Can the Knicks Break the Eight-Year No-Repeat Streak?

But I want to point out, and I want to start with the fact that there has not been a repeat champion in the NBA in nearly a decade.

Not since the Golden State Warriors of 2018 as a team gone back to back eight straight.

Individual champions, new champions year after year in the NBA.

Um, the Knicks entered the season with largely the same roster that they had last season.

They lost Mitchell Robinson.

They replaced him with Andre Drummond, but the core of their team is back.

The core of their team is in its prime.

Um, let's talk kind of the pros and cons of the Knicks getting back to that championship level.

What do you think the argument for?

The Knicks making it back, uh, would be.

Well, first of all, I wanted to add to your point about the parody that not only is this an eight-year run, right?

Are we at right now, 8 or 9?

OK, next year would be 9 years, whatever, right.

Uh, that's the longest run of non-repeat champions, individual champions since the 70s in the NBA.

So this isn't just parody.

It is a historical level of parity since the merger type of parody, um, which is interesting and sort of speaks to the rules.

And on the one hand, that could be one of your strikes against the Knicks making it, uh, and winning the final again.

Only because just if the rules have shifted how NBA teams work to a degree.

That we've never seen champions sort of come up, come up, come up, come up, go down, go down, go down.

The rules aren't going to change for next year.

So, I guess that would be something that you count in the negative.

I guess it depends on how valuable you think Mitchell Robinson is.

Obviously, the Celtics thought he was pretty valuable, but they couldn't make, they couldn't make the money work with that.

I think they have a fabulous chance to repeat because they've got their starting five and that starting five unit is definitely more than the sum of its parts.

We see teams that win on a couple of superstars and a rotation of guys around them.

This is a team.

The starting five is a team and the key bench guys that are part of that real like heart unit.

Um, no pun intended, uh, they signed those guys too, right?

Alvarado, they signed.

I'm looking at my, uh, my list here of signatures.

Oh, Landry Shammet, they signed.

Mike Brown is in his 2nd year.

Everybody knows the system.

Remember, it was a very uneven regular season last year.

Um, they were.

There were some real like glow streaks, and part of it was attributed to the fact that not everybody had a real role.

We heard that from Carl Anthony Towns and Mike Brown was putting in a new system.

That's not the case anymore.

I guess one of my questions for you is, oh, and then I wanted to point out one more stat here, um, is that.

This Knicks team had a 6 and 2 playoff record in playoff games where they trailed not only by double digits.

Yeah, by multiple double, you know, 1020, etc.

um, that is the best since they started keeping play by play data, which is kind of the argument against the Knicks right there.

Well, no, I think that's an argument for because that tells me that that is a stat that is only about the heart of the guys playing.

If it happened once, that's luck.

Well, yeah, I mean, yes, absolutely, but that is a heart type of, of situation and that is a want it and a will type of situation.

If it happened once or twice, that's one thing.

It happened 6 times when they were in that position 8 times.

Again , not great to be in that position 8 times, but 6 times is not a fluke.

It's not luck.

It's not any of that.

So that's all, all for me why I think they have a very good chance to repeat .

My question to you is, is the Carl Tan the, the Carl Tanthony, that's good.

Yes, uh, the Carl Anthony Towns, uh, contract situation something you're worried about, um.

I, I would say first I agree with everything you said about the reasons for.

I think continuity matters.

Um, I also think that among the reasons the Knicks are defending champs is that they're able to roll through a relatively easy Eastern Conference playoff field.

It, it's tougher now with the seventy-Sixers.

They're a bit of an unknown.

Um, some other teams at the bottom are certainly gonna improve.

I think wins generally will be a little harder to come by.

But it's still the junior varsity conference compared to the West, and in the West, you're probably gonna have the same level of slugfest in the postseason that maybe takes something out of a San Antonio or an Oklahoma City or whatever team emerges from that bruising, uh, conference playoffs.

So that, that to me is their argument for, um.

The argument against is I have similar feelings of what you, you mentioned with the center position.

Um, you know, Towns played what, 75 games last year.

He was a rock.

He was pheno they don't win the title without Karl-Anthony Towns.

He was phenomenal in the phenomenal.

He was healthy.

That's the other thing too with the Knicks.

Their playoff run was healthy.

Like they were one of the few teams that had one of those healthy playoff runs, um.

But his town's gonna be able to stay healthy throughout the the regular season this year.

Um, Drummond's fine.

Like you kind of look at it on paper and say, well, I can do the same thing.

Well, Mitchell Robinson was kind of an institution there in New York.

Like they were very familiar with him internally, and they, even though he was in and out of the lineup with some injuries, like you knew, like you can get 20 good minutes out of Mitchell Robinson.

You get rebounding, rim protection, like you knew what you're gonna get and I don't know if you know that necessarily with Drummond.

He's bounced around for a reason in the last few years.

And look, they go out and they sign James Wiseman, like Mike Brown apparently likes James Wiseman.

Maybe they can be the team that coaxes whatever it is out of the former #2 overall pick.

I don't know.

Um, the contract with Towns is interesting because that's a lot of money to potentially be committing.

To Carl Towns, who look, proved that he is a championship-level big, proved that he is an integral part and like, any, any doubts about Towns as a playoff performer should have been washed away like what he did in Minnesota, like helping that team get to a conference finals and how that team's kind of eroded a little bit since he left.

And He did this past season with New York.

Like he is a big-time playoff performer, but he's got that extra year in his contract at $61 million.

And if you're the Knicks, do you want to commit 4 years, 275-ish, I guess what it would be to him.

I like, I guess your question is, would it be a distraction?

So right, because I guess I need to ask you for a rules check.

You're much more up on this than I am.

Uh, he's going in, he's got.

He can be a free agent at the end of the season, right?

So would leave 61 million on the table, right?

It's he's got a player option after that, which is what I was gonna say, but he can be a free agent and if he has a good season, he's not leaving 61 million on the table if he gets that much or more from someone else.

So you kind of have to decide.

Do you want to let this drag with Karl Anthony Towns possibly being a free agent at the end of the season, and how much is that gonna be a distraction?

And my question on the rules to you is, do they have all season to re-sign him?

Do they only have until October 1st to re-sign him?

That's a good question.

I don't know the answer extend him, whatever we call it off the top of my head.

I don't know the answer to that.

So Cat is 30 years old, gonna turn 31 November 15th, so he's in the prime of his career right now.

Um, you sign him to a four-year extension.

Pretty good chance at the end of that you're paying a premium for past performance.

Comes with the territory.

Um, Jalen Brunson's already come out and said, I am not taking a discount this time.

He's like, I've earned my money, which he absolutely has.

However, you just have to calculate for it.

Yeah, uh, I mean, in a vacuum, I'd say sign the guy, you know, give him his money, bring him back.

You've got something good going on here.

It's not like you're only gonna get one or two more good years.

He does have a game that I think should age pretty well when he's a perimeter shooter.

Like Dirk didn't fade till Dirk like literally couldn't move, um.

I think Kat can, can be that guy.

I don't think he's as bad defensively as a lot of people say.

He's never gonna be this elite defender, but he's a seven-footer who rebounds, who tries on that end of the floor.

Like, I think he's fine for what they need defensively.

I, yeah, I, I would give it to him because If he has the kind of season that he had this past year and if he hits free agency, you're gonna have to, like, you're gonna have to five-year maximum because somebody out there will do it.

It's kind of similar, maybe not similar, but it's, it's akin to what the Lakers were looking at with Austin Reeves.

Like they were, Lakers did not want to pay Austin Reeves all that money, but they knew, or at least they believed there was somebody out there, Detroit, Brooklyn, somebody that was gonna pay Austin that money, and they didn't have matching rights with him, so.

If you're the Knicks, do you wanna roll the dice?

And look, Carl's a Jersey guy, seems to love being in New York City.

Um, do you wanna roll the dice though, if you're in New York and let this get to free agency, have Kat have a monster year and have him go walk away, and then you're looking at Jalen Brunson going like, Sorry man.

Like, how do you replace this guy, because there is no way to replace that guy.

No, no.

And look, you know, there is something to if you're Leon Rose sitting across from Carl and his agent and saying, hey man, like you guys can do the math also.

Like we want you to get your money to be Carl's agent.

I think so.

I mean.

If not, practically , um, so, uh, look, the numbers are the numbers.

Everybody knows what the numbers are.

Everyone knows what the second apron cap is.

And by the way, James Dolan has gone on the record and said, I am not going into the second apron, and apparently feels strongly enough about it that in the sort of interview or talk or whatever when he went on the record about this, he brought it up.

The person asking him questions did not bring it up.

So, He's not going to the 2nd apron according to James Stone.

We'll see, um, but that being said, like.

They can sit down and say, hey, this is the best place you've ever played, according to, you know, you won a championship, obviously, seem to really like these guys.

You're home, you're from New Jersey, you're basically home like, Don't think of it as giving a discount to us.

Think of it as how much of your payment for playing basketball.

Do you want intangible money and how much do you want impossible championships and everything else?

And that's the question with the way the salaries have risen way, I mean, so much since you and I first got into this business.

That's a question I would ask any player when they are at 30 years old and older.

By the way, I didn't realize I was doing a pod with Evan and we were talking about like LeBron's max back in the Miami days, and he was like, how much did LeBron make?

And I think I said something like 40, 50 million.

It was like 17.

Like that was just like 15 years ago.

He was making 17.

Well, remember the, the TV contract going into the 2016 season like exploded or after the 2016 season whenever the , the spike er, yeah, so, you know, the, the huge, huge jumps and now that these guys are making way more money in their careers than they could ever hope that their grandchildren's grandchildren will use.

Like you have to start thinking about how do you want to be paid.

That's how I would think about it.

I would think about it as how do I want to be paid?

Do I want to be solely in money or is experience part of what I want to be paid in?

Because the experience probably won't be better than what he's experiencing right now in New York, because the teams you're talking about that would pay him a five-year max are probably bad teams, right, with a lot of room.

For the most part, I'm not sure who has all the cap space next summer.

Um, there might be a team or two that's pretty good that has it, but you are probably talking about a rebuilding team that, um, you're just gonna go and spend the final chapter of your career probably.

In mediocrity, most likely, yeah, I mean, look , I think it, and this has happened, this is starting to happen with teams where it's like if you want a guy to take less money, explain where that money's going.

Like that guy is not going to take less money so your billionaire owner can pocket a few extra bucks and avoid paying the luxury tax.

If you tell Carl Towns like we're gonna take this money and we're gonna devote more of it to Brunson because he's owed it and responsible for it, we're gonna bring Josh Hart back.

We're not gonna have to trade OGN and Obi.

Like, you know, here's, here's what happens.

And you take a couple of bucks less, um, I would imagine someone like Towns might be receptive.

Town's made a ton of money.

Like he's been around forever.

He has made a pile of money, max contract after max contract, and I wouldn't even phrase it.

I mean, I, I think everything you say is true, and you're right.

Guys taking a pay cut want to know where the money is going, but they want to know where the money is going so that they can get the experience they're taking the pay cut for, right?

So if the money is going to keep the team together and they're taking the pay cut because they believe if they keep this team together they can win.

That's why they want to know where the money is going.

But again, if I was a front office person, I would definitely, you know, you and I are storytellers, I guess is what we say in this, in this attention economy.

Like I would be telling a story to any of these guys and saying, hey, this is what your life could look like.

Is that how much is that worth to you?

Yeah, I agree.

I agree.

And, and that may be one of the few things that holds, uh, the Knicks back to bring it kind of full circle.

I, I do think they're more vulnerable than.

Some other champions were coming into the year.

If I just look back at like Oklahoma City, I definitely thought they were the favorite to repeat.

Boston, based on what they did, I definitely thought they were a favorite to repeat.

You can go back to Denver, like they had found something.

They had lost a couple of guys, but I thought they would still be in the mix to repeat.

I don't feel the exact same way.

About New York, I think a lot of things broke right for them.

Um, the health factor of it, the chemistry all coming together, the weakness of the Eastern Conference, the, uh, unreadiness, for lack of a better word, of San Antonio to close games when they had to close games.

They kinda, and this is no knock on them whatsoever, they caught lightning in a bottle there.

They figured out like everything broke right for them.

Will it break right for them again next year?

I don't know, but they're certainly equipped to have another great season.

There's no doubt about that.

I think I, I, when you said the West is undoubtedly the better conference in the East is university, I don't know if I agree with that.

I think the top two teams in the West are elite above everyone else in terms of what's on paper and what they've shown us so far.

Well, let's do, let me do this thought experiment then, um.

With, how far down in the Western Conference standings do you have to find a team that you wouldn't make the favorite to win the Eastern Conference?

3.

Though Denver in that mix or no.

Minnesota, Denver, when was the last time Denver got out of the 2nd round?

I mean, it's kind of what, but they're in the West.

That's, that's what I'm saying.

I mean, look, I think that the teams in the, you know, I used to say the East has a squishy middle.

Like now the West has a squishy middle, and the East is teams that are gonna be tough to get wins.

Look, you've got Giannis, you've got Giannis and Bam in Miami, and I know that.

Well, yeah, I mean, you got Clay to take care of some of the shooting.

Um, look, it may not be a champ.

I'm not gonna say that's a championship roster right now, but I definitely believe it's a better roster than last year.

Oh, no question.

OK, well, OK, that's what we're talking about here, right?

So how much tougher is the West?

Philadelphia, I have questions about how all those pieces are gonna fit together, but I can tell you that I'm.

It seems like a better roster than last year player of all time and in all NBA should have been first team guy.

Charlotte thinks it's better.

I think Charlotte thinks it's worse.

Charlotte kind of mailed in the offseason.

Like they sent LaMelo Ball out.

They sent Miles.

I think they just, they're kind of resetting on the fly to me.

Like maybe if Knippel takes another step forward, Brandon Miller becomes an all NBA type of guy, maybe, but they might actually be one of those that takes a step back.

Cleveland thinks it's better.

Cleveland does think it's better.

Peyton Watson, they feed the better, maybe, but I like.

I'd make Denver with Jokic.

I don't think anybody in the east is beating Jokic in a seven-game series.

Um.

Houston We'll see, but I think they've got a lot of room for organic growth with Thompson and Reed Shepherd getting better.

Fred Van Vleet back again.

Like, I gotta go 4-5 down before I find a team that I wouldn't make the favorite to, not, not to win the Eastern Conference regular season, but to win the Eastern Conference in the playoffs.

We'll see.

I don't know.

We will see.

We'll save this tape.

We'll save this tape and come back to it.