{"id":570292,"date":"2026-01-30T07:20:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/570292\/"},"modified":"2026-01-30T07:20:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T07:20:24","slug":"knicks-rumors-kat-giannis-yabusele-targets-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/570292\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks Rumors: KAT, Giannis, Yabusele, Targets, Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Knicks reportedly<\/a> spoke to the Bucks about a possible Giannis Antetokounmpo<\/a> trade last offseason after the two-time MVP identified New York as a preferred landing spot, but those talks didn\u2019t go anywhere. That could be partly because Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> was rumored to be the Knicks\u2019 outgoing salary, and some people around the league don\u2019t value the former No. 1 overall pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there is a [trade] market for KAT,\u201d an NBA executive told Stefan Bondy of The New York Post<\/a> (subscriber link). \u201cNot that he is a bad player, but he\u2019s not a winning player. \u2026 It\u2019s too much money to spend on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knicks sources tell Sam Amick of The Athletic<\/a> that the offseason trade talks involving the two big men created \u201chard feelings\u201d between Towns and the front office that \u201cremain to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, Towns downplayed his name being involved in recent<\/a> trade<\/a> chatter<\/a>, Bondy writes in another story<\/a>. The five-time All-Star has known Leon Rose for years, as the Knicks\u2019 president was Towns\u2019 former agent at CAA, but they haven\u2019t spoken about any of the speculation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve been in trade rumors a lot for a lot of times, for a year damn near. That don\u2019t matter to me,\u201d said Towns, who was traded from the Timberwolves to the Knicks before last season. \u201cI don\u2019t look at social media or none of that stuff. I focus on the job on hand which is trying to get wins every single night. As long as I do that, I do my job, I go home happy and I feel accomplished. I\u2019m not worried about what anybody got to say or people write or anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are a few more rumors and notes from New York:<\/p>\n

According to Bondy, the Knicks remain highly interested in Antetokounmpo, but Milwaukee is reportedly looking<\/a> for \u201cblue-chip young talent\u201d and several draft picks in any deal involving the nine-time All-NBA forward, and New York simply lacks the necessary assets to have a competitive bid compared to other teams, which control their future first-round picks. Unless Antetokounmpo specifically requests to be traded to the Knicks, they\u2019re a \u201clong shot\u201d to land him, says Bondy. Of course, even if Giannis does prefer to play in New York, the Bucks aren\u2019t obligated to fulfill the request. New York\u2019s odds of landing Antetokounmpo would theoretically improve in the offseason, Bondy notes, when the team will have two first-round picks to trade, as opposed to the top-eight protected 2026 first-round pick the Knicks currently control from the Wizards that will likely turn into two second-rounders.
\nThe Knicks are still actively looking to unload Guerschon Yabusele<\/a>\u2018s contract and have been talking to multiple teams about possible trades, Bondy reports (subscription required<\/a>). Bondy continues to hear Pelicans guard Jose Alvarado<\/a> is on the team\u2019s radar, and confirms Yves Missi<\/a> is as well. Kings guard Keon Ellis<\/a> is another player who has fans in the Knicks organization, a source tells Bondy.
\nYabusele, a french forward\/center, holds a $5.8MM player option for next season. When asked about the possibility of returning to the EuroLeague at some point, Yabusele didn\u2019t rule it out but said his focus is on the NBA, per Toni Canyameras of Spanish outlet Mundo Deportivo (Twitter video link<\/a>). \u201cI feel like that\u2019s a good question,\u201d Yabusele said. \u201cI definitely don\u2019t know what tomorrow is going to be like or anything like that. But I never close my door on anything. Obviously it was so [difficult to make it back] to the NBA [that I\u2019m focused on staying] in the NBA, but we will see what opportunities present themselves. There\u2019s definitely going to be a conversation to have, and [we\u2019ll] see what the [European options are]. We will see. I will never say never [to a potential return].\u201d
\nVeteran wing Mikal Bridges<\/a> has been in a slump for most of the past month, but he torched the Raptors in Wednesday\u2019s win at Toronto, finishing with 30 points on 12-of-15 shooting in 36 minutes. Bridges, a Philadelphia native who played college ball at Villanova, struggled in Saturday\u2019s loss in Philly, scoring just nine points on 3-of-16 shooting. He said that game served as something of a wake-up call (Twitter video link<\/a> via Knicks on MSG). \u201cI think a lot of it comes from not just shooting the ball, I think I just wasn\u2019t playing how I was supposed to be playing. I think I wasn\u2019t coachable enough,\u201d Bridges said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what it was. Maybe I felt too much entitlement. Just kinda had to talk to myself a little bit about it and just be coachable and be the best teammate I can be and let the basketball speak for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks reportedly spoke to the Bucks about a possible Giannis Antetokounmpo trade last offseason after the two-time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,123,204,11053,563,3211,304,1260,6,1136,191,3810,3806,1259],"class_list":{"0":"post-570292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-giannis-antetokounmpo","10":"tag-guerschon-yabusele","11":"tag-jose-alvarado","12":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","13":"tag-keon-ellis","14":"tag-knicks","15":"tag-mikal-bridges","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-new-york","18":"tag-new-york-knicks","19":"tag-newyork","20":"tag-newyorkknicks","21":"tag-yves-missi"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115982842293801767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}