Sports

The signing of Jalen Brunson can’t be the Knicks’ major move

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

Will the Knicks’ signing of former Dallas Mavericks point guard Jalen Brunson to a four-year, $104 million free-agent contract, which became official yesterday, be their major summer move? If it ultimately is, then the Knicks will once again have an arduous path to being in the upper half of the Eastern Conference’s 15 teams.

The Knicks finished as the 11th seed last season at 37-45 and did not make the playoffs nor the PlayIn Tournament, which is composed of the 7th to 10th seeds in each conference. But their objective, after ending the 2020-2021 campaign as the East’s No. 4 seed, should be to contend for the conference title. Realistically, as currently constructed, their roster is not built to battle the big dogs, the Milwaukee Bucks and Boston Celtics most prominently among them.

Maybe team president Leon Rose has a strategically prudent four-year plan that Knicks owner James Dolan will allow him to execute. However, two-plus years into his tenure, the vision isn’t clear to those outside of the organization’s inner circle. The Knicks’ free-agent signings last summer of Kemba Walker and Evan Fournier didn’t engender trust among Knicks fans that Rose and his front office staff are capable of acquiring the requisite pieces that will drive a sustained high level of success.

So the 25-year-old Brunson’s signing has been justifiably met with skepticism by some that see him as another good player who will not substantially improve the ball club. Although Brunson could indeed be the Knicks’ answer in their seemingly perpetual quest for a proficient lead guard, his addition is not the solution to the team’s essential need—a star who can by his sheer talent raise the overall production and capability of the collective group.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embiid, Jayson Tatum, Jimmy Butler and Kevin Durant, if he returns to a stable situation with the Nets, all are under that classification. Last February, speculation morphed into extensive discussions on various platforms that Westchester County, New York, native Donovan Mitchell, who partly honed his game as a youth in the city summer leagues, desired to play for the Knicks.

The conjecture hasn’t dissipated and has intensified after the Utah Jazz traded All-Star center Rudy Gobert to the Minnesota Timberwolves and starting forward Royce O’Neale to the Brooklyn Nets last week, leaving the impression that Danny Ainge, the Jazz’s CEO of Basketball Operations, is tearing down the team and Mitchell is the next to be dealt.

There is plausible debate among basketball insiders and the general NBA fan base as to whether Mitchell is a game changer. It is irrefutable that at 25 he is already a three-time All-Star with a cumulative scoring average of 25 points per game over the last three seasons on 44% field goal shooting. Most importantly, Mitchell is a late game closer and lethal shot creator that the Knicks have desperately lacked since Carmelo Anthony’s departure as much as they have a stabilizing point guard.

The Knicks haven’t been able to obtain a player of Mitchell’s caliber through the draft or free-agency in decades. Therefore, the trade route appears to be the most viable option. They’ll have to part with key assets but that is simply the art of the deal and the price of doing business. What has been evident going back to the Celtics dynasty of Bill Russell and before that the legendary Harlem Rens, no team becomes a serious contender or champion without a roster anchored by a singular or multiple All-Star and Hall of Fame figures.

Perhaps Rose sees next season or next summer as the occasion to execute a franchise altering maneuver. Thus far this summer, he has not acted with all deliberate speed.

Utah Jazz guard and New York native Donovan Mitchell should be a target of the Knicks in a possible trade (Photo credit: Bill Moore)

The best option for Durant and the Nets is to run it back

By JAIME C. HARRIS AmNews Sports Editor

Kevin Durant and the Nets need to engage in reconciliation. Whatever reason the superlative forward has requested a trade from the Nets after signing with them as a free-agent in July of 2019 on the heels of winning two championships and two Finals MVPs with Golden State Warriors should be revisited.

There has been a plethora of wild and complicated trade scenarios put forth by various people with perhaps too much downtime that won’t happen because of the numerous proposed moving parts or illogical nature of the suggestions from the Nets position. Brooklyn is not obligated to oblige Durant, who has four more years on his deal with the team that will pay him $53.28 million in the final year of his contract 2026.

He is not eligible to become an unrestricted free-agent until the summer of 2026, when he’ll be two months shy of his 38th birthday. So Durant’s leverage is minimal. He’s a consummate baller for Washington, D.C. and PG County, Maryland, who indisputably has a deep love and respect for the game. Durant admirably handled a dysfunctional situation with the Nets last season underscored by the drama surrounding Kyrie Irving and the arrival of Ben Simmons.

He gave maximum effort on the court and tried to lift the Nets above circumstances that were fundamentally intolerable. Viewing the immediate future of the team through Durant’s prism, it is understandable why he would be resigned to believing not much will change with the mercurial Irving and unpredictable Simmons, a lingering uncertainty of their availability and commitment.

But the opportunity and infrastructure to win a championship elsewhere may not be more favorable for Durant if the Nets’ potential trade partner has to gut their team of some of its top players and prime draft picks to acquire Durant. He’d then join a team that does have the necessities to compete for a title. Nets general manager Sean Marks’ charge, first and foremost, is to set the franchise up to continue being a contender now and years to come.

If Irving and Simmons are mentally and emotionally level and engaged going into next season, the Nets will be a dangerous threat for the rest of the league to confront. If Durant, as some unconfirmed media reports have stated, wants out because the Nets did not extend Irving an offer for a long term deal, instead having him play on his one-year option next season, then the stage is set for Irving to ball out and force the Nets to pay him what he wants.

He will also have the choice to move on and ink a lucrative contract elsewhere. It is an ideal motivator for the amazingly gifted guard. Weighing the current state of affairs, an amicable accord between the Nets and Durant is the reasonable win-win for both parties.

AMNEWS

07/07/22 0 74470 22784 7