Top Offseason Priorities and Targets for New York Knicks
The New York Knicks' offseason is actually their on-season.
This is the part of the calendar for which they've been longing. They've waited, planned and plotted. They shed salary. They traded their only All-Star. Their entire 82-game schedule—and all their league-high 65 losses—were but preambles to this main event.
New York will once more seek to accelerate its return to the NBA's elite ranks. The draft lottery and the draft itself are huge, but free agency remains the franchise's ticket back to respectability. The Knicks will wait their turn to pitch superstars and hope their days in the doldrums are behind them.
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Things are looking up in the meantime. New York has a spattering of youngsters, top lottery odds, cap space by the boatload and a front office and coaching staff that, while hardly above critique, are neither in limbo nor disarray.
At the same time, April's optimism is July's reality check. It doesn't matter how suggestive the Kristaps Porzingis trade still looks, or how confident the Knicks are that they'll win the summer. The stars must quite literally align for them to hit on their best-case scenario.
If they don't, they'll be on the hook for a contingency plan that doesn't double as a setback.
Setting the Stage
Cap space is, as of now, New York's primary building block. Kevin Knox, Mitchell Robinson, Dennis Smith Jr. and this year's top draft pick take center stage if free agency turns out to be a sham, but the Knicks have placed an unrepealable premium on financial flexibility.
Using Porzingis to dump Tim Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee onto the Dallas Mavericks gives them a line to signing two max stars. Their maneuvering is done if they're looking for a set of players in the Kyrie Irving tier. That runs about $65.4 million. The Knicks have that much to burn—and then some—if they waive Lance Thomas and renounce all their free agents.
Targeting Kevin Durant (player option) slightly complicates matters. His max salary costs around $38.2 million. Landing him and, say, Irving (player option) takes about $70.9 million in cap space. Heads must roll for New York to reach that number unless Durant or his hypothetical superstar comrade is shaving a little off the top of his deal.
Knox, Robinson, Smith and Frank Ntilikina are the only guaranteed salaries on next year's books, but both Damyean Dotson (non-guaranteed) and Allonzo Trier (team option) look like keepers. If the Knicks win the lottery, they'll be roughly $3 million shy of affording their pipe dream.
That deficit shrinks should they tumble down the draft order. Falling to No. 5 eliminates the need to bounce another salary. It's also a nightmare outcome.
Ntilkina is the most likely collateral damage. A groin injury limited his availability this season, and the Knicks clearly don't hold the 20-year-old point guard in the same esteem as Knox, Robinson or even Smith. They're reluctant to fully endorse him, per the New York Daily News' Stefan Bondy. Jettisoning his $4.9 salary aids the Durant-plus-another chase while allowing the Knicks to pick up deals for Henry Ellenson or John Jenkins if they so choose.
Priority No. 1: Signing 2 Stars
Yes, two.
Franchises that have spent decades in relative ruin should not be greedy. Bagging even one of this summer's top seven free agents puts the Knicks back on the Eastern Conference map.
Then again, they never should've moved Porzingis if they were angling for just a single star.
His exit is often spun as the culmination of an irreparable rift between player and organization. It was something more. (We do not know if the NYPD's investigation into Porzingis following rape allegations factored into the move.)
Deteriorating goodwill no doubt played into the Knicks' decision, but they held the leverage necessary to navigate choppy waters. Their right to match any offer Porzingis received in restricted free agency trumped whatever desire he had to leave, and he was never going to sign his $4.5 million qualifying offer. He's working his way back from a torn left ACL and eligible to sign a five-year max worth $158.1 million.
Most teams would've tapped into that leverage. Acquiring stars is hard. The Knicks had one, and they could have opened a single max slot while carrying his free-agency hold. Getting rid of him commits them to the pursuit of two stars.
Spare the "But they turned KP into a good haul!" rebukes. Smith, two-first rounders and gobs of cap space is a lot in theory but indistinct, at best, in practice.
Among the 94 players (minimum 1,000 minutes) to post a usage rate of 25 or higher through their first two seasons, Smith's true shooting percentage ranks 82nd. The Mavericks won't convey their first-rounders to the Knicks until 2022 and 2024 if they keep this year's top-five-protected pick. With Porzingis and Luka Doncic already in tow, not even their 2021 selection projects as great value.
Cap space, meanwhile, is only as valuable as the players signed or bad contracts and picks absorbed with it. The optics won't be great if the Knicks strike out on the superstar front and pivot into second-tier players or salary dumps.
This isn't meant to imply New York lost the Porzingis trade. That verdict is very much yet to be determined. But pulling the trigger at all restricts the Knicks to an all-or-nothing evaluation. They moved him to create two max slots.
Now they need to use them.
Priority No. 2: Contingency Plans
Knicks owner James Dolan is convinced this summer will be a "game-changer," per The Athletic's Mike Vorkunov. New York must be prepared for him to be wrong. Free agency is funny—and cruel—like that.
The Knicks traveled great lengths to carve out two maxes. They might know something we do not, or they may know exactly what we think we know. (More on this later.) But they traded Porzingis at the end of January, almost a half-year out from free agency. A lot can change in that time.
Plus, the Knicks are still the Knicks. As Vorkunov explained:
"The Knicks had hoped to use this season to rebrand themselves—forward-thinking, fun, an attraction in free agency. To say that their perception has changed wholesale, as head coach and execs have continuously tried to launder through the media, is not yet clear. That will be determined in a few months. James Dolan remains the owner. The Knicks, by reputation, remain a tautology: forever doomed until they aren't."
Whiffing on free agency isn't the end of the world. One of the Knicks' youngsters might turn into something special—Robinson is already close—and the Zion Williamson dream will live on through at least mid-May.
Rebuilding from scratch is easier with a clean slate, albeit not necessary. The Knicks may have lost Porzingis, but they're free to swallow bad contracts in exchange for picks and begin a more gradual trek back to relevance.
Maintaining peak lottery odds won't be difficult for the foreseeable future. The NBA still rewards the worst teams, and the Knicks' top incumbents aren't capable of playing them outside contention for a bottom-three record.
Whether New York is open to such drastic measures in the face of offseason failure remains unclear. Methodical resets are not the Knicks' strength. They've routinely abandoned them. Shipping out Porzingis marked the end of yet another meticulous makeover.
But emerge from the free-agency sweepstakes without a top-seven name or two, and the usual fork-in-the-road moment awaits: Do they continue a slow and steady rebuild, or do they dole out contracts to consolation prizes who improve their short-term outlook but won't help them sniff overnight contention?
History has taught us the Knicks' impulse will tilt toward the latter. Maybe the tandem of team president Steve Mills and general manager Scott Perry is different. They could be the duo that transforms the culture and upturns the franchise's disdain for process.
Trouble awaits the Knicks if they're anything less. They're already facing blowback if they have to explore Plan B at all. They'll devolve into a new kind of laughingstock if that contingency includes more of the same.
Draft Targets
Zion Williamson is every lottery team's draft target. The Knicks have a better shot at landing him than most, but the best crack at getting him amounts to an 86 percent chance of not getting him.
Ja Morant is the near-consensus No. 2 pick, and New York hasn't employed a point guard with his existing promise in roughly forever. He should have an immediate feel for running pick-and-rolls at the NBA level, and his from-scratch scoring is more intriguing than his 39.1 percent success rate on two-point jumpers suggests.
Smith is not good enough for the Knicks to draft for need. They should take Morant if they believe his playmaking will translate and figure out the rest later.
RJ Barrett will pop up on the radar if they drop to No. 3. Hard pass. His 36.9 percent clip on two-point jumpers is concerning, and the Knicks have enough ball-dominant scorers who will peak as secondary table-setters.
Jarrett Culver is the more worthwhile risk. He doesn't have Barrett's size or release, and he buried just 33.9 percent of his two-point jumpers. But he's the peskier defender—he can chase around positions 1 through 3—and his off-the-dribble shooting has comparative room to grow. As ESPN.com's Jonathan Givony wrote:
"Although he struggled at times in the NCAA tournament, there is quite a bit to like about what he brings on both ends of the floor. Culver has the versatility to slide between any of the backcourt spots, and he's an active defender and rebounder. He displayed impressive shot-making and shot-creation prowess en route to winning Big 12 player of the year."
Something the Knicks should not consider: drafting for someone else.
Entering the Anthony Davis sweepstakes becomes a priority if they net two superstars in free agency, but they cannot know for sure what July has in store. They shouldn't be scoping out non-Zion prospects with higher trade value just to appease New Orleans.
For one, it probably won't work. But mostly, the Knicks have little business joining the race for Davis if they don't end up with another superstar first.
Free-Agency Targets
Durant and Irving are viewed as the Knicks' primary targets because they're friends. Oh, and because the noise linking them to New York is the loudest.
"So sure are some executives and player agents of a Durant-Irving pairing in New York that one agent told The Athletic that Durant and Irving are debating on who will sign first," Frank Isola wrote.
Good for the Knicks if that's the case. It doesn't need to be. Almost any two stars will do. Tobias Harris and Khris Middleton take that license too far. Kemba Walker is on the borderline. Otherwise, any combination of Durant, Irving, Jimmy Butler (player option), Kawhi Leonard (player option) and Klay Thompson is perfectly fine.
No pressure, right?
The Knicks' job gets harder if they're pruning the free-agent ranks for non-stars. They'll need to steer clear of the most expensive alternatives to their first choices. That eliminates Harris, Middleton, Bojan Bogdanovic, Nikola Mirotic, JJ Redick, Thaddeus Young, etc.
Bidding on high-profile restricted free agents should be similarly taboo. Malcolm Brogdon, Terry Rozier, Kelly Oubre Jr., D'Angelo Russell and Delon Wright all fit the Knicks' timeline, but they'll be too expensive to poach, assuming they're even gettable.
Cheaper fliers make more sense if the superstar fantasy goes belly up. Bringing back Noah Vonleh falls under this umbrella. Stanley Johnson (restricted) could be a nice reclamation project. David Nwaba (restricted) is a quality defender. Tomas Satoransky is on the older side (27) but a nice plug-and-play fit.
Unless otherwise noted, stats courtesy of NBA.com, Cleaning the Glass, Hoop-Math or Basketball Reference.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Andrew Bailey.
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