More Moves COMING – Report Reveals HUGE Knicks Update…

More Moves COMING – Report Reveals HUGE Knicks Update…

More moves are coming for the New York Knicks as a report has revealed that New York is not done making moves and improving their roster throughout while also having to navigate that second apron with multiple players being linked to this team with one of them definitely going to be signed. While the Knicks are also looking at veteran options, specifically ressigning a key player in last year’s playoff run. And we’re going to break it all down. What’s up, guys? Welcome back to Nicks Digest. It’s Chris here and we’re going to jump right into things as always. And if you’re part of that percentage, that 69% that’s not subscribed, we have the latest and best New York Knicks updates that you do not want to miss out on. So, make sure to subscribe. We’re making videos every day. Have those post notifications on. And let’s jump into the video and talk about all this as Leon Rose and the New York Knicks are not done making moves yet. Now, the Knicks had an active start in the first three days of free agency. On June 30th, they brought in Jordan Clarkson. The next day they ended up bringing in Gershan Yabusalei and the following day they hired Mike Brown as the team’s head coach. The Knicks have been active this off seasonason and the path was pretty clear for this team especially after firing Tom Tibido. It was clear what the Knicks had to do that to hire a head coach like Mike Brown who would use the bench which he is expected to do as Mike Brown usually does. And then on top of that the next thing you have to go out and do is get that bench improved. the Knicks bench last year, there’s been a lot of confliction on whether it was bad or just that didn’t get used. I think it’s a bit of both. I think the Knicks did have a weaker bench than most of the other teams that were contending and definitely of the final four teams in the playoffs. The Knicks certainly had the worst bench of any team that made the conference finals. They needed to improve that bench. They had to go around the parameters and just improve the team. And so far, they’ve done that. They brought in a guy in Jordan Clarkson who’s averaging more points than the entire Knicks bench last year. And they brought in Gershan Yabui who’s an 11 and five guy shooting 38% from three who’s going to be excellent on both sides of the ball for this team moving forwards. So the Knicks start to this offseason has been good, especially adding Mike Brown who does fit well for this team. However, there’s more moves that are going to be made for the Knicks. As it was mentioned by Yosi Gland, the Knicks would need to sign a rookie minimum like Muhammad Diawara or James Naji to make it all fit under the second apron. They would be $36,000 above it. They may need Yabu Sale to take a little bit less than the full max midlevel exception. So for where things stand now for this Knicks team, we are going to see another player get signed and it’s likely that it’ll be Muhammad Diawara or James Naji. Now I do believe it’s going to be Diwara. The Knicks just selected Diara with the 51st overall pick in the NBA draft and he is viewed as a project pick, but he’s someone the Knicks clearly like. Also, he’s a little more versatile than Naji. Diawara can play a few different positions. He likes to handle the ball. He can play the small forward. He can play the power forward. In theory, he could probably play a small ball center role as well, but he really is more of a forward who has a ball handle, and the Knicks saw that and said, “This guy is worth the gamble.” Now, the Knicks need to add one of these two rookies onto that contract. And considering they do have Carl Anthony Towns, Mitchell Robinson, Ariel Huckporty, they have a chance to either add another forward to this team who this team was versatile or you go and add James Naji, a complete rim runner who in a lot of ways just has a very similar style to Mitchell Robinson who would give more center depth. But then you have you have Mitchell Robinson, Ariel Huckporti, and Naji. All three of them can only play center. Meanwhile, you then look at having Gishany who’s 6’8, but he can hold his own at center. And obviously, Towns can play center as he did for the majority of last season. So, what we’re seeing is a team that effectively has already four guys who can play that center spot. And if you add on Naji, who could only play center, you do have a lot of you have three guys who are just pure centers and nothing else. The Knicks team is versatile thus far. out of the top nine on this team right now that have been acquired and all that, what we have is Jaylen Bronson, who really can only play point guard, but can also kind of play that shooting guard role off the ball if he is allowed to, but usually they don’t have the ball handlers to do so. Jordan Clarkson kind of changes that, but Brunson’s going to only be a point guard. He’s Jaylen Brunson. You have Male Bridges who could play effectively any wing position and he could be a power if you really need him to. You have OG on Anobi. Same thing as Male can really play any of the three positions that are not point guard or center. and OJ also guards centers anyway sometimes. On top of that, you have Josh Hart who again can play any of the three positions that are in point guard or center. You then go to the bench, Deuce McBride can play point guard or shooting guard. Jordan Clarkson can play point guard or shooting guard. Mitchell Robinson is a pure center. And then on top of that, you have Gany who can play power forward or center. So, it’s a versatile team thus far that does need more wing and forward depth than big man or guard depth if you ask me. And for all those reasons, I do think it makes the most sense for the Knicks to bring on Muhammad Diawara. But both guys are interesting pickups here. Now, when we look at the Knicks cap table, we’re obviously going to have to make that a little bit bigger. Again, shout out Golan for this. We look at everything that’s going down for this team right now. And right now, they’re slightly over that second apron, but that is not going to last. They are going to get under it through that rookie minimum deal. So, that will have an impact on things. And then you go and you look at Dawir’s numbers and he put up 5.8 points in his most recent season when he first really started getting minutes at 19.6 per game. He also got two rebounds or excuse me three rebounds in that time and one and a half assists. He the numbers don’t jump out. The three-point percentage at 31 was not great. The field goal percentage at 38 wasn’t good. But the Euro League is different. It’s a completely different ballgame entirely. So the points should not jump out. Everyone averages less points over there. And on top of that, you just look at everything that’s gone down. And at the end of the day, he is obviously going to be a project pick, but I personally think he would be worth it if you’re the Knicks. If you’re just trying to add another guy into this roster just based off the position he plays. Now, you look at James Naji, and Naji put up five points in his most recent season, and then before that, he did put up seven and a half. He’s shown good numbers. His field goal percentage is high. He’s got a career 69 and a half field goal percentage. He also isn’t taking a bunch of shots, but again, Euro League, it shouldn’t be something that people worry about. He doesn’t ever shoot threes. That’s not going to be a concern. He’s a good shot blocker. He gets his steals. He’s a good rebounder. He’s he’s a very talented player and he doesn’t foul a whole lot either. So, Naji is someone who’s going to be enticing and the Knicks will look long at heart. And the summer league is going to play a massive factor into who we’re going to see take that final spot. If one of them severely outplays the other, that player is going to get that spot moving forwards with the Knicks cuz they have to add someone. It’s just part of the rule. However, Gland did mention that there is another scenario that the Knicks can do, and that is if the Knicks wait two weeks into the season to sign their 13th and 14th players, they’d be able to use one of those slots on another veteran while keeping everyone currently on the roster. This is what they did last year to create extra space below the second apron after trading for Carl Anthony Towns. Now, effectively, if you need to know all the intricacies of this, you go and watch Yosi Gossland on YouTube, you look at his Twitter because I’m not going to be able to explain all the rules to you, but for just a quick little update. Effectively, what happens is as the time goes on, once you’re two weeks into the season, the cap situation changes and you’re paying a little bit less money to these guys. So, it’s kind of easier and there’s some exceptions in the rule. The NBA salary cap is so so so complicated that NBA front offices hire people to just be salary cap specialists. It’s what Brock Aller does for the Knicks and he’s widely regarded as the best at it. But I’m telling you right now, Leon Rose does not know every single rule of the salary cap thing. You hire an entire person, usually someone with a background in accounting to do that and learn all the all the rules in regards to this. So, what I’m telling you right now without saying it is I don’t know all the rules to this. I have a good grasp on it, but I do not know everything that goes down with this. However, I can tell you for a fact if you wait, you can get guys on contracts that will prevent the Knicks. And the reason that I know this is because I did this last year covering this after Carl Anthony Towns got traded. So, what we’re going to see is the Knicks likely h hold off on signing people. And yeah, that might mean they lose out on a free agent or two, but at the same time, they can’t go into that second apron right now. And shout out to Golan for this and his YouTube channel, The Third Apron, or his podcast, The Third Apron, excuse me. And he basically, he’s the one who posted this on Twitter. I want to give him all the credit in the world. And right now, the Knicks have 12 of 15 players rostered. They have their total salaries are 204.3 million. Their luxury tax base is negative6.4 million. So they’re 16.4 over the luxury tax. I’m going to start saying it like that. Their tax penalty is 30.4 mil. The Knicks don’t care about that. James Dolan does not care. Their taxpayer mid-level does not exist anymore because they signed Yabisale. Their hard cap is the second apron. So, they can’t go over 2.207.8 million. Their second a second apron space, I didn’t say Aprin. Their second apron space is 3.5 million. The first apron restrictions are 100% matching salaries and trades. Meaning if you want to say you want to trade male Bridges who makes $22 million for someone who makes $20 million you can’t do that or you actually can do that but if you want to trade male you so if you’re like all right we’re going to trade male this guy makes $20 million we could do that trade because you’re saving money however you cannot trade male bridges for someone who makes any more money. You can’t trade anyone if they make any more money than you whatsoever. Not even a dollar. Like it’s just not allowed. So there’s that issue. you can sign and trade for free agents. So when you steal the sign and trades the Knicks can’t do that. On top of that, they cannot use trade exceptions created last season, they have to use trade exceptions in the same season. So that does limit you. So if you have a trade exception from last season, it’s completely useless towards your salary and you might as well just wave it essentially and just get the money back at that point because there’s no use for him at all. Unless you’re going to go under that first apron in the middle of the season some other way and then you’re going to use that trade exception, which is only really going to happen if you’re a tanking team anyway. So if the Knicks have any trade exceptions from last year they didn’t use, they might as well just you just let it go. You just wave it off your team so you can save the money. And they don’t. So it’s not even something that we have to be concerned about. But those are the first apron restrictions. Now just looking at all this again to break it down, these are the teams right now from a few days ago that were over it. The Knicks are still in here. And again, you just have to match salaries completely. Your taxpayer mid-level exception instead of being at $112 million, it’s at $5.7 million. You can’t sign trade for free agents. We talked about we can’t use these trade exceptions. We already broke all this down, but essentially it’s harder to make trades because you can’t do sign trades. So, it’s harder to acquire players because you have to pay them less money because the taxpayer mid-level exception go gets basically cut in half or does get cut in half effectively. A little bit more than half actually. And then you just can’t use those trade exceptions. So, it’s harder to trade that way. You can’t sign a trade. So, it’s harder to acquire players that way. And you have to match the salary. Someone’s making 25 million. you got to trade for someone making 25 million. Or if you’re trading two people that equal up to like 47 million, you got to trade for two people that equal up to $47 million. It’s just to prevent teams from getting too good and finding loopholes in order to have a lot of success. Now, the Knicks, they still want to go out and add free agents. This video is running long, so we’re going to push through this real fast, but the Knicks are still looking at veteran free agents. As Ian Begley said, I believe the Knicks do want to add another veteran free agent. To do so, they need to sign a player to a rookie free agent deal and trim around $36,000 in team salary. This theoretically can be done if Yabis takes slightly less than the taxpayer mid-level exception. As we know, if Yabis has the full mid-level exception, the Dix would need to shed salary via trade to get under that second apron. As noted earlier, they have had interest in bringing back Landry Sham. Shamut also has interest from both from contenders in both conferences. Last year averaged 5.7 points, one rebound, shot 40% from the field, 47% on corner threes, and 46% from the field in general. 40% on threes, not 40% from the field, excuse me. Obviously trying to push through this kind of fast, but I want Shamut back. I would love to have Landry Sham. I’ll be sad if he’s gone. At the same time, if you can’t get him, I expect the Knicks to look at a guy like a Seth Curry or something. They are going to look for a pure shooter no matter what. So keep your eye out for that. We’ll see what happens. Like this video, subscribe, turn on post notifications. I hope you learned a little bit more about how the First Apron works as well. The goal when I make videos like this is to try to teach people more about how the salary cap stuff works. I know it’s really complicated. I know it’s insane, but all of the stuff that’s been made recently is to prevent super teams from getting too good. Effectively stopping what happened with Steph Curry, Kevin D, and the Golden State Warriors back 10 years ago now. That was 10 years ago, nine. But still, life goes fast, man. Enjoy it. Enjoy this summer. Have a great day. Go next.

Chris Gallagher breaks down the Knicks not being done making moves yet as there is more to come.

Knicks Digest is a YouTube channel dedicated to covering all the latest news, trades, reports, and rumors surrounding the New York Knicks. We provide in-depth coverage on game highlights, player performances, and expert analysis of team strategies. Our channel features discussions on key players like Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, and Mitchell Robinson, as well as insights from Head Coach Tom Thibodeau and the Knicks’ front office. Stay tuned for all the latest updates and engaging content on everything Knicks!

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