CLEVELAND — Shane Bieber will make his second rehab start on Thursday with the possibility of the 2020 American League Cy Young winner rejoining the Cleveland Guardians rotation by late June or early July.
The right-hander — who had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow last April — is scheduled to start for the Double-A Akron RubberDucks after throwing 2 1/3 scoreless innings in an Arizona Complex League game on Saturday. Bieber, who turned 30 on Saturday, faced nine batters, allowed one hit and struck out five.
Chris Antonetti, Cleveland’s president of baseball operations, was pleased that Bieber was averaging 93 mph on his fastball.
“It was really fun to watch Shane just get back out in a competitive setting,” Antonetti said before the Guardians faced the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday. “He’s worked on adding some complementary pitches or changing the way some of his pitch profiles look. So his changeup in particular had maybe more depth than it’s had in the past.”
After spending most of his time at the team’s spring training complex in Goodyear, Arizona, Bieber is likely to remain in Northeast Ohio for the remainder of his rebab. The Guardians top affiliates are in Columbus, Akron and Eastlake, Ohio, which are all less than a two-hour drive from Progressive Field.
The plan is for Bieber to throw up to 50 pitches again on Thursday before ramping things up.
With the two-time All-Star likely to pitch every five days, it is possible his return to the rotation could occur between June 25 through 29, when the Guardians have a homestand against the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals.
“We have a pretty good plan in place, but the one thing we want to make sure, especially with Tommy John, is that we’re really deliberate in helping him get back to a point where once he returns, he’s able to pitch for the balance of the season without issues,” Antonetti said.
Bieber’s return — whenever it is — should provide a lift for a rotation that has struggled the first two-plus months of the season. Guardians’ starters went into Sunday’s game with the fourth-highest ERA in the American League (4.25).
Tanner Bibee is 4-5 with a 3.86 ERA while Ben Lively will have Tommy John surgery later this week.
Cleveland (31-26) enters Sunday six games behind Detroit in the AL Central, but has one of the three wild-card spots.
“I think we’re right in the mix. I think what we’re seeking to do is be a little bit more consistent in all areas of the game, whether that’s starting pitching, our bullpen, defense, offense, all of those areas,” Antonetti said.
“I think we’ve seen periods of what we’re capable of doing, but we feel like we still have our best baseball yet in front of us and that’s part of something that goes along with being a young team.”
The most telling comment of the Eastern Conference Finals came from Pacers coach Rick Carlisle after Game 3, just after his team blew a 20-point lead and let the Knicks back in the series. Much of the Knicks’ second-half surge that night came while All-NBA point guard Jalen Brunson was on the bench due to foul trouble.
Carlisle said the comeback was due to the Knicks having their “better defensive players” on the court.
In what was a season to be celebrated, defense was always the issue in New York. Knicks players are on their way to Cancun today because their core players couldn’t guard well enough when it came time to slow the space-and-pace Pacers. That all started with Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns. For the entire Eastern Conference Finals, Brunson was -26 on a Knicks team that was -11 total.
It begs the question: Can the Knicks take that next step with those two as their best players?
One can argue that after this last series, OG Anunoby is the Knicks’ second-best player. However you choose to rank the roster, the Knicks likely bring back their top seven players from this season have the taxpayer mid-level exception and other moves to add some talent.
Can Leon Rose and the front office add a couple more quality rotation players who can defend, then get Thibodeau to trust them and play the bench next season?
Successful Knicks season and missed opportunity
This was the best Knicks season in decades — it was their first Eastern Conference Finals since 2000 and Madison Square Garden was electric. Timothée Chalamet spent so much time with Ben Stiller that he might appear in the next season of “Succession.” New York had the fifth most wins in the league and was one of the final four teams standing.
This season was also a missed opportunity. The Knicks were healthy and slayed the Goliath of the East in Boston — a series where New York was the better team even before Jayson Tatum’s injury. There was a path to the Finals and maybe a ring.
That path should still be there next season. In a more wide-open East (with Boston’s Tatum and Milwaukee’s Damian Lillard expected to miss most, if not all, of the season due to significant injuries), the smart play may be to run it back, but will it be good enough?
Knicks need depth, defense
Brunson and Towns both made All-NBA and led New York to the fifth-best offense in the NBA this season. They needed that from the duo to cover up a mediocre defense where those two were part of the problem. The Knicks’ defense improved in the second half of the season, particularly with Mitchell Robinson on the court, but it still had its limitations. After the All-Star break, New York had the 11th-ranked defense in the league, and it was 1.8 points per 100 possessions better than it had been before the break.
Still, there were places for the Pacers and other teams to attack in the half court, and Indiana largely won this series on transition buckets where Knicks players simply did not get back.
Thibodeau faces a paradox because Brunson and Towns drive the offense but are defensive targets.
In Game 6, the Knicks’ frustrations with Towns’ defensive lapses were evident. Towns played in more drop coverage off pick-and-rolls, which may not have been the plan based on reactions from teammates. Frustration with Towns’ defensive execution is not new to this series, it was an issue all season and reportedly led to a lot of team meetings.
This is the first time the Knicks have been in the conference finals in more than two decades — that should be celebrated. Beyond that, Knicks fans can rightfully say that if their team doesn’t blow Game 1 (giving up a 20-point lead and losing in overtime), they might win this series (or, at least they would be headed home for Game 7).
However, the Pacers dictated the run of play, and the style of play through much of the Eastern Conference Finals. They were the better team. At the heart of that is Tyrese Haliburton’s ability to get everyone around him involved and lift up his teammates in a way that the ball-dominant Brunson does not. Haliburton was the perfect conductor of a more ensemble cast, one that fits together beautifully.
Knicks offensive diversity
New York’s offense with Brunson leading it is very station-to-station. It’s predictable and involves a lot of pounding the ball before one of the stars tries to beat their guy. That works against most teams due to the talent Brunson and Towns (and Anunoby, and Mikal Bridges) possess, but against elite defenses and teams, it often falls short.
The book on how to defend the Knicks has been in place for a couple of seasons: Use a wing to guard Towns and assign your center to Josh Hart — a non-threat as a 3-point shooter — and let him protect the paint on drives. That has stayed the strategy because it works. Against a team like the Pacers, with a good wing defender in Pascal Siakam and a solid rim protector in Myles Turner, that strategy is particularly effective.
With the ball-dominant Brunson running the show, the Knicks’ offense lacks diversity in its attack. Thibodeau had to lean into Landry Shamet against the Pacers because he could bring a little more offensive diversity — a guy who could be run off screens and score — that they had been lacking.
Take a look at what some other NBA executives and front office personnel told ESPN.
“I love Brunson. But I’m not sure you can win with a ball-dominant player like him,” the West executive said.
“There’s a ceiling for how far he can take you because you have to play the way he plays,” the scout said. “Those guys need a specific player next to them.”
Brunson is an elite point guard, but the Knicks need more shot creation around him, more players to take the burden off his shoulders. Bridges was supposed to be that, but Anunoby filled that role more in the playoffs. The Knicks front office needs to spend part of the summer finding players who can take over some of that shot creation and get others involved.
Those players also need to be high-level defenders. Finding those guys is not easy.
New York is close, but they have steps to take if they are going to beat the Pacers and Cavaliers next season (and maybe Boston), plus any other teams that make a bold offseason move (Toronto?).
The Knicks cannot have a better +/- in a playoff series with their star off the court next season. We know what Brunson is and what he can do, but he and Towns need a little more help while this window is open.
It’s a question New York Knicks fans and longtime owner James Dolan have to ask themselves: Who do you want running the Knicks: Leon Rose the agent or Leon Rose the exec?
Because this Knicks team faces some difficult decisions this summer, and the most seismic ones revolve around clients of CAA, the agency that Rose used to run, starting with Karl-Anthony Towns.
Rose’s deep ties to CAA, as I detailed in depth in October, helped push New York to the doorstep of the NBA Finals. Before the season, the Knicks president most notably acquired Towns, who was once Rose’s top-earning client among a star-studded fleet of athletes when Rose was an agent.
Among league insiders, the Knicks’ loyalty to CAA has been one of the strongest undercurrents of the NBA landscape. The Knicks spent more money toward one player agency than any team in the NBA this season, funneling nearly $130 million to CAA clients Towns, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson. The ties between Towns and William “Worldwide Wes” Wesley, Rose’s right-hand man in the Knicks’ front office, go back over a decade. And then there’s the future of Tom Thibodeau, another long-time CAA client, who expertly engineered a series win over the Boston Celtics, but fell short of the NBA Finals for the 10th time in 10 postseason appearances as an NBA head coach.
Upgrading the Knicks will test those time-honored bonds. If the franchise wants to end the fifth-longest active title drought in the NBA, it will probably mean parting with one or more of those cherished clients.
It almost certainly would be the case if they want any chance in a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes this summer.
The Knicks’ Big Five was exposed against the Pacers. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Gregory Shamus via Getty Images
The Towns conundrum
It’s clear that Towns, a Jersey native, wears the Knicks’ orange-and-blue jersey with pride. He powered through a knee injury in the Eastern Conference finals, averaging 24.8 points and 12.2 rebounds while keeping his foul tendencies in check for much of the series. His scoring surges, particularly in Game 5, carried the Knicks for long stretches.
But he couldn’t defend. The Indiana Pacers preyed on the glaring weakness all series. He was noticeably absent in transition. On the perimeter, he was hopeless. In the paint, he was punchless. In the six games, the 7-foot Towns registered one block. It’s the first time since blocks became an official stat in the 1970s that a center registered one block or fewer in the conference finals while playing at least 200 minutes in the series, per Stathead.com tracking. That can’t happen.
All season long, Towns anchored the Knicks’ vaunted starting lineup featuring Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Hart, and Anunoby, but the Pacers absolutely shredded them in the Eastern Conference finals. So much so that the notoriously stubborn Thibodeau was forced to pull the plug and move Mitchell Robinson into the starting lineup in Game 3.
The fact is the Knicks just spent $152 million on a lineup that yielded the second-worst defense in the conference finals since NBA lineup tracking began in 2008. The lineup of Brunson, Bridges, Hart, Anunoby and Towns hemorrhaged 126.1 points per 100 possessions to the Pacers, the second-most points allowed per possession among the 63 lineups with at least 50 minutes played in the past 18 conference finals.
The only conference finals lineup that was torched to a larger degree was the 2016 Toronto Raptors defense — a lineup that was promptly overhauled the following offseason. It’s hard to imagine the Knicks avoiding a similar overhaul and still getting to the Finals one day. This season, the Knicks’ Big Five made a collective $152 million, making it one of the most expensive units in the league. Next season, the bill will only swell more, when the Knicks will pay out $172 million to keep together that five-man group, which was outscored by a collective 31 points this postseason.
The root of the problem is that Brunson and Towns are one-way superstars. To get to the Finals, a team can cover up one of those defensive liabilities, but it’s almost impossible to hide both. It’s easier to shield a point guard on that end of the floor, but not a 7-footer who plays like he’s a foot shorter. As a reminder, Towns went the entire conference finals last year without registering a single block — and the Wolves subsequently traded away their former No. 1 overall draft pick.
And so Rose and the Knicks will have to think long and hard about breaking up their Big Five. Here are three trade proposals to consider this summer.
The Giannis trade
New York receives: Giannis Antetokounmpo
Milwaukee receives: Karl-Anthony Towns, Tyler Kolek, Washington’s 2026 protected first-round draft pick and two first-round pick swaps (2026 and 2030).
You thought convincing Brunson to take a sweetheart deal was hard? That’s nothing compared to what Rose would have to do to force his way into a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes and win it.
Convincing the two-time MVP that the Knicks are the go-to destination for him — without tampering, of course! — is the only way a trade gets done. Because Antetokounmpo certainly won’t be traded to the Knicks because they have the best trade offer.
Here’s the pitch: Is there a clearer path to the Finals than on a Knicks team with Brunson?
Think about it. Antetokounmpo is an ideal complementary star for the offensively electric but defensively challenged Brunson. The Celtics would have trouble courting the Greek Freak after Jayson Tatum suffered the same devastating injury as his current Bucks teammate Damian Lillard, a torn Achilles. Cleveland hasn’t gotten out of the second round with its core. The Pacers could make a case, but is Giannis someone who’d pry his way out of Milwaukee to go to a bitter rival? Would Indiana, which just made the Finals without him, even listen? (I would, for the record.)
The Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs — I could probably add a few others — would easily lap New York in trade packages, but that wouldn’t matter if Antetokounmpo sees a loaded Western Conference as a minefield for championship quests.
The East is Giannis’ safest choice. The Knicks can flaunt that they were two wins from the Finals and are armed with a wing core entering its prime to surround Antetokounmpo with help. What makes this trickier is that Giannis is an Octagon client, not a CAA one, so communicating the Knicks’ vision will be challenging when the family isn’t inside Antetokounmpo’s circle. (Reminder: Rose’s son, Sam, is Brunson’s agent.)
But once Giannis has his eyes set on MSG, that’s only half the battle. Rose and Giannis’ agent, Alex Saratsis of Octagon, would have to independently convince the rest of the marketplace that Antetokounmpo won’t be happy or sign an extension in any non-Knick destination. Doing that will help ensure that the Knicks’ offer will float to the top of the pile and be palatable for Milwaukee general manager Jon Horst. The scare tactic could make organizations leery of forking over their top assets to Milwaukee.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, why in the world would Horst accept that deal? The only true first-round pick that the Knicks have to offer — the Wizards’ 2026 first-round pick — is top-8 protected and will turn into two future second-rounders if Washington miraculously doesn’t stink up the joint next season. The Knicks could swap their own 2026 and 2030 picks, but how valuable is that asset when the team employs Brunson and Antetokounmpo?
But let’s look at this another way: Check out the Bucks’ picks going forward. They don’t have control over their next six first-round picks. Tanking is useless. If they’re bad, others reap the benefits. The two best options for the Bucks are: a) to trade Antetokounmpo to New Orleans or Portland to restore their draft picks; or b) stay competitive.
Horst’s top priority has to be getting their picks back from the Lillard and Jrue Holiday trades, but that might prove difficult considering that those picks only become more valuable if Giannis leaves. Staying competitive would be the next-best option. How many of the 15 All-NBA players will become available this offseason (and not be recovering from a torn Achilles)? Towns may prove to be the best of the lot.
So, let’s say Rose pulls it off and (legally) convinces Antetokounmpo that New York is his best option. Let’s also say that the Knicks successfully scare away the rest of his suitors.
Great. But for Rose, the hard work isn’t done. Turning his back on Towns might prove to be the biggest challenge of them all.
The KD trade
Knicks receive: Kevin Durant, Richaun Holmes
Suns receive: Karl-Anthony Towns, Knicks’ first-round swap in 2030
Wizards receive: Miles McBride, Josh Hart, own 2026 first (top-8 protected)
The Knicks add an all-time great for their title chase. Towns reunites with Devin Booker in Phoenix. The Wizards … well, they help grease the wheels.
The aprons make it difficult for the Suns and Knicks to swap KD for KAT straight-up due to their contracts not aligning perfectly. Hence, why Washington gets involved, adding 24-year-old Deuce McBride and regaining its full 2026 first-round pick rights in exchange for taking on Hart’s contract. (As it stands now, in the unlikely event that the Wizards become a competent team next season, the Knicks would get their pick.)
The Durant fit in New York isn’t as snug as Antetokounmpo, a former Defensive Player of the Year in his prime. But even at his age, he’s a much better all-around defender than Towns and, perhaps more importantly, isn’t on the books for an annual $57 million over the next three seasons. If Durant doesn’t work out in New York, the Knicks can let him walk and have much more financial freedom. If Towns doesn’t work out next season, he’s still under contract for, gulp, $61 million in 2027-28.
Presumably, this deal doesn’t happen unless Durant gives his blessing, which is no small thing. Holmes would add another center on the depth chart behind the oft-injured Robinson. Losing McBride would hurt the backcourt, but the hope here is that Durant’s presence lures veterans to play at minimum contracts in pursuit of a championship. (Chris Paul, anyone?)
On the Suns’ side, they do right by Booker and bring in his long-time buddy and college teammate Towns to rewrite a grim outlook in Phoenix. Maybe they add impending free agent D’Angelo Russell to recreate “The Goodfellas” SLAM cover story from 2019. A Russell quote from that feature: “We gotta do this again, when we’re all on the same team.” The dream is alive, at least in this trade.
When looking at Durant packages, the Suns don’t have much incentive to trade for picks and bottom out. That strategy doesn’t work with a player as good as Booker on the roster, and it certainly doesn’t make sense unless the Suns recoup some or all of their first-round picks from Houston (2025, 2027 and 2029).
If Houston has eyes for Giannis and moves those picks to Milwaukee instead, it leaves the Suns out in the cold and increasingly vulnerable to a trade demand from Booker. The new Phoenix front office, led by a former college coach Brian Gregory, could lock in Towns and go forward with that duo as the new faces of the team.
The Mikal Bridges trade
Knicks receive: Daniel Gafford, Caleb Martin
Mavericks receive: Mikal Bridges
If the Knicks don’t want to move Towns or don’t find a palatable deal, this might be the direction they go.
For whatever reason, Bridges just never quite fit in with the Knicks this season and it was notable that he, a non-CAA client, was the only Knick to speak up about Thibodeau’s minutes allocation. This trade makes the Mavericks more balanced and helps solve their perimeter defense, which has been an issue since parting with Dorian Finney-Smith and Derrick Jones Jr.
After winning the Cooper Flagg lottery, the Mavs suddenly have a logjam in their frontcourt and a glaring need at Bridges’ position. The Mavericks can say all they want that the 6-foot-8 Flagg can work at the small forward slot next to Anthony Davis and one of Dereck Lively II or Daniel Gafford. But what they really need is a point-of-attack defender who isn’t a teenaged Flagg or 35-year-old Klay Thompson. And that means trading away one of their many bigs.
Gafford is a monster around the paint and would be an upgrade over Robinson, and far more reliable from an injury standpoint. While Robinson provides a lob threat for Knicks guards, he’s not the same caliber of a vertical spacer as Gafford, who averaged 20.6 points per 36 minutes last season compared to Robinson’s 10.8 figure.
In Martin, the Knicks receive a more physical player than Bridges on the perimeter, but he comes at the cost of more frequent unavailability. Bridges has never missed a game in his career while Martin has missed about 20 games a season since he became a full-time player in 2021-22. With Kyrie Irving off the books next summer, the Mavericks could fill that salary slot with Bridges’ extension (up to four years and $156 million).
It’s a question New York Knicks fans and longtime owner James Dolan have to ask themselves: Who do you want running the Knicks: Leon Rose the agent or Leon Rose the exec?
Because this Knicks team faces some difficult decisions this summer, and the most seismic ones revolve around clients of CAA, the agency that Rose used to run, starting with Karl-Anthony Towns.
Rose’s deep ties to CAA, as I detailed in depth in October, helped push New York to the doorstep of the NBA Finals. Before the season, the Knicks president most notably acquired Towns, who was once Rose’s top-earning client among a star-studded fleet of athletes when Rose was an agent.
Among league insiders, the Knicks’ loyalty to CAA has been one of the strongest undercurrents of the NBA landscape. The Knicks spent more money toward one player agency than any team in the NBA this season, funneling nearly $130 million to CAA clients Towns, OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson. The ties between Towns and William “Worldwide Wes” Wesley, Rose’s right-hand man in the Knicks’ front office, go back over a decade. And then there’s the future of Tom Thibodeau, another long-time CAA client, who expertly engineered a series win over the Boston Celtics, but fell short of the NBA Finals for the 10th time in 10 postseason appearances as an NBA head coach.
Upgrading the Knicks will test those time-honored bonds. If the franchise wants to end the fifth-longest active title drought in the NBA, it will probably mean parting with one or more of those cherished clients.
It almost certainly would be the case if they want any chance in a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes this summer.
The Knicks’ Big Five was exposed against the Pacers. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Gregory Shamus via Getty Images
The Towns conundrum
It’s clear that Towns, a Jersey native, wears the Knicks’ orange-and-blue jersey with pride. He powered through a knee injury in the Eastern Conference finals, averaging 24.8 points and 12.2 rebounds while keeping his foul tendencies in check for much of the series. His scoring surges, particularly in Game 5, carried the Knicks for long stretches.
But he couldn’t defend. The Indiana Pacers preyed on the glaring weakness all series. He was noticeably absent in transition. On the perimeter, he was hopeless. In the paint, he was punchless. In the six games, the 7-foot Towns registered one block. It’s the first time since blocks became an official stat in the 1970s that a center registered one block or fewer in the conference finals while playing at least 200 minutes in the series, per Stathead.com tracking. That can’t happen.
All season long, Towns anchored the Knicks’ vaunted starting lineup featuring Brunson, Mikal Bridges, Hart, and Anunoby, but the Pacers absolutely shredded them in the Eastern Conference finals. So much so that the notoriously stubborn Thibodeau was forced to pull the plug and move Mitchell Robinson into the starting lineup in Game 3.
The fact is the Knicks just spent $152 million on a lineup that yielded the second-worst defense in the conference finals since NBA lineup tracking began in 2008. The lineup of Brunson, Bridges, Hart, Anunoby and Towns hemorrhaged 126.1 points per 100 possessions to the Pacers, the second-most points allowed per possession among the 63 lineups with at least 50 minutes played in the past 18 conference finals.
The only conference finals lineup that was torched to a larger degree was the 2016 Toronto Raptors defense — a lineup that was promptly overhauled the following offseason. It’s hard to imagine the Knicks avoiding a similar overhaul and still getting to the Finals one day. This season, the Knicks’ Big Five made a collective $152 million, making it one of the most expensive units in the league. Next season, the bill will only swell more, when the Knicks will pay out $172 million to keep together that five-man group, which was outscored by a collective 31 points this postseason.
The root of the problem is that Brunson and Towns are one-way superstars. To get to the Finals, a team can cover up one of those defensive liabilities, but it’s almost impossible to hide both. It’s easier to shield a point guard on that end of the floor, but not a 7-footer who plays like he’s a foot shorter. As a reminder, Towns went the entire conference finals last year without registering a single block — and the Wolves subsequently traded away their former No. 1 overall draft pick.
And so Rose and the Knicks will have to think long and hard about breaking up their Big Five. Here are three trade proposals to consider this summer.
The Giannis trade
New York receives: Giannis Antetokounmpo
Milwaukee receives: Karl-Anthony Towns, Tyler Kolek, Washington’s 2026 protected first-round draft pick and two first-round pick swaps (2026 and 2030).
You thought convincing Brunson to take a sweetheart deal was hard? That’s nothing compared to what Rose would have to do to force his way into a potential Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes and win it.
Convincing the two-time MVP that the Knicks are the go-to destination for him — without tampering, of course! — is the only way a trade gets done. Because Antetokounmpo certainly won’t be traded to the Knicks because they have the best trade offer.
Here’s the pitch: Is there a clearer path to the Finals than on a Knicks team with Brunson?
Think about it. Antetokounmpo is an ideal complementary star for the offensively electric but defensively challenged Brunson. The Celtics would have trouble courting the Greek Freak after Jayson Tatum suffered the same devastating injury as his current Bucks teammate Damian Lillard, a torn Achilles. Cleveland hasn’t gotten out of the second round with its core. The Pacers could make a case, but is Giannis someone who’d pry his way out of Milwaukee to go to a bitter rival? Would Indiana, which just made the Finals without him, even listen? (I would, for the record.)
The Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs — I could probably add a few others — would easily lap New York in trade packages, but that wouldn’t matter if Antetokounmpo sees a loaded Western Conference as a minefield for championship quests.
The East is Giannis’ safest choice. The Knicks can flaunt that they were two wins from the Finals and are armed with a wing core entering its prime to surround Antetokounmpo with help. What makes this trickier is that Giannis is an Octagon client, not a CAA one, so communicating the Knicks’ vision will be challenging when the family isn’t inside Antetokounmpo’s circle. (Reminder: Rose’s son, Sam, is Brunson’s agent.)
But once Giannis has his eyes set on MSG, that’s only half the battle. Rose and Giannis’ agent, Alex Saratsis of Octagon, would have to independently convince the rest of the marketplace that Antetokounmpo won’t be happy or sign an extension in any non-Knick destination. Doing that will help ensure that the Knicks’ offer will float to the top of the pile and be palatable for Milwaukee general manager Jon Horst. The scare tactic could make organizations leery of forking over their top assets to Milwaukee.
At this point, you’re probably thinking, why in the world would Horst accept that deal? The only true first-round pick that the Knicks have to offer — the Wizards’ 2026 first-round pick — is top-8 protected and will turn into two future second-rounders if Washington miraculously doesn’t stink up the joint next season. The Knicks could swap their own 2026 and 2030 picks, but how valuable is that asset when the team employs Brunson and Antetokounmpo?
But let’s look at this another way: Check out the Bucks’ picks going forward. They don’t have control over their next six first-round picks. Tanking is useless. If they’re bad, others reap the benefits. The two best options for the Bucks are: a) to trade Antetokounmpo to New Orleans or Portland to restore their draft picks; or b) stay competitive.
Horst’s top priority has to be getting their picks back from the Lillard and Jrue Holiday trades, but that might prove difficult considering that those picks only become more valuable if Giannis leaves. Staying competitive would be the next-best option. How many of the 15 All-NBA players will become available this offseason (and not be recovering from a torn Achilles)? Towns may prove to be the best of the lot.
So, let’s say Rose pulls it off and (legally) convinces Antetokounmpo that New York is his best option. Let’s also say that the Knicks successfully scare away the rest of his suitors.
Great. But for Rose, the hard work isn’t done. Turning his back on Towns might prove to be the biggest challenge of them all.
The KD trade
Knicks receive: Kevin Durant, Richaun Holmes
Suns receive: Karl-Anthony Towns, Knicks’ first-round swap in 2030
Wizards receive: Miles McBride, Josh Hart, own 2026 first (top-8 protected)
The Knicks add an all-time great for their title chase. Towns reunites with Devin Booker in Phoenix. The Wizards … well, they help grease the wheels.
The aprons make it difficult for the Suns and Knicks to swap KD for KAT straight-up due to their contracts not aligning perfectly. Hence, why Washington gets involved, adding 24-year-old Deuce McBride and regaining its full 2026 first-round pick rights in exchange for taking on Hart’s contract. (As it stands now, in the unlikely event that the Wizards become a competent team next season, the Knicks would get their pick.)
The Durant fit in New York isn’t as snug as Antetokounmpo, a former Defensive Player of the Year in his prime. But even at his age, he’s a much better all-around defender than Towns and, perhaps more importantly, isn’t on the books for an annual $57 million over the next three seasons. If Durant doesn’t work out in New York, the Knicks can let him walk and have much more financial freedom. If Towns doesn’t work out next season, he’s still under contract for, gulp, $61 million in 2027-28.
Presumably, this deal doesn’t happen unless Durant gives his blessing, which is no small thing. Holmes would add another center on the depth chart behind the oft-injured Robinson. Losing McBride would hurt the backcourt, but the hope here is that Durant’s presence lures veterans to play at minimum contracts in pursuit of a championship. (Chris Paul, anyone?)
On the Suns’ side, they do right by Booker and bring in his long-time buddy and college teammate Towns to rewrite a grim outlook in Phoenix. Maybe they add impending free agent D’Angelo Russell to recreate “The Goodfellas” SLAM cover story from 2019. A Russell quote from that feature: “We gotta do this again, when we’re all on the same team.” The dream is alive, at least in this trade.
When looking at Durant packages, the Suns don’t have much incentive to trade for picks and bottom out. That strategy doesn’t work with a player as good as Booker on the roster, and it certainly doesn’t make sense unless the Suns recoup some or all of their first-round picks from Houston (2025, 2027 and 2029).
If Houston has eyes for Giannis and moves those picks to Milwaukee instead, it leaves the Suns out in the cold and increasingly vulnerable to a trade demand from Booker. The new Phoenix front office, led by a former college coach Brian Gregory, could lock in Towns and go forward with that duo as the new faces of the team.
The Mikal Bridges trade
Knicks receive: Daniel Gafford, Caleb Martin
Mavericks receive: Mikal Bridges
If the Knicks don’t want to move Towns or don’t find a palatable deal, this might be the direction they go.
For whatever reason, Bridges just never quite fit in with the Knicks this season and it was notable that he, a non-CAA client, was the only Knick to speak up about Thibodeau’s minutes allocation. This trade makes the Mavericks more balanced and helps solve their perimeter defense, which has been an issue since parting with Dorian Finney-Smith and Derrick Jones Jr.
After winning the Cooper Flagg lottery, the Mavs suddenly have a logjam in their frontcourt and a glaring need at Bridges’ position. The Mavericks can say all they want that the 6-foot-8 Flagg can work at the small forward slot next to Anthony Davis and one of Dereck Lively II or Daniel Gafford. But what they really need is a point-of-attack defender who isn’t a teenaged Flagg or 35-year-old Klay Thompson. And that means trading away one of their many bigs.
Gafford is a monster around the paint and would be an upgrade over Robinson, and far more reliable from an injury standpoint. While Robinson provides a lob threat for Knicks guards, he’s not the same caliber of a vertical spacer as Gafford, who averaged 20.6 points per 36 minutes last season compared to Robinson’s 10.8 figure.
In Martin, the Knicks receive a more physical player than Bridges on the perimeter, but he comes at the cost of more frequent unavailability. Bridges has never missed a game in his career while Martin has missed about 20 games a season since he became a full-time player in 2021-22. With Kyrie Irving off the books next summer, the Mavericks could fill that salary slot with Bridges’ extension (up to four years and $156 million).
INDIANAPOLIS — A few hours after the Nuggets fired general manager Calvin Booth and head coach Michael Malone, Tom Thibodeau was sitting in the press conference room at Madison Square Garden, answering questions about Malone, Booth, and the high stakes of working in the NBA.
“I think it’s maybe a byproduct of where we are today with all that goes on. That’s where, hopefully, you have people that can remain calm. You win together, you lose together. You work through things together,” Thibodeau said that day. “I think that’s an important part of this business.”
The overarching question facing the Knicks right now: Do you remain calm, make changes on the margins, and run it back next year with the same group? Or do you go the opposite route and trade for a star or search for a new head coach?
These are questions that will be answered in the coming days as the Knicks conduct exit meetings with players and perform an autopsy on the 2024-25 season.
If you zoom out, it would seem strange to make massive changes to a team that made the conference finals for the first time in 25 years.
The Knicks have, mostly, showed year-over-year progress in the Jalen Brunson era. You can make an easy case for running it back with Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby as your core and Thibodeau as your coach.
He was incredulous when asked by a reporter if Thibodeau is the right coach to lead the team forward.
“Is that a real question right now? You just asked me if I believe he’s the right guy? Yes. Come on,” he said. As he left the podium and walked out of the room, Brunson continued to critique the premise of the question.
Brunson was also asked how confident he is that the current iteration of the Knicks.
“The most confidence. Over confident. Seriously,” he said. “There’s not an ounce of any type of doubt that I’m not confident with this group.”
Obviously, it would be strange if Brunson didn’t express confidence in his teammates and head coach in this setting. But the way he answered the question tells you more than the words. Brunson meant what he said.
Do the Knick decision-makers – chiefly team president Leon Rose and owner James Dolan – feel the same way? We’ll find out the answer to that question over the next six weeks or so.
What’s next in the more immediate future? Like all teams, the franchise will take time to evaluate both players and coaches in the wake of Saturday’s season-ending loss. That in-person evaluation didn’t begin on Sunday but will start this coming week, per people in touch with the Knicks.
I assume all NBA teams go through a similar process after their season ends. But with the Knicks, the evaluation will be made with clear criteria: Does this help us win an NBA championship?
The Knicks ended their 2024-25 season falling two wins short of the NBA Finals, after a whirlwind of a year that began with a training camp eve blockbuster trade and brought a shocking upset over the defending champion Boston Celtics.
Let’s look back and see how each individual team member performed this year as a whole and grade them for their efforts:
The Captain continued his rise into NBA stardom this year and delivered when the Knicks needed him most, earning himself a Clutch Player of the Year Award. Brunson averaged 26 points and 7.3 assists on 54 percent shooting from two and 38 percent shooting from three during the regular season, then upped his game in the postseason, averaging 29 and seven assists on 51 percent shooting from two and 36 percent from three.
There were drawbacks, as he didn’t leave the Conference Finals on the best note and got hammered defensively that series. As the team leader he’s also responsible for the communication and ego issues the team constantly brought up throughout the season, but this was his first go around as the clear No. 1 in the locker room, so look for improvements in all these regards next year.
Despite being shipped by the team that drafted him and molded him over nine years on the eve of training camp and immediately facing questions about his toughness and defense, Towns adjusted to New York quickly and effectively, putting together an All-Star worthy season. Though his defense was infuriating at times, he put it together for that Celtics series and still brought a massive scoring punch every night, despite not being maximized on that end.
After signing the biggest contract in Knicks history, Anunoby averaged a career-high 18 points on 37 percent shooting from three, expanding his self-creation game and still bringing that otherworldly defense. He had a rough shooting conference finals in a tough matchup, and had some weird bouts of inconsistency, but was one of the more dependable Knicks on the season, playing 74 games and upping the ante defensively.
Bridges will forever be haunted by the price it took to acquire him, but had a strong year, including some massive postseason moments, outside of his odd quirks. If he comes back next year having rediscovered his shooting stroke and willingness to play with some physicality, it could be a massive season for him.
It’s hard to ding a guy that does all the thankless things for a team stacked with offensive talent, but something about Hart’s year didn’t quite measure up to his previous work. Most egregious was a disastrous Pacers series in which he nearly had as many turnovers as field goals, but even prior to that, the pace-pushing, tenacious rebounding, and connectivity was come-and-go.
May 12, 2025; New York, New York, USA; New York Knicks center Mitchell Robinson (23) looks to pass after a rebound as Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) defends in the first half during game four of the second round for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. / Vincent Carchietta – Imagn Images
After missing the length of the season recovering from an ankle injury, Robinson returned and was one of the most impactful Knicks of the Playoffs, single-handedly turning around games to the point he was inserted into the starting lineup. There were questions surrounding his health coming into the year that got his name tied up in trade rumors, but he’s re-cemented himself as a top starting center in this league after a dominant postseason.
Miles McBride: C+
Last year’s breakout year came with heightened expectations for McBride, who struggled through injury and regression during the regular season, before bouncing back somewhat in the Playoffs. He had a case to play more as a true spacer and defender in Towns-at-the-five lineups, but didn’t get many opportunities for it.
Precious Achiuwa: B
Achiuwa wasn’t a mainstay in the rotation, especially once Robinson returned, but when called upon did his job serviceably and with high effort. This included out-of-position stints at the four and some short but useful appearances in the Playoffs.
Cameron Payne: C-
A nice stopgap as a backup point, Payne was serviceable enough in taking up some first half minutes, especially when he knocked down shots. But his small frame was a target defensively that got exposed in the Playoffs when he struggled to score on the other end, and outside a couple of cool moments, had a largely forgettable year.
Landry Shamet: B+
A strong preseason that set him up for a rotation spot ended in a hamstring injury that sidelined him for much of the regular season, but after a ramp-up period and late postseason insertion into the rotation, Shamet paid solid dividends to the Knicks for keeping their faith in him. A trusted shooter and willing defender, they should try to retain him as an off-the-bench piece.
Delon Wright: B+
The Knicks acquired Wright at the trade deadline in exchange for Jericho Sims, but didn’t really utilize him until they found their backs against the wall against Indiana. At that point, he proved himself a capable bench spark defensively, if only we had seen more of it prior.
While Thibodeau gets the highest of marks for getting the Knicks to their first Conference Finals in decades, unfortunately many of the frustrations with his coaching reared their heads at once in knocking the Knicks out of that series. Failure to experiment with lineups throughout the regular season, failure to trust in the bench, and a failure to maximize the offense all came back to haunt New York, but given their success and his popularity among the players, the adjustment here is bringing in a strong assistant or two instead of replacing the winningest coach in recent Knicks history.
