Welcome Back, Jordan!
The Knicks bring back a key reserve. Plus, a special spin on "A Knick You Knew" from Ray Marcano.
Good morning! The Knicks kick off their Vegas residency tonight at 6pm against the Nets, and then pick it up again tomorrow at 6 against the Spurs. The Nets game will be televised on Prime, while the Spurs game will be on ESPN.
News & Notes
Welcome back Jordan!
In a move that has been expected for quite some time, the one and only JC is back for year-two in New York. Like Andre Drummond, this goes down on the books as a $2.45 million veteran minimum signing for cap/apron purposes even though Jordan will get nearly $4 million in his bank account.
The Knicks now have $3.27M in second apron space, and as Jeremy Cohen points out, they can sign a vet (potentially a third big) and have $824K in space remaining or sign a rookie (like Tyler Nickel) and have $1.92 million in space instead. For whatever its worth, if the Knicks swapped out Pacome Dadiet for a vet minimum salary, they should have just enough room under the second apron to sign Nickel as a 15th man. There’s also lots of potential chicanery regarding dipping under the mandatory 14 players for a few weeks during the season, as well as signing a veteran later in the year to a pro-rated contract, but we’ll cross those respective bridges when we come to them.
For right now, we should all be happy to have Clarkson back in the fold. I was a tad concerned there might be a team out there willing to offer him a guaranteed rotation spot, or at least a cleaner path to consistent playing time. As it stands, he’ll be ready to step in should someone ahead of him in the rotation go down or if Mike Brown simply needs a jolt of energy off the bench. It’s worth noting that he appeared in every playoff game save one, so I wouldn’t expect him to stay buried on the bench for long, even if he starts the season on the outside of the fully healthy rotation.
A Knick (Rival) You Knew: Wes Unseld
by Ray Marcano
Until now, the summer “Knick You Knew” series focused exclusively on former Knicks players. But I thought about highlighting team rivals, and Jonathan was all for the idea.
Wes Unseld was the first name that came to mind.
Unseld was an undersized (even for the 1960s) 6’7 center who couldn’t jump much and wasn’t terribly fast. But he was a brick of a human at (a listed) 245 pounds who was renowned as the strongest man in the NBA. Willis Reed once said of Unseld, “You always wanted to make sure you had a good night’s sleep when you played against him.”
