Spicy day around the Association on Thursday as everybody from Twitch streamers to Import Beantowners had plenty to say about everything. Here’s a bunch of links to keep you entertaining as we enter Day 4 of this new and weird No-Centers Knicks Era.
- Mitchell Robinson leaving for Boston already hurt enough, but Mitch made it sting a little more on Instagram, replying to an OG Anunoby sad-face comment.
- Does Robinson know he still owes us an explanation himself? Get ready, Mitchie.
- Finer gentleman Ariel Hukporti (who as a new Sixer we now hate too, don’t get it twisted) also sent his goodbyes.
- The Knicks keep trying to fix the unfixable and sign/trade for some center, but so far, they’ve had no luck. In the latest round of bad news, New York has been trying to replace Mitch by going after New Orleans’ Yves Missi, but the Pelicans have made their stance on that very clear. Looks like the Knicks are doomed to settle for one or two of Looney, Drummond, Plumlee, Powell, Biyombo, Richards, or any other warm and aging body.
- SNY’s Ian Begley heard a similar message around the draft, but decided to wait more than a week to report it. Weird.
- Newsday’s Steve Popper attempted to breakdown some of the remaining options for the Knicks. Usual names on top of Mousa Cisse, Ryan Kalkbrenner, and Moussa Diabate. The background:
“The Knicks are still waiting, searching and letting the prices settle down — for the math to work and for a player to decide that filling the role that Robinson occupied is for him. The Knicks have approximately $8.5 million left to fill out the roster
if they want to remain below the second apron, an edict that Madison Square Garden chairman James Dolan voiced just days after the championship was secured. That money isn’t just for a backup center but to finish off the last spots on the roster. The Knicks have 11 players under contract and must have 15 — or at least 14, a number they can roster for 14 consecutive days and 28 days total in a season.”
- HoopsHype reported the Knicks had interest in Marvin Bagley III before he signed a minimum deal with Denver.
- The New York Post’s Stefan Bondy noted some big Knicks extension windows are opening, even if we’re not quite focused on that for now. Those belong to Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, and Miles McBride, all of whom can negotiate extensions between now and Aug. 10. Very worth reading in full, and we’ll surely cover it in detail later this week/month/summer. Here’s a snippet:
“All these extensions, if signed, would start in the 2027-28 season. Coming off the franchise’s first championship in 53 years, it would make sense to contractually lock up the key players involved. But as Mitchell Robinson’s free agency underscored, there are sometimes other considerations — like aprons and egos. With KAT and especially Hart, the guess is they’ll agree to extensions before or during next season. McBride’s extension, meanwhile, is the diciest of the three.”
- The LeBron-to-Knicks speculation is growing louder, if not quite likelier. Jake Fischer reported the Knicks showed some level of interest in LeBron while on a livestream, only for SNY’s Ian Begley to pour cold water on it shortly after.
- The unrecognizable Sixers are reportedly lurking too, thanks in part to the arrival of Jaylen Brown and the Tyrese Maxey-Klutch ties.
- At least one thing in the James sweepstakes is clear, ESPN’s Shams Charania believes.
- The NBA will test a one-free-throw rule during Summer League, using the G League model, where one single FT attempt is worth one, two, or three points depending on the foul situation. It won’t apply in the final two minutes or overtime. The league will also test a basketball with an embedded sensor — pause — to help with future officiating applications like last-touch out-of-bounds calls.
- Jaylen Brown (of course) went live on Twitch after the first streamer-for-podcaster trade was confirmed on Wednesday. He talked about a bunch of stuff and made clear he wasn’t thrilled with how Boston treated him.
“I wasn’t thrilled with the amount of respect I was shown during this process. I think there was a bit of a lack of respect. I think it was fine at one point, and then out of nowhere, things just kind of went left. I think Brad is probably getting a lot of the criticism. I wasn’t thrilled the way he facilitated some of the conversations.”
- Sister site CelticsBlog pushed back on a Bill Simmons report about Giannis-to-Boston falling apart over extension demands. Choose your fighter as Boston collapses!
- Kyle Lowry is reportedly set to retire as a Raptor on a one-day contract, and he was pissed about the news being leaked.
- Spain beat Austria 3-0 at the World Cup. Sorry, I had to include it.
You can follow Antonio on Twitter at @chapulana.
