00:00And then we'll start with the big news out of New York,
00:03which is Mikael Bridges signing his contract with the New York Knicks.
00:09And Mikael Bridges, all the reports suggest doing something similar to Jalen Brunson,
00:14where he did not maximize every single possible dollar in this situation.
00:20But it's not as if Mikael Bridges will be hurting for money here.
00:23Four years, $150 million does very well for himself, JY.
00:28Not put in a situation, I think we can agree, with the New York Knicks,
00:32where he was set up to show, hey, I can be the best player on a title team
00:38or even really a number two guy on a title team.
00:41That was, of course, how they see Jalen Brunson and then Carl Anthony Towns.
00:46And Bridges certainly had some up and down moments, I thought, for the New York Knicks.
00:50I also thought if you were to say, hey, what were the two most positive, memorable plays
00:55for the Knicks during their postseason run, you could argue his two defensive plays against Boston.
01:02The Brunson shot against Detroit certainly comes to mind as well.
01:06But I thought Bridges stepped up in a big-time way for the Knicks.
01:10I also feel as if, JY, this deal was inevitable once they traded what they traded
01:16to get Mikael Bridges, his ties to, of course, their superstar in Jalen Brunson.
01:21Not surprised to see Bridges is staying.
01:23And, Nick, what did you make of this deal getting done?
01:26Well, number one, the fact that he took four for 150 instead of four for 156
01:30or waiting until next year and getting a five-year deal
01:33just kind of helped the Knicks out in regards to avoiding that second apron.
01:37I think people understand that second apron is huge.
01:39Obviously, Jalen Brunson did it the year before, taking less money, going four years instead of five.
01:44So it obviously gives the Knicks the ability to make moves.
01:47What it also does to me is I think it takes the Knicks, or at least to me,
01:51Giannis off the table.
01:53Because I think when you talked about maybe who gets moved for Giannis
01:58if Giannis goes to New York, Mikael Bridges' name was one of the names being mentioned.
02:02So obviously now that he got his extension, he can't be traded for six months.
02:07Now, when you talk about on-court stuff, you know, Mikael Bridges is a 3-and-D guy.
02:11That's how he came into the league when he got to Phoenix.
02:15What I look at is the number is 35.4.
02:18That was his three-point shooting percentage.
02:20That's his worst three-point shooting percentage since his rookie year.
02:24So he does have to do a little bit better job in regards to knocking down the threes.
02:29Obviously, his two styles.
02:30People want to talk about all the plays.
02:32If he doesn't make those two plays in games one and game two,
02:35they don't think they'd be Boston.
02:37Because those were key plays that Mikael made.
02:40So to me, it's more of about what we're going to see coming into this upcoming year with the Knicks.
02:46Obviously, win total at 53.5 odds to win the Eastern Conference at plus 270 right behind Cleveland.
02:51Listen, at the end of the day, this team is going to be judged on,
02:55can they get to their first NBA Finals since 1999?
03:00They took that step to get the Eastern Conference Finals.
03:03They bring in Mike Brown.
03:04And that's the last thing you want to talk about in New York is how does Mike Brown change how they play?
03:10I think there's going to be less iso ball for Jalen Brunson.
03:16You're going to rely on other guys.
03:18Look at how De'Aaron Fox was used.
03:20Yes, he was, you know, scored a lot, but still got people involved.
03:23And then there's the whole play of Carl Anthony Townsend's player to get the amount of Sabonis.
03:28I expect Cat to be more than high post area.
03:31That's where Sabonis got really aggressive.
03:32So for me, looking into the season, maybe not the three-point shooting props for Cat.
03:37I think they put him more at that high post area and let him work.
03:40So one interesting thing with the Knicks is as their season was coming to an end against the Pacers,
03:48primarily because we saw the 3-1 deficit and we were like, all right, they're not going to be able to come back.
03:54So we started having these conversations.
03:56What went wrong?
03:58Who gets the blame?
03:59What are the issues for this team?
04:01And so much of it was about the defensive side of the ball, specifically the combination of Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns.
04:08So when you look at this Knicks offseason, retaining McCall Bridges at this price, how could you not be excited about that?
04:14Getting Jordan Clarkson on the vet min, how could you not be excited about that?
04:18Even the, I think, addition of Yabu Selly is one that Knicks fans are happy about because now, as you see there, adding in Deuce McBride and Mitch Robb, this is a group that can be pretty deep here in the regular season.
04:34That's great.
04:35But Jalen Brunson and Carl Anthony Towns are still the two best players on this team.
04:41And that, I think, still comes with a lot of questions defensively, JY.
04:46And that's the element, I think, of this Knicks team that I still can't get a great read on.
04:54I still, when we're talking about the Knicks, you just said it.
04:59We're going to judge this group on, did they make the finals?
05:04Anything short of a conference finals appearance will be seen as a gigantic failure.
05:10You know that, and I know that, and Mike Brown knows that.
05:12Everybody knows that.
05:14So when you look at what they've done, I think a group that was 51 and 31 last year can absolutely win more games.
05:23But I don't feel like it's a guarantee they have a better postseason because the main thing I feel like so much of us were focused on is still the same exact setup.
Comments