Giving achilles-torn KD a max contract with no other max FA coming here is a terrible move too though. It will be at least 2 years before he comes back as a shell of himself and you tie up 35% of the cap with him. It has potential to be Amar'e 2.0. It's so bizarre to me that reports came out the other day that the Knicks wanted to see KD's medical records and people said lolknicks about it. Any team signing KD to a 4 year max should look at his medical records after he suffered the worst injury a basketball player can have. If the Nets or anybody else had asked to see his records, it would have been smart and due dilligence. Instead, it's just an lolknicks circle jerk at this point. The team deserves some of it after the past 20 years but I do think we have turned a corner and not done a lot of the mistakes we have done in the past (not giving up picks to trade for guys entering FA, not signing injured or old guys to long-term max deals, etc.).
There were only 4 FA worth maxing this summer. Kawhi, KD (pre-injury), Kyrie and Klay. Kawhi coming here was the longest of long shots. I, along with most Knicks fans, didn't want Kyrie alone after his disastrous season with a young team. Klay was never leaving. If KD came and he wanted someone like Kemba, then you go for both. As soon as Kyrie zeroed in on Brooklyn, it was over for the Knicks. The last thing you want is KD coming back from achilles injury with no other max player to lessen his load on offense and defense.
Dominique Wilkins is the only NBA player to come back and be himself (actually was slightly better) after an achilles tear. People saying that KD is going to come back 90% of what he was don't know what they are talking about. Everyone has declined pretty substantially after an achilles tear. I would have gone after KD if one of those other 4 players I mentioned wanted to come here. Otherwise, it's a huge gamble that we have seen before with the Knicks. Had the Knicks only signed KD, the entire narrative would have been "haven't the Knicks learned from signing injured superstars to max contracts??" It was always going to be a lose-lose situation for the Knicks.
Our offseason is whatever. There are way worse contracts going around than what we have signed so far. Randle's is a good contract. Nothing we signed is over 2 years yet we still get all their bird rights. They are also all likely very tradeable contracts if we decide to go that route. For once we have flexibility and didn't offer Terry Rozier $60 million on a 3 year fully guaranteed deal. Jamal Murray getting 170 mil/5 years is bonkers. Rubio even at 3/51 is bad. We accomplished what I was hoping for this summer: if we struck out on big names, I didn't want us to max any mid tier guys on a long-term deal. We are finally rebuilding. Whether or not it works out, we'll find out in a few years. I'm just glad that we aren't deciding to try to cut corners this time.
