Kelly Oubre is coming off a disappointing season with the Golden State Warriors, but it appears to be doing little to diminish interest in him around the league.
According to Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports, the Miami Heat, San Antonio Spurs, and New York Knicks are among the teams set to have interest in Oubre, who will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason. The expectation is that Oubre will have a decent amount of interest, and may be able to cash in as other wing players have in recent offseasons.
Oubre has flashed signs of what he is capable of, but his year with Golden State was disappointing. He was limited to 15.4 points per game while shooting 43.9 percent from the field. Much of that was down to a bad start to the season, as things improved somewhat later in the year.
There are some indications that one of these three teams may be of particular interest to Oubre, too. That might be one to watch.
After the success they had this season with Julius Randle, the New York Knicks could be taking on another veteran reclamation project of sorts.
Marc Berman of the New York Post reported Monday that the Knicks have mutual interest with free agent swingman Kelly Oubre. Berman adds that the Knicks are one of the few teams with enough cap room this summer to offer the 25-year-old more than the $9.5 million midlevel exception.
The former first-round pick Oubre is coming off a fairly average year with the Golden State Warriors. He put up 15.4 points and 6.0 rebounds a game on 31.6 percent from three before a wrist injury ended his season early.
The Knicks ran with RJ Barrett and Reggie Bullock as their starters on the wing this season. But Bullock is an unrestricted free agent himself, just like Oubre is, while Barrett is capable of playing either the 2 or the 3.
Oubre does seem pretty doubtful to return to Golden State, especially after the feathers he ruffled in recent months. But the Warriors’ loss could very easily end up being the Knicks’ gain.
The New York Knicks were eliminated from the playoffs on Wednesday night after they lost to the Atlanta Hawks in Game 5. Derrick Rose had a rough night shooting, and there is a chance it may have been his last with the Knicks. He is hoping that is not the case, however.
After the 103-89 loss, Rose was asked by a reporter if he thinks he will be back with the Knicks next season. He said that decision is out of his control but made it clear he would love to return.
“That’s up to the front office. They’ve got big plans,” Rose said. “Who knows if I may be back. … It’s really not up to me at all, but I would love to come back. Who wouldn’t want to play for the Knicks and be in New York? I would love it, but at the same time I know it’s out of my hands and they may have bigger plans.”
Rose averaged 14.9 points and played 26.8 minutes per game in 35 games with the Knicks after they acquired him in a trade with the Detroit Pistons. While New York is looking to upgrade at point guard this offseason, Rose has a strong relationship with head coach Tom Thibodeau. There should be mutual interest in him coming back if the cost is reasonable.
Rose is 32 and has had multiple knee surgeries, but he has some fairly new methods for staying healthy. He’s still capable of being a productive player and should draw plenty of interest on the free agent market.
As for the “bigger plans” Rose alluded to, the Knicks appear to be firmly in the market for a star player or two this offseason.
The Atlanta Hawks put together a big performance against the New York Knicks on Friday, posting a 105-94 win that wasn’t even as close as the score would indicate. It seems there was a motivating factor behind the Hawks coming out and playing the way they did.
Hawks guard Kevin Huerter revealed that two key incidents from the second half of Game 2 made the team angry when watching film, and the team focused on not letting the Knicks beat them physically in Game 3.
Physical play has been a hallmark of the series. Hawks interim coach Nate McMillan has made it a key point publicly, too.
There was one moment where the Hawks seemed to be setting the tone early in Game 3. It definitely worked out, as they’re up 2-1 in the series and the Knicks look badly off on offense. Now it’s up to New York to mount a response.
Atlanta Hawks interim coach Nate McMillan has been willing to stir the pot about the officiating in his team’s series against the New York Knicks. After Friday’s win, he indicated that he’s still not pleased with how games are being called.
The Knicks attempted 30 free throws in Friday’s game, while the Hawks got to the line only eight times. That disparity wasn’t lost on McMillan, who made postgame comments that pretty clearly signaled his unhappiness with it without actually taking aim at the referees.
McMillan has already been fined once by the league for remarks about the NBA’s treatment of the Knicks. He doesn’t particularly want to pay any more, but he’d like to signal his displeasure anyway.
The Hawks’ complaints have continued throughout the series. They’re up 2-1 anyway, so it hasn’t completely thrown them off their games.
The Atlanta Hawks feel like their first-round opponents are taking a page out of the book of the Andrew Bogut-era Golden State Warriors.
After Tuesday’s Game 2 loss to the New York Knicks, Hawks coach Nate McMillan spoke out on what he saw as questionable screens by the Knicks.
“I thought they were setting some screens that need to be looked at,” McMillan said, per Ryan Dunleavy of the New York Post. “That’s a part of this game. Certainly in the playoffs you have to set screens with [defensive] pressure that teams and guards will be applying, and we have to do a better job of setting screens. But I thought [in Game 2] they set some screens that the league has to look at.”
Hawks big man John Collins also expressed a very similar sentiment.
“The screens that have been made and the elbows that have been flying the first two games are illegal,” said Collins. “They are not basketball plays. That’s how I feel. Obviously, the officials have the ability to make their calls and we have to live with that. I wasn’t vulgar or disrespectful in any way when those calls were made. But they are illegal.”
Dunleavy points out one example in Game 2 where Hawks guard Bogdan Bogdanovic got slammed by a Julius Randle screen that led to a basket.
The series, which is now even at 1-1, has already gotten pretty personal. As play now shifts over to Atlanta, the Hawks are looking to balance the scales any way that they can.
New York Knicks fans went to great lengths to taunt Trae Young during Game 2 of the team’s playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night. One fan may have taken things too far, and Young has issued a response.
Young was getting set to inbound the ball during the fourth quarter when a fan at Madison Square Garden appeared to spit at him. A video showed what looked like spit flying toward Young’s arm. The act startled a fan who was sitting in a courtside seat.
Young was too focused on the game to notice, but he responded with a tweet on Thursday.
The Hawks star is right. If a fan did spit at him, that is extremely childish.
Knicks fans received sheets of paper before Game 2 instructing them how to taunt Young. They also showered him in F-word chants during Game 1, and Young seemed to feed off of it (video here). Spitting obviously crosses the line.
A Philadelphia 76ers fan dumped popcorn on Russell Westbrook’s head on Wednesday night, and that fan was identified and punished accordingly. The same could, and should, happen if a Knicks fan spit at Young.
LeBron James’ decision to join the Los Angeles Lakers has largely been validated by last year’s NBA championship. One reporter says things could have been a lot different, though.
In an appearance on the “Brian Windhorst & The Hoops Collective” podcast, Vanity Fair’s Lisa Robinson claimed that James had wanted to sign with the Knicks in the summer of 2018, but his wife objected.
“We heard that LeBron wanted to come to New York,” Robinson said, via Zach Braziller of the New York Post. “And I have really good sources about this, that he was thinking about coming to New York but that his wife wanted to be in Los Angeles, wanted the kids to go to school in Los Angeles, and that just kiboshed the whole thing.”
Maybe this isn’t so far-fetched. After all, it’s easy to interpret this old quote as being an admission from James that his decision came down to either the Lakers or Knicks. Even now, James still has nice things to say about the Knicks, and seems to root for them a little bit.
At the time, Knicks then-president Phil Jackson’s treatment of Carmelo Anthony was said to work against the team when pursuing James. Maybe the reality is James’ wife just wasn’t on board.
The New York Knicks finally became relevant again this season in their first year under Tom Thibodeau, and they are hoping to use that to their advantage this summer.
As the Knicks prepare to face the Atlanta Hawks in the opening round of the playoffs, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski says their front office is dreaming of landing a star player this offseason. Wojnarowski said on “The Woj Pod” this week that the Knicks have plenty of assets to offer in a trade and are on “disgruntled star alert.”
“I think they’re on disgruntled star alert,” Woj said. “They have draft picks. They’ve got picks coming still from Dallas. They’ve got their own. They’ve got some young players who showed growth with Tom Thibodeau — that might be appealing to people. It depends what level of star becomes available and (whether) you want to cash your chips in if they do. But I think they’re in the conversation now, or have the potential to be in the conversation, as an option for a player who might want out somewhere.”
Wojnarowski said he can’t see any obvious star players that might want a change of scenery at the moment, but “history tells us someone will emerge.”
The Knicks finished 41-31 this season after missing the playoffs the last seven. They’ve gone after almost every big-name free agent in recent years, but they always come up empty. We know they have their eye on some of the top free agents heading into this summer, though a trade may be their best chance to finally land a marquee star.
It seems like New York has already caught the attention of at least one of the NBA’s best young stars. Landing a top free agent or star player via trade would go a long way toward keeping the Knicks on the map.
H/T Bleacher Report
New York Knicks fans have eight long years of pent-up playoff demand, and the ticket prices for their first-round series with the Atlanta Hawks certainly reflect that.
Tickets for the Knicks’ playoff opener against Atlanta next week are selling for a premium on the secondary market with standard tickets long sold out. The lowest ticket price currently on SeatGeek (not including fees) is $1,001. Meanwhile, tickets in the 100 sections are going for anywhere from $1,143 to $8,087 with a maximum ticket price of a whopping $13,200.
This is the first trip to the playoffs for the Knicks since 2013. They also have homecourt advantage over the Hawks, meaning that there could be up to four games at Madison Square Garden during the series.
There is certainly a palpable excitement with this year’s Knicks, as they have annihilated the expectations that most had for them before the season. Now their postseason seats seem to be an even hotter item than Coachella tickets.
