{"id":71268,"date":"2025-06-02T04:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T04:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/71268\/"},"modified":"2025-06-02T04:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T04:24:09","slug":"knicks-notes-offseason-towns-rose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/71268\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks Notes: Offseason, Towns, Rose"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Knicks have played their final game of the season after losing Game 6 to the Pacers on Saturday. Now come the questions. But according to ESPN\u2019s Bobby Marks<\/a>, the team should be wary of overreacting to the loss, just as the Pacers were when they lost last year\u2019s Eastern Conference Finals to the Celtics.<\/p>\n

Marks points to an interview with owner James Dolan earlier this season<\/a> on Jalen Brunson<\/a> and Josh Hart<\/a>\u2018s Roommates podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really have to do the fundamentals, the basics. You\u2019ve got to build a team. You\u2019ve got to build an organization. There is no waving a wand over a team and all of a sudden it makes it a great team,\u201d Dolan said at the time.<\/p>\n

The question is whether that will hold true for a team with some real areas of concern on its roster and very limited avenues to address them. The Knicks\u2019 entire bench outside of Mitchell Robinson<\/a> and Miles McBride<\/a> are free agents, with team options on P.J. Tucker<\/a> and rookie center Ariel Hukporti<\/a>. They will have access to the $5.7MM taxpayer mid-level exception, but using it will trigger a hard cap at the second apron. The rest of the much-needed depth would have to be filled out using minimum-salary contracts, the draft (New York holds only the No. 50 overall pick), and limited trade tools.<\/p>\n

Marks points to Robinson\u2019s $13MM expiring salary as a potential trade chip if the Knicks decide to make a bigger move, but they also only have one movable first-rounder (the Wizards\u2019 2026 top-eight protected pick), along with a few potential pick swaps, to include in a deal.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Knicks will have Mikal Bridges<\/a>\u2018 extension to decide on. A new deal for Bridges would kick in for 2026, so it doesn\u2019t impact this summer\u2019s salary situation. Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> is also extension-eligible, though with three years left on his current contract, it\u2019s a less pressing concern.<\/p>\n

We have more from the Knicks:<\/p>\n

Given the reluctance of Knicks leadership to speak openly or address the media, parsing the next steps forward is something akin to reading the tea leaves, writes Steve Popper of Newsday<\/a>. He points to president of basketball operations Leon Rose\u2018s patience in building this roster, though the Towns and Bridges trades seemed to signal a willingness to be more aggressive. Popper also points to the same Dolan interview referenced by Marks, in which the reclusive owner said, \u201c[Rose] has done a good job of lining up the contracts. So this isn\u2019t our only season. So we\u2019re going to play a bunch of seasons together. You take a look at teams like Boston that have played together. They get to draw off something that they built off that period of time. And for this team, that\u2019s really the challenge today, going into the playoffs. It\u2019s to build that inside of the team, something that we can draw on.\u201d
\nWhile reports about the team\u2019s frustrations with Towns\u2019 defense<\/a> began circulating moments after the Knicks\u2019 season ended, Brunson\u2019s praised Towns prior to Game 6 for how he was able to fight through multiple playoff injuries to stay active and involved in the series. \u201cI have the utmost respect for him and the way he\u2019s been able to play throughout this entire season and playoffs,\u201d Brunson said, per Jared Schwartz of the New York Post<\/a>. Despite a lingering knee injury<\/a>, Towns finished the series with averages of 24.8 points and 12.2 rebounds while shooting 36.7% from three on five attempts per game.
\nWhile it could be a challenging offseason for the Knicks, Rose has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to how to keep taking the right steps forward as an organization, writes the New York Post\u2019s Mike Vaccaro<\/a>. Vaccaro says that while Rose\u2019s track record spearheading the Knicks isn\u2019t impeccable \u2014 after all, whose is? \u2014 it has come pretty close, as has his ability to pivot in the rare moments he does make mistakes, such as the summer of 2021 when he built the offseason around signing Evan Fournier<\/a> and Kemba Walker<\/a>. Vaccaro suggests the club would benefit from acquiring a starting-caliber player who could shift energizer bunny Hart back to the role he was meant to play, as the team\u2019s sixth man. However, he cautions that any such move would need to be for a player who can defend at a high level, given the limitations to the Brunson and Towns defensive tandem. Rose has earned that benefit of the doubt, Vaccaro writes, but his test starts now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Knicks have played their final game of the season after losing Game 6 to the Pacers on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,563,7093,1260,1247],"class_list":{"0":"post-71268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-karl-anthony-towns","10":"tag-leon-rose","11":"tag-mikal-bridges","12":"tag-mitchell-robinson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114611871043830784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71268","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=71268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}