Katz and Hollinger: Are the Knicks elite? Talking defense, centers and Randle’s future

The New York Knicks made only one significant move this summer. Yet, it feels as if everything has changed.

Mikal Bridges is in. The roster is healthy. Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo will go from never leaving the court to beginning games on the bench. This is a different group from the one that came only one victory away from the Eastern Conference finals last season. 

The Athletic is here to break it down.

Knicks beat writer Fred Katz and national NBA writer John Hollinger analyze the latest happenings with the Knicks, including how good the defense can be, the offense behind Jalen Brunson, the future of Julius Randle, the center situation and more.

Here is their conversation:

Katz: For a team that hasn’t made many moves, the Knicks have had quite the summer. Injecting one more Villanova alum into the fray is enough to flip them from hopeful to inner-circle challengers of the Boston Celtics heading into next season. 

The Knicks have switchable defenders all over the place. They’re filled to the brim with long wings — including not just Bridges but also Anunoby and Hart, too. DiVincenzo is a free safety off the ball and a pest on it. Miles “Deuce” McBride makes his identity on that side of the ball. Mitchell Robinson was guarding better than ever for the first month of last season before injuring his left ankle.

Bridges and Anunoby may make up the best defensive wing duo in the NBA. Please tell me if you disagree with that statement. 

Let’s go one step further.

Forget about just those two. Are the Knicks, with this personnel and with head coach Tom Thibodeau leading the way, the best defensive team in the NBA? And if not, where do you have them?

Hollinger: I can’t rate them the best defensive team in the NBA without Isaiah Hartenstein and with the injury-prone Robinson as the only rotation-caliber big man. New York was only 10th in defense last season, although much of that came without Anunoby.

Certainly, they’re rock solid at two through four, and they have the Jalen Brunson offensive-foul-drawing life hack at point guard, but I don’t think they’re in the class of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Celtics. The top five seem attainable. Going beyond that probably requires a little more oomph from the frontcourt. 

Katz: You led me to my second question.

Hartenstein departed for Oklahoma City at the start of the offseason. Robinson will slide up a slot. But behind him, who plays?

Precious Achiuwa re-signed last week, but the Knicks have other options. They could trade for someone, and Achiuwa’s one-year, $6 million could help them land a player before the deadline. They could bring in another free agent. Not many viable options are without contracts right now, but maybe you see a diamond in the rough.

So tell me: How do you assess the backup center situation? And what would you do if you were the Knicks to solve it?

Hollinger: Regarding the center position, I see two issues for the Knicks. The first is whether Robinson can stay healthy through an entire season. The second, and I’d argue the more relevant one, is if Robinson is the guy they want in the middle of a playoff series.

While he can protect the rim and mash on the offensive glass, it was Hartenstein’s skill set of being a pick-and-roll connector on offense and a switchable defender on defense that made the Knicks go. 

This deep into the summer a player sitting around on his couch waiting for the Knicks to call is unlikely. As you’ve already pointed out, the Knicks’ most likely pathway to getting another big of this caliber is an in-season trade, which is yet another reason it was so important for them to avoid getting hard capped at the first apron in the Bridges trade.

In the short term, New York fortified the center depth by re-signing Achiuwa, but by February they’re going to want another player on the roster who is capable of playing fourth quarters in the middle.  

Katz: I’ll follow up on this in that case.

The Brunson-Hartenstein pick-and-roll was essential to the Knicks offense last season. Defenses couldn’t trap Brunson as easily knowing Hartenstein was there to receive a bounce pass and create out of the mini four-on-three. If Robinson is setting that screen, they have no problem attacking.

So I’ll ask: Which realistic centers do you think would make sense for the Knicks to target before the deadline? 

The Bridges trade left them without many draft picks to trade. They have the Detroit Pistons’ protected 2025 first-round selection and the Washington Wizards’ protected 2025 first-rounder, though the Washington one is unlikely to convey. They can swap first-rounders in 2026 and ’30. 

Who makes sense to go after?

Hollinger: This is where waiting for the season to play out makes some sense because the best options are ones that will become available if certain teams decide to pivot toward the future.

For instance, if Golden State struggles and decides to make Draymond Green available, or the Suns are in a similar situation and decide to cash in their Jusuf Nurkić stock, those are two names that would make a lot of sense in New York. Green might be out of their price range asset-wise and second-apron-wise, but I don’t think Nurkić would be. 

The other guy who theoretically checks all the boxes is Robert Williams III in Portland. Again, that’s another one where the Knicks probably want to let the season play out and see if he can stay in the lineup for more than a week or two consecutively. 

At a much lower level, the player who makes some sense in this role behind Robinson and could probably be had is Larry Nance Jr., who right now is the third center on the depth chart in Atlanta and has a digestible $11 million expiring salary. 

And finally, let me offer one other candidate, even if this idea would make Thibodeau deeply uncomfortable: Julius Randle at five!

Katz: There it is!

Let’s talk about Randle at the five — and his future. Thibodeau has shied away from using Randle at center during their four years together, but the context has changed. The Knicks aren’t just without a viable backup center. They also have stronger reinforcements on the perimeter than they ever have.

Randle playing center means less rim protection. But do you know what makes rim protection a hint less important? Not allowing anyone to get to the paint to begin with.

The Knicks now have Bridges to man smaller perimeter players and Anunoby to take on bigger ones. They can switch roles through a game, able to show elite players different looks on the same night. Their point-of-attack defense, as long as everyone is healthy, should be one of the league’s best.

On the other side, the Knicks could feast with a lineup of Brunson, Bridges, Anunoby, Randle and, say, DiVincenzo. 

There’s been so much talk of how Randle could fit with this team. Do you see him at the five being one way to help him stand out? And beyond just the occasional situation when the Knicks go small, how do you see him fitting into the larger picture?

Hollinger: Yes, I think this at least needs to be something the Knicks experiment with throughout the season, especially if Hart is in the game to alleviate some of the potential rebounding issues. Defensively, Anunoby might end up guarding the opposing five and not Randle in some situations, but the lineup is the same regardless. 

Offensively, this unit could play at a torrid pace, especially when Hart is in the game pushing rebounds up the floor. And defensively, they should be so solid on the perimeter that it lessens the need for rim protection. I might not want to line up against Joel Embiid this way, but most opposing fives aren’t going to be capable of taking advantage of this lineup by just mashing their way to the basket.

Bigger picture, Randle’s value proposition is an interesting one. By the second round of the playoffs, you could see how the Knicks needed another shot creator, not to mention just somebody else who can dribble. 

Randle has largely been a floor-raiser rather than a ceiling-raiser, somebody who can generate a ton of halfway decent shots with limited turnover risk but isn’t going to set any efficiency records. But that was as a leading man. Could he be unlocked as something different if he’s playing off Brunson and not having to generate everything himself?

Speaking of which, Randle is extension-eligible as of last Saturday, but he also might be the team’s best trade chip (and matching salary) if they want to make one more blockbuster trade, and an extension could get in the way of that. 

Katz: Let’s move on to the rest of the roster.

What do you consider the Knicks’ greatest strength at the moment? And other than center, which we already discussed, what would you deem their greatest concern?

Hollinger: Their greatest strength is their wing depth, especially at the defensive end. Anunoby, Bridges, Hart and DiVincenzo all are automatic starters for most teams, and then you still have McBride able to play some minutes as a legit rotation player at the two. 

I realize some of those Anunoby minutes likely will come at the four, but finding genuinely good wing players as opposed to just guys you ask to hang out in the corner, is arguably the biggest roster-building challenge for an NBA team. Via three trades and the use of the midlevel exception, the Knicks have aced this test.

As for the biggest concern, New York has a strong enough roster that we’re definitely into “rich people problems” territory. But if they want to challenge the Celtics (or even outlast the Indiana Pacers), it has to be done in the non-Brunson minutes. Having Randle back will hopefully offset the offensive malaise that struck every time Brunson left a game. But check this out: Even before Randle went out last season, the Knicks had a 121.0 offensive rating with Brunson on the court, and just 105.8 with him off. Yikes.

Maybe Bridges’ addition will help some too, but the weakness among all those wings I mentioned above is that none is a particularly crafty half-court shot creator.

Also, the Knicks still have a shaky situation at backup point guard: McBride isn’t a creator, though he improved in that area a year ago, Cameron Payne is on his fourth team in 13 months and Tyler Kolek is a rookie second-round draft pick. 

Katz: I think the Knicks would agree with you about their biggest weakness.

They have tried to find creators behind Brunson, dating back to the trade they made with Detroit last season when Alec Burks and Bojan Bogdanović were supposed to ease the second unit. It didn’t work out how they had hoped.

Staggering Bridges and Brunson could help. And the fact that Hart and DiVincenzo are now relegated to the bench will make a difference, too. There’s an argument they make up the best reserve duo in the NBA. But there isn’t a conventional point guard, assuming that Payne is outside Thibodeau’s preferred nine-man rotation to start the season.

You mention how strong the roster is, though. There is only one follow-up question to a statement like that.

How strong is it?

Where do you rank the Knicks heading into the season? Are they in the same tier as the Philadelphia 76ers, who added Paul George and others? Are they better? Have they surpassed the Denver Nuggets, who lost Kentavious Caldwell-Pope? Are they fringe contenders or real ones?

Hollinger: Right now, I’d label the Knicks as more of a fringe contender than an inner-tier one. They have many of the same traits as Boston does in terms of having several capable players across the positional spectrum to offset the lack of an MVP-level superstar. But on paper, they still rate as a discount version of that. (In a related story, the Celtics are awesome). 

Additionally, while they have a great chance of winning more games than the Sixers or Milwaukee Bucks in the regular season, I’m not sure they quite have the playoff ceiling that Philly and Milwaukee do if their best players are healthy and firing on all cylinders in May. 

However, the playoffs don’t start for another nine months. The Knicks still have time to make some roster tweaks that might shift this analysis further in their favor.

(Photo of Julius Randle: Scott Cunningham / NBAE via Getty Images)