Stirring the Pot?

Some recent speculation from a national media member provides some food for thought as New York hits the home stretch.

Good morning! Tonight the Knicks try to get back to their winning ways, but our focus today is on the summer ahead, and all the reasons it will likely be a pivotal one for the future of the franchise.

🏙 Game Night 🏙

Who: Rockets

Where: MSG

When: 7:30 pm

TV: MSG

Personal Injury Report presented by Weiss & Rosenbloom: Jalen Brunson is QUESTIONABLE with the hand injury that kept him out of Thursday’s loss to Orlando, but he practiced in full yesterday, so that’s a good sign.

Halftime: Click here to enter.

Must Win? Don’t overthink it. The Knicks are coming off three days of rest. They’re playing a Rockets team that, while feisty, is 18-56. That’s more than three losses for every win.

Take care of effing business, please.

Meanwhile, this weekend saw the Heat get demolished by the Nets followed by Brooklyn getting pummeled in Orlando last night. Even after an 0-3 week, New York is still two games up in the standings on both teams chasing them, with games remaining against Houston, Miami, at Cleveland, Washington, at Indy, at New Orleans and against Indy at home to close the season.

Brooklyn’s loss was important because it kept them 1.5 games back in Eastern Conference games, which is the next tiebreaker after division record. Brooklyn plays Philly in the last game of the season, and with the chance that the game could be meaningless for Philly, perhaps the Sixers rest everyone and give the Nets an easy W. If that happens, the conference standing tiebreaker looms large.

At this point, one of two things would need to happen for Brooklyn to finish ahead of the Knicks:

1. Finish with an outright better record. With 7 games left for Brooklyn (vs HOU, vs ATL, vs UTH, vs MIN, @ DET, vs ORL, vs PHI), if the Knicks go 4-3, the Nets would need to go 7-0; if NY goes a disastrous 3-4, Brooklyn still needs to go 6-1 to finish with a higher record outright.

2. Beat Philly in the season finale and finish with a better conference record. Even if the Knicks lose to both Miami and Cleveland, if they take care of business against the three non-playoff East teams to finish their schedule, even a 4-0 finish against Brooklyn’s remaining Eats opponents would only advance them to the next tiebreaker, which is winning percentage vs. playoff teams in the East. New York already has that locked up.

As for Miami, if New York wins tonight and wins against the Heat on Wednesday, they’d essentially be two wins away from ensuring they finish ahead of Miami¹.

Stirring the Pot?

Last week, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst had a segment on his Hoops Collective podcast that raised some eyebrows.

I didn’t write about it at the time because the Knicks were in the midst of…nothing particularly good, but I found the segment notable enough to want to analyze in greater detail before we get back to (hopefully) the final push for the playoffs.

For those who may not know what I’m talking about, here’s the entire relevant portion of the pod, which the fine folks at Real GM transcribed so I didn’t have to:

“Here's what I think about the Knicks. They have two handfuls of trade material, in my opinion. They can make, in my opinion, two big trades if they had to coming into this summer. They have the expiring contract of Evan Fournier, which can act as ballast in a trade. They have a bunch of younger players that people are interested in. And they have something like nine tradable first round picks.

In my view, they can trade for two star-level players if they needed to. It doesn't mean they'd have to do those deals in the summer of '23. Those deals can be made within the ‘23-24 season, they can be in '24. But they can hold, in my opinion, they can hold Jalen Brunson, they can hold Julius Randle, and they can make two giant trades. Now, whether they can hold Brunson, Randle and Barrett and make two giants trades, that would depend on the players. But there is even a window that they can hold all three of those and make two giant trade. 

It's going to require, I think, a player to say 'Send me to New York.' And potentially another star player to say 'Oh, I'll go to New York too.' Or for New York to pull a big trade and a star player going 'Oh, man. They got this and they still got this. I want to do that.'

He added, “The Knicks are positioned” but that “executing is the hard part.²”

Let’s start here: Is Brian just making polite podcast conversation to fill time, or is there something to this?

Knowing absolutely nothing and just spitballing here, but Windhorst strikes me as someone who hears a heck of a lot more than he reports. This is certainly true of most local beat writers, and Windy is a beat guy by trade. In short, these comments don’t strike me as him filling time with rank speculation. Instead, I’d bet on this already being a topic of conversation around the league, with the obvious caveat that no one really seems to know exactly what Leon Rose is thinking at any given moment.

Even with that caveat though, there are some signs pointing to the probability that New York will be active, and in particular, will be looking to simultaneously upgrade and condense the talent on the roster - signs that go beyond the Knicks’ perpetual “no shit, Sherlock” hunt for a star player (or players).

I’ll get to why I believe that to be the case shortly. First, some logistics; i.e., is Brian correct? As in, do the Knicks have the assets, contracts and salary cap structure in place to realistically accommodate trading for two stars while keeping, let’s say, two of Brunson, Randle and Barrett?

In short, yes. In Barrett (or Brunson or Randle), Evan Fournier and Mitchell Robinson, the Knicks have about $60 million in tradable salary. I use the term “tradable” purposefully because unlike last summer, no one is going to raise a stink about taking on any of this money. Barrett has been inconsistent but is young and retains some level of upside, the height of which your milage may vary on. My guess: more teams than not would view him as at least a net neutral asset on his current contract (i.e., not a great contract but not a bad one either). Ditto for Robinson, whose value is complicated by the position he plays but is in the midst of his best season and is on a declining pact. Fournier, unlike last July, is now expiring money. As such, a fair comp would be the way Danilo Gallinari’s contract was used by Atlanta in the Dejounte Murray trade (i.e., as salary filler).

As an extra added bonus, New York has the option of picking up Derrick Rose’s team option for $15.6 million if they need even more outgoing salary for trades. Throw in Obi Toppin’s not insignificant $6.8 million fourth year salary, and the Knicks have enough money to facilitate separate trades for essentially any two stars in the league.

To illustrate, let’s use the completely absurd premise of New York making separate deals for the two highest paid players in basketball next season, Steph Curry ($51.91 million) and Kevin Durant ($47.65 million):

• RJ & Rose ($39.5M in outgoing salary, can accommodate $49.3M in incoming money) for KD

• Mitch, Evan, Obi & Jericho Sims ($43.2M in outgoing salary, can accommodate $54M in incoming money) for Steph

The point here is simply that matching money will not be an issue going into this summer.

(And if Golden State and Phoenix are looking to blow it up, the phone lines are open!)

Of course, in Windy’s two-star scenario, the positions of the stars they’d be trading for could factor in heavily. For instance, Mitchell Robinson - social media nonsense and all - is still a vital piece of this roster for the rim protections and offensive rebounding they depend on. Ideally, if the Knicks have to send out his salary to make a deal work, they’d be getting a center back in one of the trades.

Those are first world problems though. Stars are stars, and center is arguably the most replaceable position in the league. The bigger question, at least as it pertains to Windhorst’s hypothetical, is who the heck are these stars they’d go out and get?

That’s a larger conversation for the offseason, and I have no intention of making target lists when the team in front of us has much business left to take care of. That being said, this is still an extremely relevant topic for the here and now. The reason why is tied directly to nightly Sophie’s choice that Tom Thibodeau faces with his closing lineup, as well as the thing that makes the world go ‘round: money.

At the moment, Thibs has four players for two closing wing spots. That might seem like a great problem to have, but it’s also about to become a very expensive one. To wit:

• RJ Barrett makes an average of $26.75 million in each of the next four years.

• It has already been reported that Josh Hart plans to opt out of his $12.9 million player option and he has spoken openly of wanting to re-sign long term with the Knicks. Best guess is something starting in the $15-17 million range.

• Immanuel Quickley is extension eligible this summer, and while we don’t know for sure why the club conducted a thorough exploration of his trade value earlier this season, it could very well have to do with his impending price tag. In other news, Quick told Jake Fischer that “I want to be a starter down the line.” Does his next contract start at $20 million annually? More?

• Quentin Grimes is the furthest away from getting paid, as he won’t be able to negotiate his next extension until the 2024, but at the rate he’s going, something in the Quickley / Hart range certainly can’t be ruled out.

Add it all up, and that’s between $80 and $90 million for a) four players, b) only two of whom are going to be on the court at the end of most games. Even in a rising cap environment, given the impending extensions due to Randle and Brunson, that’s a team slated to be in the luxury tax by 2025.

Being in the tax is fine…if you’re a title contender, for multiple reasons. For one, there isn’t an owner in the league who is going to be OK going into the tax for a team that doesn’t have a realistic shot to win the title (and several who won’t go into the tax even if they do have a shot, but I doubt James Dolan is in that category). That’s not only because of the initial tax penalties, but because going into the tax once starts the clock on the dreaded repeater tax, which can produce tax bills higher than the salaries of entire teams. From a team-building perspective, being in the tax places certain restrictions on your ability to maneuver, so before you cross that threshold, it’s wise to have all of your big ducks in order.

Which brings us back to Windy’s supposition: that New York is in position to trade for multiple stars. Can they do it?

The first part of this we covered above: having the requisite salary to make two deals work. The second part is having enough by way of draft assets to facilitate these trades. In that department, New York will once again have all of its future first round picks available after they convey their lottery-protected first to Portland in this draft, plus all of the protected firsts.

(A quick aside for a funny story: When I drafted this newsletter at the end of last week, here’s where I wrote about the Dallas pick: Barring a complete and total collapse by the Mavs, whose 2023 pick is owed to New York if it lands outside the top 10, New York will also have a pretty good 2023 Dallas 1st rounder that is looking better by the day. Then, this weekend, the Mavs proceeded to completely and totally collapse, losing twice to the tanking Hornets. There’s still a decent shot the pick conveys, but with Dallas a game out of 10th and facing a tough schedule the rest of the way, the possibility that their obligation kicks over to next year is suddenly very real.)

That brings us to the final part of any potential trade: outgoing young talent. This has been a dicy issue over the last few years, mostly because of some of the recent reporting around the subject. The notion of cashing in Immanuel Quickley for some bullshit protected first round pick was unpalatable for obvious reasons, but the theory behind it - keep churning the roster before you get locked into mediocrity - is a sound one. The difference now is that Quickley and Grimes have increased their trade value since last summer, and instead of a trade that merely kicks the can down the road, moving one or both in the right trade could potentially cement the Knicks as a contender in the here and now.

It should also go without saying that if you’re reading this, the odds are that you want no part of moving either Immanuel Quickley or Quentin Grimes. These guys are not only home grown players, but damn good ones with real upside. Hell, you could probably convince me that IQ will be universally regarded as a top-50 player by the end of next season. And Grimes? The last two games are a reminder that he may just be scratching the surface of his potential³. That brings me to the most fascinating part of this discussion: Let’s say there’s an opportunity to do as Windhorst says and trade for two “two star-level players.” Assuming those trades would send out most if not all of New York's young, emerging talent, should they do it?

To answer that, we need to get into the heavy lifting that level in “star-level” player is doing. I know I said I’m not getting into specific trade targets, but just to expound upon this point, it could be said that DeMar DeRozan and OG Anunoby are “star-level” players. Those sorts of names, however, are a notch or two below the likes of Donovan Mitchell and Jaylen Brown, who themselves are a notch below the Lukas and Embiids of the world.

Focusing on that last category for a moment, there is no universe in which any NBA team has the collection of assets to trade for multiple MVP-level players while retaining their best talent. Just looking at the Knicks, if, for example, Embiid hit the market this summer, it would require the vast majority of their picks and young players just to get him. If Leon Rose were to make such a trade, there certainly wouldn’t be enough left to make a second star trade, but with Embiid on the roster, who cares?

Here’s the thing though: looking at the highest echelon of NBA superstars, other than maybe Embiid, none figure to be available via trade anytime soon (and Embiid would need to really cause a fuss to force his way out of Philly with three guaranteed years left on his contract after this one). The next tier of stars that could be available - Dame if Portland pivots into a rebuild, the Clippers’ guys if they go belly up in the playoffs, or Jimmy Butler if Miami drastically shift course to a younger core around Bam and Herro - come with age concerns, injury concerns or both.

Not to say that those concerns would prevent the Knicks from making a big swing for one of those guys (and really, who could blame them). Here’s my assumption though: New York’s options will be more limited than that, which gets us back to Windhorst’s proclamation, and the far dicier option of trading for two “star-level” players (i.e., not “true blue” stars). Considering the current roster logjam and rapidly rising price tag of their young wings, if a true superstar isn’t available, would it be better for Leon to swap out just a portion of New York’s asset chest for one lower-tier star? Or go full bore and empty the cupboard for multiple guys?

If this sounds like a regurgitation of last summer’s Donovan Mitchell conversation, that’s because it is, albeit with some important caveats:

1. New York’s top end talent (Jalen & Julius) looks a whole lot better now than it did back in July, which is both a gift and a curse. The gift: New York went from having zero potential All-NBA level players to two. That’s great! The curse: Jalen and Julius are not only overqualified to be fourth options, but don’t give enough by way of defense (like Jrue) or off-ball gravity (like Klay) to even be ideal third options. For that reason, if the Knicks want to keep those two as their core, they need to be a tad careful about who they bring in. If it’s two guys, ideally one or both are the sorts of players who don’t need a high usage to have a high-level impact⁴. Those sorts of "star-level" players can be difficult to find, so for that reason, dealing for just one and keeping more of the supporting players on the current roster may be the way to go.

2. Immanuel Quickley has seemingly replaced RJ Barrett as the blue chip young player who might someday develop an All-Star upside. Is that more of a reason to keep him? Or deal him because his value is so high? And how much should his proclaimed desire to eventually start impact their willingness to include him in a trade? Can an IQ/Brunson backcourt helm a contender? Quickley might have the highest Q-rating on the current roster, but these are questions worth considering.

3. Deuce McBride (and to a lesser extent Jericho Sims) is currently collecting dust on the bench. If they really believe he’s ready to contribute as a rotation player on a contending team, might that embolden them to part with another young player they otherwise wouldn’t? Two corollaries to this point: First, this summer New York will have access to the full midlevel exception, which is $11.4 million. You can get a pretty darn good rotation player for that amount of money, and if free agents see that the Knicks are a legit contender, someone good will want to come and take the bag. Second, there exists the possibility (however unlikely) that they fall in love with someone in the range of the Mavs’ pick (should it connvey), decide to keep it, and get another rotation player that way. Laugh if you want, but a rookie has become part of Thibodeau’s rotation in four of his last six seasons as coach⁵.

4. Perhaps most importantly, this roster has shown the ability to do a decent amount of winning already, to the point that a major overhaul may not be wise. Maybe just run the thing back and see where that gets you?

As always, the devil is in the details. Depending on the player, one acquisition may be enough to elevate the roster up a notch, whereas two of the wrong additions could have an inverse effect.

In this sense, the front office may have an even more difficult summer ahead of them than they did during the Summer of Donovan. Last July, there was one target, and one price point the Knicks felt they couldn’t go above. This summer, there may be a plethora of mix & match options on the table, all of which will need to be compared to the status quo, which, even coming off a bad week, is still pretty darn good.

So for as much as Brian Windhorst may have just been making conversation, he shed light on what should be a pivotal offseason for the franchise.

And what, exactly, does this have to do with the stretch run? One word: evidence, both for the Knicks in parsing out who’s a keeper and who’s expendable, and for us to get clues about how they feel about the various pieces on this roster. If the chips are down and Thibs needs to put hurt feelings aside, who he goes with could tell us a lot about who is really in the organization’s future plans and who, well…isn’t.

Add it all up, an while the offseason may be more than three months away, for all intents and purposes, it might as well have already started.

🏀

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. See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter

1. I say “essentially” because the Heat could theoretically go undefeated in their other six games, finish with the same record as New York at 46-36, and win a three-way tiebreaker with them, the Knicks and the Nets by virtue of their impending division crown.

2. Steve Mills says hello from his broom closet.

3. Fun stat: 16 players in the last 12 years have averaged at least 1.8 made 3-pointers on 37 percent shooting over their first two seasons (minimum 100 games). Grimes is one of them, along with Bones Hyland, Trey Murphy III, Des Bane, LaMelo Ball, Tyrese Haliburton, Darius Garland, Tyler Herro, Michael Porter Jr, Kevin Huerter, Landry Shamet, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Buddy Hield, Bradley Beal, Damian Lillard and Klay Thompson. Hyland and Shamet are clear defensive liabilities. The rest of the list is…pretty good? Ya’ think?

4. It should go without saying that if someone like Embiid became available, you go get him and figure out the whole “there’s only one ball” problem later.

5. Kris Dunn and Josh Okogie in Minnesota; Immanuel Quickley / Obi Toppin and Quentin Grimes in New York.