{"id":741980,"date":"2026-05-23T14:48:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/741980\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T14:48:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T14:48:36","slug":"knicks-polarizing-39-million-free-agent-cant-leave-for-celtics-or-hawks-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/741980\/","title":{"rendered":"Knicks\u2019 polarizing $39 million free agent can\u2019t leave for Celtics or Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knicks\u2019 polarizing $39 million free agent can\u2019t leave for Celtics or Hawks<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mitchell Robinson<\/a> can cause a few headaches in key moments for the New York Knicks<\/a> as a career 50.8% free thrower, but he also solves many more problems on the floor than he creates.<\/p>\n

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The athletic 7-foot center has become one of the most prolific offensive rebounding talents and capable lob threats in recent memory, and the soon-to-be unrestricted free agent will command plenty of attention from competing front offices, including a few bitter rivals.<\/p>\n

Per ESPN’s Bobby Marks<\/a>, the Knicks could expect to battle with a few competitive Eastern Conference franchises and recent postseason opponents in the Boston Celtics<\/a> and Atlanta Hawks<\/a> to retain the 28-year-old big man this summer despite his clear deficiencies at the charity stripe.<\/p>\n

“Robinson averaged the second-most offensive rebounds (4.2) during the regular season despite playing less than 20 minutes per game,” Marks explained Friday morning.<\/p>\n

“Robinson continues to be a liability at the free throw line; he has the worst make percentage in NBA postseason history among players with at least 100 attempts.”<\/p>\n

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“New York<\/a>‘s decision on whether it enters the second apron will play a role in Robinson’s future. New York is currently $13 million below the second apron with 10 players under contract, including its first-round pick in June.”<\/p>\n

Marks suggests that the Knicks re-sign Robinson on a deal similar to fellow offensive rebounding great and Houston Rockets<\/a> center Steven Adams<\/a> at a 3-year, $39 million figure to have him remain alongside Jalen Brunson<\/a> and Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

New York’s former No. 36 overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft proves why his skillset is so valuable to the storied franchise every time he takes the floor, and losing him to an in-conference rival would certainly be a tough pill to swallow. Even after factoring in that his free throw shooting has only continued to drop this postseason (31.7% shooting, 13-41), his activity on the boards and disruptive defense outweighs it all.<\/p>\n

Robinson has clearly developed into a premier talent when it comes to creating second and third opportunities for his team while protecting the paint in limited minutes when healthy. These attributes should make him a likely target for a Hawks team that averaged 14.7 second-chance points in the regular season (No. 20 in NBA).<\/p>\n

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As for Boston, their embarrassing blown 3-1 lead in the first round of postseason against the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> was triggered largely by 2023 MVP Joel Embiid<\/a>‘s return to form. The Celtics had no answers in the paint against the 7-foot, 280-pound superstar, and the all-time great offensive unit averaged 28.0 points, 9.0 rebounds and 7.0 assists in the series.<\/p>\n

Boston could view Robinson as their best bet at landing some form of an ‘Embiid stopper’ for the 2027 postseason, as not many other bigs in the game possess his combination of size, strength and vertical spacing.<\/p>\n

However, it’ll be a tough mission for either the Celtics or Hawks to pry Robinson away from the only franchise he’s ever known to this point in his 8-year career, especially given New York’s recent postseason dominance against both teams.<\/p>\n

More NBA:\u00a0LeBron James delaying decision leaves Lakers in tricky salary cap situation heading into offseason<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Knicks\u2019 polarizing $39 million free agent can\u2019t leave for Celtics or Hawks originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,2573,75,1409,677,194,288,936,563,1247,6,1136,191,207,962,11015],"class_list":["post-741980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlantahawks","tag-basketball","tag-bobby-marks","tag-boston-celtics","tag-eastern-conference","tag-hawks","tag-houston-rockets","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-joel-embiid","tag-karl-anthony-towns","tag-mitchell-robinson","tag-nba","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-steven-adams","tag-unrestricted-free-agent"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116624444860099708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741980","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=741980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}