Summer League L's

The Summer Knicks kicked off their Vegas residency with two losses this weekend.

Good morning! Apologies for the later than usual newsletter to start the week. Last night, I had the honor of serving as a groomsman for KFS Pod producer extraordinaire, Andrew Claudio, as he married his soulmate Rosina Pzena. Congrats to them both as they begin their lifelong journey together (my only two pieces of advice: laugh always, and never go to bed mad).

Also, massive thanks to Geoff Rasmussen of Strickland fame for writing both recaps from this weekend’s games. We have both of those below, but first, some news…

🗣️ News & Notes ✍️

🏀 We learned the specifics on the draft assets New York received in the Obi Toppin deal, and they were a tad underwhelming:

“Least favorable” is a nice way of saying “crappier.” Just using basic probability, there’s a good chance that neither of these selections falls within the top 40.

As is the case with most NBA trades, this is a Rorschach test for how you view the parties involved. Even so, I think we can safely say a few things:

• This represents the nadir of Toppin’s market value through his three-year career.

• His value a year ago, when he was coming off averaging 27 a night over his final five games, was likely quite a bit higher.

• Aside from drafting him in the first place, the biggest critique of the front office’s handling of the Toppin situation is that they didn’t move him last summer after they’d internally decided to move forward with Randle. That said, if (and it’s a big if) there was still internal debate at the time over which power forward would be their long term solution, and the offers for Toppin were underwhelming enough, perhaps not moving him then is defensible. But that’s being extremely generous.

• Thank the good Lord the front office didn’t feel the need to move up in the 2020 NBA Draft to secure Toppin, as this would have likely cost them the pick eventually used to draft Immanuel Quickley.

• I’d love to have been a fly on the wall for the internal discussion about drafting Obi in the first place. Was there genuine debate about how the next several years would play out, specifically in a Thibodeau defensive scheme? How things would work if they couldn’t move Randle? What Obi’s long term position would be? One has to wonder…

In the end, this return is a damning indictment on all parties involved - Leon, Wes, Thibs, and yes, Obi himself. This sort of trade isn’t like one where a star player is dealt and there’s legitimate fodder for argument about whether one team over or under paid. The league knew the Knicks were moving Toppin. 28 teams had a chance to offer something better than two middling second rounders. 28 teams decided against it.

As I wrote last week, Toppin had over 3000 minutes at the NBA level to show it was worth it for some team to give up real stuff for his services. Even assuming he was placed in the worst possible situation and given the lowest imaginable chance to succeed, he has to own a significant portion of his fate.

🏀 We got the final contract numbers for Donte DiVincenzo courtesy of Fred Katz:

The total value of the deal is $47 million, or about $5 million less than the most he could have gotten on the midlevel. Pretty nice value for a good player.

🏀 The NBA released the details on the upcoming In-Season Tournament, which will entail four November regular season games for every team doubling as “tournament games” within each team’s designated group. There are six groups containing five teams each, with New York’s group comprised of the Bucks, Heat, Wizards and Hornets. Eight teams - the six group winners and two wild cards - will advance to the tournament quarterfinals, which will also count towards the regular season record, followed by semis and finals in Las Vegas in December.

Game Recaps

by Geoff Rasmussen

The Knicks are back in action!

This past weekend was jampacked with Knicks basketball as their Summer League team took the court both Saturday and Sunday, marking the first basketball of any kind for basketball’s most beloved franchise since early May when they were ousted from the playoffs by the Miami Heat. Who took the court donning New York blue? And should Knicks fans be concerned about the relative lack of young talent this summer?

Let’s dive in.

The Games

I guess we should start with the games themselves. The Knicks faced off against the Phildalphia 76ers on Saturday and the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday. While the Knicks lost both games with neither being particularly close, there were certainly some standout individual efforts.

Squaring off against Philadelphia on Saturday, the Knicks fought hard, delivering the better of their two performances. Charlie Brown Jr. and DaQuan Jeffries led the way in the scoring department, scoring 17 and 20 points respectively on a combined 14-27 from the field, including 13-20 from inside the arc. Not to be outdone, bench players Marcus Garrett and Dmytro Skapintsev earned themselves a closer look going forward. While Garrett showed off his court vision with his 3 assists, Skapintesev was a two-way force, scoring 10 points while corralling 8 rebounds and notching 3 blocks in 14 minutes.

The following day, the Knicks matched up against the in-state rival Brooklyn Nets and got pummeled. For whatever reason, the Knicks struggled to put the ball in the basket, going 11-for-40 from deep and scoring just 80 points. Skapintsov remained strong with 12 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal in just 16 minutes. Joining him was Knicks’ rookie Jaylen Martin, easily the most tantalizing prospect the Knicks got from this year’s draft class. Martin was everywhere, tallying up 15 points, 6 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 steals.

I know it’s only been two games, but Martin feels like a strong sleeper to make a name for himself in New York. All reports behind the scenes are that his attitude is wonderful. He’s a hard worker who believes himself. You see his self-confidence the moment he steps foot on the court and it remains until the second he steps off of it. Though Martin is likely headed to the G-League when the season starts, he is definitely the Knick from the 2023 class to watch.

Replacing Obi Toppin

Let’s nip this in the bud right now: if Isaiah Roby is in the opening night rotation, the Knicks will either have found a new Head Coach (unlikely) or will be dealing with an injury. This is not intended to be disrespect towards Roby, who after struggling in Saturday’s game against the 76ers bounced back with a respectable 12 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists and 1 block against the Nets on Sunday in what ended up being one the team’s better showings. 

Roby can play. But if Knicks fans learned one thing last season it’s that Head Coach Tom Thibodeau is most comfortable running a 9-man rotation. Unless another trade occurs (possible), the Knicks likely have the nine guys they want soaking up the majority of their minutes. With the addition of Donte Divincenso, there simply isn’t enough room for Roby.

One other thing to remember is what having no traditional backup power forward option available does to Thibodeau. It forces him to tap into rotational creativity Knicks fans haven’t seen much of in three years. Instead of replacing starting power forward Julius Randle with a backup who profiles similarly, how could the Knicks benefit from letting Josh Hart and RJ Barrett toggle back and forth at the wings with the bench unit? We’ve never seen Barrett play with 3 smaller players before. Could that open the paint for him even more?

Any fans out there rooting for the Knicks to find a backup power forward are missing the forest for the trees. While mirroring the starting lineup with the bench unit may have short term advantages in the regular season, schematic versatility is essential for the Knicks to make the next step from a macro standpoint.

A Calm Before the Storm?

As you may have noticed, this year’s Summer League roster is a bit different from the 2021 Knicks Summer League team. That year the Knicks ran out five guys who would all become proven NBA contributors. Looking back, we may have been spoiled getting to watch a starting lineup of Immanuel Quickley, Deuce McBride, Quentin Grimes, Obi Toppin and Jericho Sims.

To be fair, this should have been expected. After making six draft selections in 2020 and 2021, the Knicks followed that up by making just one draft pick in 2022 and 2023 with Trevor Keels being their lone selection. And if you needed another reminder of how far away we are from the 2021 draft, the Knicks were combined minus-52 in the 33 minutes Keels played this weekend. 

Some of this is bad luck. The Knicks very well could have had the Mavericks pick in the 2023 draft. But some of this is also by design as well. Not only did the Knicks trade their own first round pick for Josh Hart before the 2023 trade deadline, but the Knicks could have cleared cap for Jalen Brunson in 2022 without sacrificing their first round pick.

Still, these first two Summer League games were a stark reminder of how a team that probably views itself as one (maybe two?) moves away from true contention has dried its well of assets. Toppin is gone. Quickley is due for an extension and Grimes isn’t far behind. Former number three overall pick RJ Barrett is entering year-five. If a championship isn’t a realistic goal and you’re not actively developing young assets, where are you exactly?

None of this is to say that it’s panic time in New York. Not even close. The Knicks are coming off their most successful season of the millennium. They have an average projected rotation age of about 25 years old headed into next season. Finally, they have a boatload of draft picks available to them going forward. The Knicks remain in a good spot as they wait patiently to push their chips in the middle.

But the clock is definitely ticking.

🏀

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See y’all soon! #BlackLivesMatter