now? There are very few fours capable of punishing smaller players, and none of those fours are backups, which is what’s relevant here.

On the plus side, swapping out Obi for Hart/RJ makes the Knicks more switchable and doesn’t hurt their rebounding much if at all. Here’s New York’s leaders in defensive rebounding rate last season, with their total rebounding rate listed alongside:

Now throw in DiVincenzo, who in addition to having one of the best steal rates in the NBA has elite rebound rates for a small wing (9.4 TRB %; 14.0 DRB %). Even if Hart’s insane board skills are somewhat neutralized when he’s matched up against bigger competition, they should more than be able to withstand the drop off.

On offense, while the Knicks will miss Obi’s transition game, they’ll gain an immense advantage from behind the arc. As DJ Zullo pointed out over with his excellent thread this weekend, DiVincenzo instantly becomes New York best catch and shoot threat, with the ability to effectively knock it down from either corner, off screens, and from a longer average distance than anyone else on the roster.

But if all that doesn’t convince you, just follow the money. With outstanding $1.8 million qualifying offers extended to both Trevor Keels and Duane Washington Jr, the Knicks currently have $164.9 million in salary and holds. The luxury tax line is set at $165.3, meaning even a minimum salary would put them into the tax.

As we’ve discussed, the Knicks are not going into the tax next season, let alone for a minimum salaried player. You could make the argument that someone still available (Trenton Watford?) might be worth all or part of the $4.5 million biannual exception, but to accommodate that and duck the tax, the Knicks might need to waive DaQuan Jeffries or Isaiah Roby in addition to rescinding the QO’s to their two-way guys¹.

Speaking of Roby, I wouldn’t be shocked if his presence made the Knicks a tad more comfortable letting go of Obi and essentially having Julius Randle as the only four on the roster. Should Julius miss a game here or there, slotting Roby into the Keith Bogans role might work well enough².

Speaking of Randle, the small roster makes a lot more sense when you consider his track record of staying on the court. Since breaking his leg in the first half of his first game as a rookie, Randle has missed just 4.5 games per season in the eight years since. He’s also fouled out of just four games in four years as a Knick.

So they have all that going for them.

The one name I didn’t mention here is Evan Fournier. Fournier said flatly in his final interview of the year that he fully expects to be dealt. Perhaps reading a bit too much into his comments, but I wonder if that supposition came about because he assumed he’d be matching salary in a larger deal.

Thus far, no such deal has materialized. Unless one does, the only spot left for Fournier would seem to be in San Antonio, which has enough salary cap space to inherit his contract in full. The Spurs could also send back Doug McDermott (who wouldn’t be a terrible fill-in option at the four either) or Devonte Graham, whose 2024-25 salary is guaranteed for just $2.85 million.

Certainly something to keep an eye on.

Besides a Fournier trade, what other moves might still be in store?

The better question is probably what moves aren’t in store, and what the Knicks aren’t going to do is jeopardize their chances at trading for (or even potentially signing outright) one of the three big names I mentioned above.

Let’s start with Giannis. With Middleton and Lopez coming back, expecting Antetokounmpo to really be in play anytime soon is probably far fetched. That said, if October comes and goes and he doesn’t sign the supermax extension that Milwaukee will surely offer, there will be instant speculation about his future. Giannis could break both legs tomorrow, miss the next two seasons, and still warrant a max contract, so there’s no rush on his part to extend with the Bucks. If he doesn’t, everyone around the league (including the Knicks) will be watching.

Luka is a bit of a dicier proposition because of the recent acrimonious relationship between New York and Dallas. That said, if Miami empties the war chest for Dame, it could come down to the Knicks and Nets in terms of teams that have the assets to trade for Doncic and who he would actually want to play for.

(The image of Marc Cuban spurning the Knicks and trading Luka to Brooklyn can only compare to Major Kong gleefully riding an atom bomb en route to his own demise.)

That leaves the big guy in Philly. He has three years left on his contract before a player option in 2026. Even considering recent events, I find it hard to imagine him asking out now or during the season. If the Sixers can’t meaningfully rebound from what appears to be a very difficult situation by next summer though, one figures that could change.

With arguably three of the league’s five best players possibly in play over the next 12-24 months, Leon Rose is going to make sure that whatever he does, he won’t jeopardize his chances of putting forth a real offer for one of them if and when that time comes.

So what, exactly, does that mean?

Free agency is dead. Long live free agency!

The first question is whether they’d try to prioritize maintaining max cap space for a possible run at Giannis in free agency in 2025.

Right now, assuming Josh Hart gets his four-year, $80 million extension in about a month, they’ll have $85.41 million committed to Hart, Barrett, DiVincenzo, Mitch, and Quentin Grimes’ cap hold when the 2025 offseason kicks off. Randle and Brunson have player options for that summer, and while it’s easy to see both declining those options, if the Knicks want to re-sign either, they’ll need to keep the cap hold on the books for both. Brunson’s will be $37.44 million, so even if Randle opts out and the Knicks vanquish his hold from the books, New York will be at $122.85 million against a $149.1 million cap if they keep Brunson’s hold. That’s far less than they’ll need to make Antetokounmpo (or anyone else) a max offer, which starts at $52.2 million.

Best case scenario, Brunson opts in to his $24.96 player option for 2025-26 and inks a four-year, $157.4 million extension (along with a few hundred thousand shares of under-the-table MSG Sports stock). That would free up an additional $12.4 million, but they’d still be short of a max offer. To get there, you’d basically be talking about dumping RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley at some point over the next two years and taking back no long term salary in return. That’s simply not realistic.

So what’s the alternative? Basically to make sure that there’s enough salary on the books that would be desirable to any team offloading a star and could go back in a trade or sign & trade. That could be RJ. It could also be IQ on his next deal. It probably would not be someone like Paul George or James Harden on their next contract, or even someone like Zach LaVine or Karl-Anthony Towns. If the Bucks, Mavs or Sixers are trading an MVP caliber talent, one would think they’d want to start over, not be left fighting for the 6th seed.

That whittles down the list of possible trade candidate in the interim to players who would be desirable for a team starting over. OG Anunoby is an obvious name here. As of now though, it doesn’t appear he’s on the market. Should that change, I’d be fascinated to see what the Knicks would be willing to put on the table for the soon-to-be 26-year-old wing who can enter unrestricted free agency next summer.

We also have Donovan Mitchell, but if the Knicks dealt for him, could they have both enough outgoing salary and enough draft equity left after that trade to make an even bigger splash afterwards? That’s tough to envision, although I wouldn’t put anything past Brock Aller.

Maybe someone else emerges, but as far as obvious candidates go, that’s about it.

So wait…why the rumors about Harden, George and LaVine?

My guess: the Knicks have kicked the tires on all of the above with the notion that, hey, if the cost is low enough, let’s do the trade and worry about the rest later.

After some initial rumors, we’ve heard that Chicago’s asking price for LaVine is sky high and that LA isn’t ready to give up on George quite yet. That leaves Harden. If the reporting is to be believed, it’s basically the Clippers who have shown the most interest, with the Knicks circling the perimeter. Smokescreen? Maybe.

But for argument’s sake, let’s say Los Angeles, refuses to part with Terrence Mann and will only make an offer centered around Norm Powell and Marcus Morris. Even if they throw in their 2028 first rounder, that’s not exactly a package that helps Philly contend for a title. The other route is to take out Powell and built a trade solely on expiring salaries, which could then allow the Sixers to be major players in free agency in 2024.

If that’s the sort of package Philly has to settle for though, then New York could accomplish the same thing with Evan Fournier, Isaiah Hartenstein and Daquan Jeffries minimum salary, but with protected picks thrown in to sweeten the pot.

That creates an issue though: even if New York rescinded its two two-way qualifying offers (or, alternatively, Keels and DWJ signed those offers and the resulting two-way contracts wouldn’t count against the cap), this trade puts the Knicks into the luxury tax. Maybe they feel getting Harden is worth going into the tax for. Or maybe they aren’t serious about Harden at all, and their inclusion in his list of suitors is a bunch of nonsense. Or maybe they’re more willing to shake things up than we might realize.

Who knows. But barring an unexpected trade candidate to emerge, this appears to be the final subplot of the summer before New York starts preparing for next season.

As for how they’re looking in the East? We’ll see whether Philly gets meaningfully worse or Miami gets meaningfully better, but either way, another top-six seed appears to be well within reach. For now, that will have to be enough.

At least until the next big NBA shoe drops out of the sky, and the Knicks get their shot to grab a seat at the big kids table.

As this summer reminded us, it’s only a matter of time.

🏀

That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. Also, a big thanks to our sponsor:

See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter

1. Once Keels and Washington Jr sign those offers, by the way, they’ll each be on a one-year two-way deal, which does not count against the cap. If and when both do though, the Knicks will still be closer to the tax than the amount of the full bi-annual exception.

2. Bogans was the wing who famously started 82 games for Tom Thibodeau’s first Bulls squad while averaging just 17.8 minutes a night.